The roller-coaster has come to an end

Baylor won the title, Gonzaga is still awesome, and a heartfelt thank you.

Before I get started on this, before I even say a word about the Baylor Bears or their 86-70 win over Gonzaga in the national title game, I need to get something out of the way: Miss me with any and all of the “I told you Gonzaga was overrated” bullshit.

You’re embarrassing yourself.

The Zags went 31-1 this season. They made it all the way to the national title game, where they lost to a team that could have gone undefeated in the Big 12 had they not been shutdown for 18 days due to a COVID outbreak on the roster. Along the way, they beat Kansas, West Virginia, Iowa, Virginia, Oklahoma, Creighton, USC and UCLA. All eight of those teams rank in the top 40 on KenPom. Oklahoma is the only team outside the top 25. They won those games by an average of 13.4 points.

BYU is a top 20 team on KenPom that earned a No. 6-seed in this year’s tournament. Gonzaga played them three times in WCC play. They won by 17 points, 11 points and, in the WCC tournament title game, by 10 points on a night where the Cougars shot 69 percent in the first half and led by double-digits.

More over, this was the second time in the last four tournaments that Gonzaga has played in the national title game; they lost to North Carolina in 2017. They’ve been to four of the last six Elite Eights. They’ve been to six straight Sweet 16s. Since the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, here is the complete list of teams that have reached six straight Sweet 16s: North Carolina from 1985-1993, Duke from 1986-1992 and Duke, against, from 1998-2006.

That’s it.

No one else.

More than a dozen teams have made it to four straight Sweet 16s. Roy Williams at Kansas and Rick Pitino at Kentucky both reached five straight. But only Mark Few, Coach K and Dean Smith have been to six consecutive Sweet 16s.

Speaking of Coach K, he didn’t win a national title until his fifth trip to the Final Four and his third trip to the national title game.

And speaking of Dean Smith, he took over at North Carolina in 1961. He didn’t win a title until 1982, his seventh trip to the Final Four and his fourth trip to the national title game.

Nothing about the Gonzaga program is overrated. Full stop.

And nothing about this Gonzaga team was overrated, with one exception: Calling them the best team in college basketball this season.

That’s where Baylor’s COVID shutdown changed things. That’s where the narrative of the season was flipped on its head. I wrote about this on Saturday. The day that Baylor went into their pause, they were ranked as the best team in college basketball, according to KenPom’s metrics. That was the morning after they went into Austin and beat up on Texas, winning 83-69. At the time, they ranked in the top three of both offensive and defensive efficiency on KenPom. No team since Kansas, in 2008, finished the season ranked in both the top three of offensive and defensive efficiency.

Baylor also ranked in the top five nationally of defensive turnover rate, offensive rebounding rate and three-point shooting. No team, dating back to 2002, has been able to make that claim, and if you subscribe to the theory that the key to winning basketball games is to be able to maximize the number of possessions you get while simultaneously scoring as efficiently as possible on those possessions, then this is the cheat code.

Truth be told, I think that Baylor’s shutdown simply delayed the inevitable. If the Bears had not had to spend 18 days in quarantine, I don’t think they take a loss this season. At the very least, I think they avoid the drubbing that they took at the hands of Kansas just seven days after their first post-outbreak practice. My theory is that in a world where Baylor did not have a COVID pause, the story of the month of February in college basketball would have been that Baylor had surpassed the Zags, that they had asserted themselves as the best team in college basketball, that they were the team chasing history, and Gonzaga was merely the final boss on their way to beating the game.

There is so much that is running through my head right so, so much about this game that is fascinating to discuss. Why did Mark Few decide on switching 1-through-5 against a group of guards that are this dangerous? Where was this Jared Butler for the rest of the NCAA tournament? Would the result have been different had Gonzaga been more tested during conference play?

And I think the answer is simple: Not drastically.

There is nothing that you can do to prepare for the kind of physical, intense on-ball defense that Baylor is going to play. You can watch it on film and your scout team can do their best to mimic it in practice, but there is a reason guys likes Davion Mitchell and Mark Vital are so special. It’s because they’re unique. You cannot be prepared for the punch they land at tip-off until you see it. Once the Zags got used to it, once they settled into the game, they more or less played Baylor to a draw. But they just couldn’t get out of the initial hole that they dug themselves into.

That will happen when you go up against a team as special as this one.

I’m happy for Scott Drew. I’m happy that he got his title. I’m happy that he was able to turn what he has built over the last two seasons in Waco into something that will live in history forever. And I hope that Mark Few will be the next coach that proves you’re only the guy that can’t win the big one until you win the big one.

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On a personal note, I want to thank every one that took the time to read the words written in this space and to consume the content that I created over on The Field of 68. This has been the most trying year of my professional career. I was laid off six months into a pandemic in a business that rarely seems to be hiring while covering a sport that consistently seems to be losing full-time jobs.

It was fucking terrifying.

But between The Rebound, the Field of 68 and the odd jobs I was able to pick up here and there — writing for Bet Rivers, working for Stadium, etc. — I was able to piece together enough to make a living. It wasn’t easy. I worked harder, I worked more hours, I completely revamped my skill set when it comes to content creation, but nothing that I have ever done professionally has been more rewarding, personally, than what I did these last eight months.

I’m still not quite sure how I did it, or how I’m still functioning as a normal human being.

But I do understand why it was possible.

It’s because of the support from you guys. And it’s not just the subs to the newsletter. Anyone reading, or watching, or sharing the content I create, it helps more than you realize.

So I just wanted to say thank you.

Your support is why I was able to do the one thing I love doing more than anything else this season.

Your support is why I was able to stay connected to the game, to avoid having to get into another business, to continue to cover college basketball.

You have no idea how much that means from each and every one of you.