Indiana's Unbeaten Streak Lives On for Another Year after Gonzaga Loss to Baylor

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – Gonzaga was trying to go undefeated and win a national title on Monday night, and they actually had a lot of former Indiana players and coaches rooting for them.

Even Bob Knight, the legendary Hoosiers coach who led Indiana to an undefeated season in 1976, has said that he wanted to see Mark Few and his Bulldogs pull off an unbeaten season. But after winning their first 31 games this year, No. 1 Gonzaga got whipped 86-70 by Baylor on Monday night in the NCAA Tournament title game at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

So the streak lives on for Indiana, now at 45 years ... and counting.

“You really do forget what it’s like to lose,” Gonzaga senior Corey Kispert said. “It doesn’t feel good, and I’ll remember this for a long time.”

Indiana's players treat their unbeaten streak as a badge of honor, but they also don't root against people like the 1972 Miami Dolphins do. The Dolphins are the only NFL unbeaten champion, and many former players will pop champagne each year when the last perfect team falls. The Hoosiers aren't that way.

The 32-0 Hoosiers team has been threatened by other teams, most notably UNLV in 1991 and Kentucky in 2015, only to crumble in the Final Four.

Gonzaga looked like a serious threat all season, because they were preseason No. 1 and they won all but two games by double-digits all season. But Baylor came out swinging on Monday night, scoring the first nine points. It took Gonzaga 4-plus minutes to score its first basket.

The pressure from Baylor never stopped. Gonzaga, playing without star Jalen Suggs for much of the first half because of two early fouls, was down by 19 at 29-10 midway through the first half, But the Bulldogs rallied late in the half to trim the lead to 10 by halftime.

The comeback was on.

But Baylor's aggressive perimeter defense kept Gonzaga off balance, and the Bulldogs got no closer than nine points. The Bears had the lead back up to 20 midway through the second half and waltzed to the finish line to win their first men's basketball title in school history.

“We’re all disappointed here, but as I told the guys, you make it this far and you’re 31-0 going into the last one, the last 40 minutes of the season, there’s absolutely nothing you should ever feel bad (about),” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said.

This is just the second NCAA Tournament title for a team from Texas, with the first beating Texas Western in 1966. Baylor is also the first Big 12 team to take home the championship trophy since Kansas in 2008.

“Our guys have been motivated all year,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said. “We’re a culture of joy. They came out and fed off each other.”

Guard Jared Butler, the most outstanding player in the Final Four, led Baylor with 22 points and seven assists. MaCio Teague added 19 points and Davion Mitchell had 15 points. Adam Flagler scored 13 off the bench. That’s a combined 69 points by the guards.

“The better the opponent, the better they play,” Drew said. "I feel for Coach Few and his team because they're such class acts,'' Baylor coach Scott Drew said. "And Coach Few is a Hall of Fame coach and an unbelievable guy. A better person than he is a coach. And you hate when friends aren't feeling good."

Suggs, the freshman from Minnesota who hit a dramatic three-pointer at the buzzer to beat UCLA in the national semifinals, led Gonzaga in scoring with 22 points.

“He’s a winner and he lost for the first time in college basketball,” Few said of Suggs. “He doesn’t like losing. And I think in his mind he saw us cutting down the nets at the end of this.”

Watch Mark Few's entire postgame press conference

Gonzaga coach Mark Few met with the media after the Bulldogs' dream season came to an end with an 86-70 loss to Baylor in a showdown between the top two teams in the country.

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