Baylor and Gonzaga battle tonight in 2021 NCAA Basketball National Championship

Shore News Network

Tonight, the Baylor Bears (27-2)  will face off against the Gonzaga Bulldogs (31-0) to see who will be crowned the 2021 NCAA Men’s Basketball National Champion at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Tip off time for one of the most anticipated National Championship games in recent years is at 9:20pm.

The updated line at playsugarhouse.com has Gonzaga favored by 4.5 points and the Total is 159.5

These teams were scheduled to meet on December 5th, but that game was postponed due to pandemic protocols and was never rescheduled. Winners of 9 of their last 10 games, the Baylor Bears never trailed after the 4-minute mark on their way to an easy 19-point victory over Houston.  Baylor got 32 points from their bench, and stifled Houston with extremely strong defense.  The Bears had five players in double figures; with guard Jared Butler leading them with 17 points. 

Gonzaga outlasted UCLA in an instant-classic overtime game, despite Johnny Juzang leading the Bruins with 29 points and playing in all 45 minutes of the game. Gonzaga was favored to win by 14 over UCLA, but never got close to that spread. Their biggest lead of the game was 66-59 with 12 minutes left. 


UCLA was the first team in a long while to show that you can stay close to Gonzaga, and possibly even defeat them.  Amazingly, both teams shot around 58% from the field.  Among the biggest questions of this game are: Will Baylor’s ferocious defense finally slow-down Gonzaga’s free-flowing offense? 

Could Gonzaga suffer an emotional letdown from their huge last-second win against UCLA?  The last team to be undefeated going into the Championship Game was in 1979, when Indiana State and Larry Bird lost to Magic Johnson and Michigan State, 75-64. The last team to win it for an undefeated season was Indiana in 1976 (32-0). 

This is the lowest spread (-4.5) that Gonzaga has been favored all season and it the first time all season Baylor has been an Underdog.  We finally have a match up with the two best teams in the Nation from preseason to the final game of the year in what should live up to its expectations.

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