March Madness favorites start with Gonzaga and Baylor, then there’s everyone else
Both undefeated, the Bulldogs and Bears seem to have established some distance from the rest of the pack as the nation's No. 1 and No. 2 teams for almost all of the season.
It seems like more and more people are thinking that Gonzaga and Baylor are in such a class by themselves that maybe rather than hold an entire 67-game NCAA Tournament in a pandemic, just let those two teams play a winner-take-all game, or a best-of-seven series, to determine a national champion.
Of course, that’s unfair to Villanova, or Michigan, or Texas, or any other team that could get hot between now and Selection Sunday, March 14. But the No. 1 Bulldogs and the No. 2 Bears have played some pretty fine basketball and compiled some incredible statistics in their perfect seasons to date.
Gonzaga, which won its 20th consecutive game Thursday night and improved to 16-0 this season with a 90-62 victory at San Diego, leads the nation in scoring at 94.1 points per game, and in field-goal percentage with a mark of 55%. They have three players — senior forward Corey Kispert, sophomore forward Drew Timme, and freshman guard Jalen Suggs — on the midseason watch list for the John Wooden Award.
Kispert ranks 22nd in scoring at 20.5 points per game and is sixth in three-point shooting at 49.5%. Timme averages 18.7 points and shoots 61.3% from the floor.
“We’re a competitive bunch,” Timme said. “All we want to do is win. We just want to win every game. Every chance we get, we want to prove we are the best.”
Baylor also has a potent offense, first in Division I in three-point shooting at 44%, sixth in scoring with an 87.5-point average, and ninth in made threes with 10.7 per game, but its defense might be better. Ranked No. 1 in defensive efficiency by KenPom, the Bears are fifth in turnovers forced at 18.9 per game and allow 61.8 points per game (18th).
Baylor has three players — junior Jared Butler, junior Davion Mitchell and senior Mark Vital — on the midseason list for the Naismith defensive player of the year award. Butler leads the team in scoring at 16.8 points per game and shoots 48.2% (10th in the nation) from beyond the arc. He and Mitchell each average more than five assists.
“With college basketball not being able to be played sometimes, it’s hard emotionally,” Butler said in a recent interview on ESPN. “We just try to be thankful we get to play every game, and the games that we do get to play, we try to leave it all on the court and really buy into what we have. I think we have something special at Baylor for sure.”
Gonzaga usually is criticized because it plays in the West Coast Conference, a league it dominates practically every year. But coach Mark Few decided this season to take on any and all comers in the nonconference, and the Bulldogs have defeated Kansas, West Virginia, Iowa, and Virginia — ranked sixth, 11th, third and 16th, respectively, at the time the teams competed.
Baylor plays a difficult schedule in the Big 12, with wins over nationally ranked Texas Tech, Kansas and Oklahoma. But its nonconference schedule has been weak, ranked 121st in the NET stats, with only Illinois a formidable opponent.
Given that their conference is one of the nation’s toughest, the Bears face a larger challenge finishing out the regular season undefeated. But if their players and the Zags can stay healthy, the two teams could be on a collision course in March in Indianapolis.
Quite the schedule
Few and Baylor coach Scott Drew spoke with Villanova’s Jay Wright and Virginia coach Tony Bennett before the season to try to set up a round-robin format somewhere that would give each team three early games.
Speaking this week on Andy Katz’s podcast at NCAA.com, Drew said he and Few were talking about lining up a game between their schools when another idea popped up.
“At the time, Virginia and Villanova and us and Gonzaga were in the top four, and we were trying to pull off our own pod and play a round-robin opening weekend,” he said. “We were going to play three games and if things had gotten canceled a little more, that’s what we were going to put together.”
It didn’t work out. Baylor actually was supposed to join Villanova in the Legends Classic in the bubble at Mohegan Sun for Thanksgiving but pulled out after Drew tested positive for the coronavirus. COVID-19 issues also halted a planned Gonzaga-Baylor matchup on Dec. 5 in Indianapolis.
Asked about the possibility of participating in the round-robin, Wright said Friday, “The four of us did talk and say, ‘We’ll do this’ before something happened and we all knew we couldn’t do it. But we had a couple of weeks there where we were planning it and starting to look for venues, and that was about as far as it got.”
Seeking a new coach
Penn State vice president of athletics Sandy Barbour said she plans to name a head basketball coach “immediately following the conclusion of our season.”
Barbour said she has been developing a list of candidates and vetting them. As for interim head coach Jim Ferry, who took over after Patrick Chambers resigned in October amid allegations of “inappropriate conduct,” she said he has a “hands-on audition in order to make his case.”
“He obviously took over, stepped into a difficult situation,” she said. “The Big Ten is an absolute beast, and you add to that COVID-19. I think in terms of managing the great young men in our program, he gets stellar grades. … You’ve got to give Jim a lot of credit for keeping the faith, keeping the confidence.”
The Nittany Lions are 5-7 overall and 2-6 in the Big Ten after an 83-79 defeat Wednesday at Ohio State. At No. 35, they are the highest-ranked team with a sub-.500 record in the NET.
What to watch
The SEC/Big 12 Challenge is the highlight of Saturday’s action. The day includes intriguing matchups such as No. 9 Alabama at No. 24 Oklahoma (noon, ESPN2), No. 10 Texas Tech at Louisiana State (2 p.m., ESPN2), Florida at No. 11 West Virginia (2 p.m., ESPN), Auburn at No. 2 Baylor (4 p.m., ESPN), No. 15 Kansas at No. 18 Tennessee (6 p.m., ESPN), and No. 5 Texas at Kentucky (8 p.m., ESPN).
Expatriate of the Week
Sophomore guard Isaiah Wong, a two-time Inquirer All-Area player during his career at Bonner-Prendergast High School, is the leading scorer for Miami. The 6-foot-3 Wong averages 17.6 points and 5.4 rebounds for the Hurricanes, shooting 44.4% from the field and 77% from the free-throw line. Wong has seven games of 20 points or more this season, including a career-high 30 on Jan. 16 against Louisville.