NCAA Basketball: Atlantic 10, Alabama, and Gonzaga vs Baylor headline Mailbag

1. What are the chances that both Baylor and Gonzaga enter the NCAA tournament unbeaten? – Tristan Freeman (@hoopsnut351)

Since I am so good at this and seem to give the undefeated teams, I have talked about this year the kiss of death, and Saint Louis, Drake, and Winthrop all promptly lost a game. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen with either of these two teams. Baylor and Gonzaga are on a collision course to meet in the NCAA Tournament National Championship game, and a loss likely doesn’t change my opinion of either one of them.

Gonzaga is the most likely team to enter the tournament and finish the year undefeated. They have the ability to overwhelm every team they play quickly. They can shoot threes; they will dominate teams inside and lately they have been playing stifling defense.

This will come as a surprise to some, but the Bulldogs are the best team in the country, and they have done nothing to change that. The Bulldogs are led by their seniors in Corey Kispert and Joel Ayayi. Kispert has a great case for the National Player of the Year and is deadly from anywhere on the floor. Ayayi is the type of player who can do anything on the floor. He can score, defend, and is one of the best rebounders in the country.

Gonzaga is loaded everywhere as in the frontcourt they have yet another player with a great case for national player of the year in Drew Timme and their point guard Jalen Suggs is likely to be the number one pick in the NBA draft this year. There is not a single team in the country outside of Baylor who has shown enough to even stay in a game with Gonzaga.  Gonzaga likely enters the tournament undefeated.

Baylor is a more interesting case. Going into the year everyone knew how good they were going to be, but they have outplayed those expectations. I went on record in these articles saying that I believed Texas would make life hard for Baylor and the Bears may struggle. Instead, Baylor dismantled a very good Texas team and made the score look extremely lopsided. After that game, even my expectations for Baylor changed.

It was reasonable with the number of good teams in the Big 12 that Baylor would lose at least two or three games. That doesn’t look to be possible now. It looks like Baylor may lose zero or lose one game. They are far and away the best team in the league and it isn’t a close second. The Bears would be the number one team in the country if not for Gonzaga.

Baylor also has a player who is going to get strong looks for the player of the year. Jared Butler is going to win the Big 12 Player of the Year. Baylor also has one of the best shooters in the country in Davion Mitchell. Mitchell is shooting almost 50% from deep.

Baylor is really good and I badly want them and Baylor to play Gonzaga in the National Championship. America needs the game. Baylor likely enters undefeated as well but I don’t have as much confidence in them as I do Gonzaga.