2021 March Madness Thread

[Omaha1]

Good start by Baylor. Dang.

[sju88grad]

Good start by Baylor. Dang.

Wow. Just wow.

[Omaha1]

That’s a win for Gonzaga to only be down 10.

[kayako]

We could have won it all with Gillespie. Always knew the Zags arent very tough despite their defensive rating. This is a tough pill to swallow after what happened in 2017 when we also got robbed of a title. Gonna take me months to recover from this.

[cu blujs]

I don’t think anyone was touching Baylor this time around.

[Jet915]

Baylor was impressive today.

[kayako]

Yeah they looked real good. All about the matchups, though. Nova guards are as tough as theirs. We're equipped to play against those handcheckers. It was obvious Gonzaga was shellshocked from the start.

[billyjack]

I watched most of the game.

- Especially early-on, but throughout, the refs allowed crazy amount of Baylor's hand-checking, grabbing, holding, body-ing. They just kept doing it since they were getting away with it, why stop, right?-- and the Zags weren't allowed to do the same. It's the Pitino defensive strategy. It was Baylor's strategy down 7 to Villanova, they were cooked, so just grabbed and held otherwise they'd have been out 3 rounds ago.

- Reflexive pro-Baylor calls on drives on both ends of the court. Under 10 minutes, Zags guy goes up for a layup, get arm hacked, no call... Baylor comes down, with 9:29 gorgeous block by Zags given foul for 2 Baylor free throws... it's a 4 point swing with the at around 16 points.

- Offensive boards and put-backs in first 10 minutes, which resulted from Baylor guys camping in the lane with zero 3-second calls. You see a team get a wildly ridiculous number of offensive boards, it's usually due to 3-second non-calls.

- Suggs charge was a horrible call in the first couple of minutes. Then a 2nd foul a minute later put him on the bench for like 10 minutes. Completely set Gonzaga back, didn't have their floor leader as all this other sh-t is happening.

- Baylor drilled a zillion threes.

- Despite all this, it was an 9 point game with 14:20 left. Baylor went up 11 at the 14 minute mark and that following Zags possession Timme was driving top of key, shoved, Baylor guy literally tumble-saulted on top and over Timme, ball stolen, went down for 2 free throws... lol...

- Overcoming the stuff i've described, cutting it to 9 or whatever, getting bodied every possession is exhausting. So by the 10 to 12 minute mark you have little gas left in the tank

So you had two teams tonight playing by different rules. If David Duke was allowed to hand-check like that, if Watson was allowed to camp in the lane 7 seconds for putbacks, and if the Friars were allowed to sprint around like bumping, shoving, tumbling, etc, we'd have won every game by 60 points.

- Plus Nantz, Grant Hill and Raftery fighting with each other for time to fellate Scott Drew. And Baylor having the balls to argue fouls at any point is freakin funny.

- Despite all this, it was a 13 point game with 6:30 left.

I mean, Baylor's a great team, as are the Zags. Just call the f-ckin game evenly. WTF.

[Savannah Jay]

I watched most of the game.

- Especially early-on, but throughout, the refs allowed crazy amount of Baylor's hand-checking, grabbing, holding, body-ing. They just kept doing it since they were getting away with it, why stop, right?-- and the Zags weren't allowed to do the same. It's the Pitino defensive strategy. It was Baylor's strategy down 7 to Villanova, they were cooked, so just grabbed and held otherwise they'd have been out 3 rounds ago.

- Reflexive pro-Baylor calls on drives on both ends of the court. Under 10 minutes, Zags guy goes up for a layup, get arm hacked, no call... Baylor comes down, with 9:29 gorgeous block by Zags given foul for 2 Baylor free throws... it's a 4 point swing with the at around 16 points.

- Offensive boards and put-backs in first 10 minutes, which resulted from Baylor guys camping in the lane with zero 3-second calls. You see a team get a wildly ridiculous number of offensive boards, it's usually due to 3-second non-calls.

- Suggs charge was a horrible call in the first couple of minutes. Then a 2nd foul a minute later put him on the bench for like 10 minutes. Completely set Gonzaga back, didn't have their floor leader as all this other sh-t is happening.

- Baylor drilled a zillion threes.

- Despite all this, it was an 9 point game with 14:20 left. Baylor went up 11 at the 14 minute mark and that following Zags possession Timme was driving top of key, shoved, Baylor guy literally tumble-saulted on top and over Timme, ball stolen, went down for 2 free throws... lol...

- Overcoming the stuff i've described, cutting it to 9 or whatever, getting bodied every possession is exhausting. So by the 10 to 12 minute mark you have little gas left in the tank

So you had two teams tonight playing by different rules. If David Duke was allowed to hand-check like that, if Watson was allowed to camp in the lane 7 seconds for putbacks, and if the Friars were allowed to sprint around like bumping, shoving, tumbling, etc, we'd have won every game by 60 points.

- Plus Nantz, Grant Hill and Raftery fighting with each other for time to fellate Scott Drew. And Baylor having the balls to argue fouls at any point is freakin funny.

- Despite all this, it was a 13 point game with 6:30 left.

I mean, Baylor's a great team, as are the Zags. Just call the f-ckin game evenly. WTF.

Agree with this assessment...the "great" defensive teams in the NCAA hand check, body check, whatever they can get a way with and it's rarely called because of their reputation for "defensive toughness." And when teams that don't have that reputation try to do the same, they get called for ticky tacky bullsh--. A couple years ago the NCAA was going to make hand checking a point of emphasis. Clearly they don't care anymore. If I had a dollar for every time Marcus got handchecked this year (even by some of youse guys : ) )...

I saw someone tweet during the game that Baylor's basketball team lifts weights with the football team. i am not shocked...

[GumbyDamnit!]

I have a different take than my two esteemed colleagues from Providence and Savannah (by way of Omaha). Baylor simply outmatched Gonzaga in almost every way. That game was never in jeopardy after the first 5 minutes IMO. Baylor certainly gave NCAA officiating something to discuss this offseason but they played right up to that line that the officials allowed. If the whistles got tight I would expect that they would pull back a bit. But handchecking or not I thought their footwork on D was exceptional. And their 2 bigs were in foul trouble for most of the game so it's not like they weren't called for fouls. Baylor's dominance was as much about taking advantage of Zags spotty D and their inability to rebound, than anything. They were +11 on O boards and +16 overall. They shot 44% from 3 and held Gonzaga to under 30%. Ball game. THe better team won.

After Saturday I kind of expected this... UCLA took a lot out of the Zags, and showed that if you grinded them a bit physically you could have success. Baylor is all about grinding. It's a shame that Gonzaga wasn't a Big East team because games against PC, SJU, UConn and Nova would have served them well.