Undefeated Gonzaga and Baylor get their matchup for the national championship with history on the line

The showdown between the top two teams in men’s college basketball early in the season was supposed to take place on Dec. 5 in Indianapolis, but two positive COVID-19 tests in Gonzaga’s traveling party forced the cancelation of the Zags’ game against Baylor.

As coaches Mark Few of the Bulldogs and Scott Drew of the Bears were driven back to their hotel after the announcement, they had an idea.

“We were like, ‘You know what? If we end up playing this game in the Final Four in the championship game, that sounds like a better idea.’ So that was obviously the goal for both of us,” Drew said.

And what do you know? Gonzaga and Baylor, still the top two teams in college basketball, will play for the national championship Monday night at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis with history on the line.

The No. 1 overall seed Bulldogs (31-0), who eked out a 93-90 overtime win Saturday night over UCLA thanks to freshman guard Jalen Suggs’ 35-foot bank shot that beat the buzzer, have a chance to become the first undefeated national champion since Indiana achieved the feat in 1976, finishing out its perfecto at the Spectrum.

And they get to do it against the Bears (27-2), who nailed down their spot in the final with a dominant 78-59 win over Houston.

Few said Sunday that the two coaches first started working in July on playing this season. After the original date didn’t work, they kept trying, but once they got to mid-January, Baylor was locked in to its Big 12 schedule because games postponed because of the pandemic needed to be made up.

“By that time, it looked pretty futile so we just said, ‘Well, let’s do everything we can to make it all the way to this point,’” Few said. “So it’s pretty amazing that we both did.”

Both teams are known for tremendous guard play.

Suggs and juniors Joel Ayayi and Andrew Nembhard each had outstanding games in Saturday night’s victory. Suggs finished with 16 points, five rebounds, six assists, two steals, and a critical blocked shot with 2 minutes left in regulation. Ayayi had 22 points and six rebounds and Nembhard added 11 points and eight assists.

» READ MORE: Fifty years ago in Penn’s sunlit basketball season, a gifted player was heading for the shadows

Junior Jared Butler and Davion Mitchell and senior MaCio Teague controlled the Bears’ game against Houston from the outset. Butler scored 17 points, all in the first half, and Teague’s 11 points all came in the second half. Mitchell contributed 12 points and 11 assists.

The X-factor in the game might be 6-foot-10 Gonzaga forward Drew Timme, who scored a team-high 25 points, shooting 11 of 15 from the floor.

A question for the Bulldogs is how much they’ll have in the tank after their emotional overtime performance in the best game of the 2021 tournament. The epic contest saw 15 ties and 19 lead changes. Both teams shot well over 50% from the floor and neither team led by more than seven points.

The two teams entered the overtime tied at 81. The Zags held a five-point lead when Nembhard’s three-point basket put them up 90-85 with 1:15 to play, but the Bruins battled back on a three-point basket by Jaime Jaquez Jr., and tied in when Johnny Juzang (a game-high 29 points) followed up his own miss with 3.3 seconds left.

Double overtime appeared inevitable, but Suggs took the inbounds pass from Corey Kispert, took three dribbles and let the ball fly in one of the greatest shots in NCAA Tournament history. Suggs ran to the sideline with his teammates in pursuit and jumped on a press row table in celebration.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to run up on the table like Kobe and D-Wade and go like that, and that’s the first thing I did. Man, that is something that you practice on your mini hoop as a kid or in the gym just messing around. And to be able to do that, it’s crazy.”

Now they get a date with history.

» READ MORE: Last in series on future of Big 5, looking at future of the entity itself | Mike Jensen

“We had our little futile human plans, but God always has a plan and as is usually the case, his plan is better than ours,” Few said. “I think the way it turned out is probably the best scenario you could possibly imagine for college basketball in general, and even sports in America. I think it’s great for both programs given all the attention it’s generating.”