Buying into Baylor in battle of the best
It is not often that college basketball’s top two ranked teams hook up. It will happen Saturday for the 43rd time in since the advent of the AP Poll in 1948 when Baylor and Gonzaga meet in Indianapolis to try to prove their supremacy.
Gonzaga and Baylor both enter averaging between 93 and 93.5 points per game each, but on a per-possession basis,
Baylor ranks fourth among Division I teams while Gonzaga is 25th. The disparity is a result of Gonzaga ranking 22nd in possessions per game while Baylor is 153rd among the 274 Division I schools that have played another DI school.
Baylor also has been better on the glass thus far, ranking eighth in the country in rebound rate while Gonzaga is 65th, though Gonzaga has had to play two ranked teams already in West Virginia and Kansas while Baylor’s lone matchup against a ranked team was against Illinois earlier this week.
As well, Baylor is making 47.3 percent of its 3-point shots, which is 10th among DI teams. Adam Flagler (nine made 3s), Jared Butler and Davion Mitchell (seven each) have led the way. Gonzaga is 189th, making 29.1 percent of its outside shots.
Though he returned to action in the team’s most recent game against West Virginia, Gonzaga guard Jalen Suggs sustained a lower-body non-contact injury and scored four points in 26 minutes while being noticeably more limited after the injury.
With five Baylor players making at least 43.8 percent of their 3-pointers, it should lead to the current No. 1 team Gonzaga facing a huge test in a game that has a 10 a.m. Pacific tip, which could be tough from a body clock
standpoint.
THE PLAY:
Baylor, +3.5
Greg Peterson handicaps college basketball for VSiN.com, The Sports Betting Network.