Baylor took a 9-0 lead over Gonzaga in the NCAA Championship Game en route to a wire to wire victory over the previously undefeated Bulldogs. Jared Butler led Baylor with 22 points and seven assists to become the first player to post at least 20 points and at least seven assists in the NCAA Championship Game since Carmelo Anthony did this for Syracuse in 2003. Butler, like Anthony, won the Final Four Most Outstanding Player award.
Gonzaga is the fifth team since 1976 to enter the NCAA Tournament with an undefeated record, and the fifth such team to not win the title. The last NCAA Division I basketball team to cap off an undefeated regular season with an NCAA title is Bobby Knight's 1976 Indiana Hoosiers. Just seven Division I teams have had an undefeated championship season, starting with the 1956 University of San Francisco team (coached by Phil Woolpert and led by Hall of Fame center Bill Russell), followed by the 1957 North Carolina team coached by Frank McGuire, and then four UCLA teams coached by John Wooden (1964, 1967, 1972, 1973). Coach Knight, who often publicly expressed his disdain for the improper benefits UCLA provided to its players (which, if uncovered at the time, could have resulted in the disqualification of those championship teams), must have taken great joy in eliminating UCLA from the 1976 tournament as part of Indiana's perfect season, even though Wooden had retired by that time and passed the baton to Gene Bartow.
In his Foreword to Runnin' Rebel (Jerry Tarkanian's autobiography, co-authored with Dan Wetzel), Coach Knight identified two ingredients for success "over the long haul of a season": "getting players to play as hard as they can play each possession of the game at both ends of the floor and doing it as intelligently as possible." Coach Knight declared that he has never seen another coach consistently do a better job of this than Coach Tarkanian did. Coach Knight further stated that three key elements for success are getting players to run back on defense, getting players to attack the boards aggressively, and getting players to commit to playing defense.
While dominating Gonzaga, Baylor put on a 40 minute clinic exemplifying all of the ingredients and elements mentioned above by Coach Knight. Anyone who focuses on Baylor's 10-23 three point shooting does not understand why Butler beat Gonzaga, as simple math demonstrates: take away the three point shot--subtract one point for each three pointer that Baylor made--and Baylor still wins the game. Baylor would have won that game without the three point shot rule because the crucial elements for Baylor's success are defense and rebounding. Defense and rebounding shut down Gonzaga's high-powered offensive attack while also creating numerous scoring opportunities for Baylor.
Baylor set the tone on the very first possession of the game, as they pounded Gonzaga on the glass until they finally scored. Mark Vital finished with a game-high 11 rebounds, including a game-high eight offensive rebounds, and the 6-5, 250 senior had half as many rebounds as Gonzaga's entire squad as Baylor dominated the boards, 38-22.
Baylor's pressure defense not only forced turnovers, but it destroyed Gonzaga's rhythm, turning normally confident players into hesitant players. Soon the Bulldogs were bobbling and fumbling the ball even before Baylor applied pressure.
It became evident that Baylor is the superior team athletically, but that should not overshadow the fact that Baylor also was the more physical team and the more mentally poised team; the Bears showed no fear from the outset, they played a very disciplined game at both ends of the court, and they made an undefeated, confident team look very beatable and not very confident.
Rules may change, and styles may evolve, but championship basketball has always been about fundamentals. No matter how good a team is offensively, a team can go on a cold streak and miss shots. Defense and rebounding are all about effort, toughness, and focus; well-coached teams comprised of mentally-focused, tough players play with effort, toughness, and focus every game, which means that they force other teams to shoot poorly while also being able to, if necessary, survive when they shoot poorly. Although Baylor shot well from three point range, the Bears did not shoot a great field goal percentage overall (.448), and they attempted fewer free throws than Gonzaga, but Baylor's defensive pressure and rebounding prowess generated 67 field goal attempts while limiting Gonzaga to 49 field goal attempts.
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Further Reading:
Early Entry Players Have Diluted Both College and Pro Basketball (March 2008)
C(h)alm in the Clutch: Kansas Defeats Memphis in OT, 75-68 (2008 NCAA Championship)
Heels Stomp Spartans (2009 NCAA Championship)
Separating the Grownups From the Kids in Basketball (November 2018)
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