Baylor dominates Gonzaga for first national championship: Score, highlights, takeaways

Baylor basketball came out of the gate on fire and never looked back as they toppled Gonzaga to win their first national championship.

Baylor turned the dream season for Gonzaga into a nightmare.

The anticipation of seeing a matchup between Gonzaga and Baylor has been building since a regular-season meeting between the two top teams was canceled due to COVID issues within the Bulldogs’ program.

The matchup finally happened with a title on the line and it was all Bears as Baylor rolled to an 86-70 win over Gonzaga to claim their first national championship, denying the Bulldogs a chance to become the first team since the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers to go undefeated.

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Baylor came out of the gate hot, going on an 11-1 run to start the game as Scott Drew’s team took advantage of a Gonzaga group that was clearly tired from their dramatic win over UCLA on Saturday night.

That effort came through early on as the Bears were the more active team on both ends of the floor, diving for every loose ball and locking down on defense to keep Gonzaga from simply running up and down the floor.

Highlights from Baylor’s beatdown of Gonzaga

Davion Mitchell came out of the gate firing for Baylor, knocking down seven of the Bears’ first 11 points. This pull-up jumper extended Baylor’s early lead to 11-1.

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Baylor came into this game knowing they needed to knock down a ton of threes to have a chance to knock off the Bulldogs. The threes were falling in spades for the Bears, who knocked down 10 for the game, including a 5-for-5 start from beyond the arc to build a massive cushion.

The most impressive aspect of this win was how dominant Baylor was on the defensive end. The Bears were very active on that end of the floor, swarming to the ball, crashing the glass and blocking shots to frustrate the Bulldogs.

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3 takeaways from Baylor’s first championship

3. Baylor delivered an early haymaker to Gonzaga

Much like they did against Houston on Saturday, Baylor came out of the locker room shot out of a cannon. The Bears outhustled the Bulldogs from the opening tip, smothering Gonzaga on the defensive end and knocking down plenty of shots to build huge early cushions.

Gonzaga fell behind 11-1 and 29-10 at various points of the first half, margins that simply proved too large for even the mighty Bulldogs’ offense to overcome. Baylor simply hit Gonzaga in the mouth at the start of the game and the Bulldogs weren’t able to mount an effective comeback.

2. Gonzaga couldn’t get anything going in the paint

Drew Timme, who had been Gonzaga’s best player throughout the NCAA Tournament, was limited by foul trouble and only scored 12 points. The Bulldogs got crushed on the glass, getting out-rebounded 38-21 as the Bears controlled the paint despite being the smaller team.

The lack of easy inside buckets frustrated Gonzaga, which was uncharacteristically sloppy with the basketball, committing far too many turnovers. The lack of interior presence completely decimated the Bulldogs’ offense and played a big role in their defeat.

1. Scott Drew completed one of the best program builds in NCAA history

When Drew took over as Baylor’s head coach back in 2003 the program was at as low a point as any in college basketball history. Former coach Dave Bliss left the program in disgrace due to various scandals, including a coverup of the murder of one of his players by another, leaving an already dismal basketball school in the absolute doldrums of Division I.

Drew managed to build the Bears slowly into a tournament regular, then a Big 12 title contender, and now a national champion. No one could have seen this coming when Drew proclaimed at his opening press conference that he planned to win a national championship at Baylor but he has completed the most epic turnaround in the history of college basketball.

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