Baylor cruises while Texas snoozes

By David Mullen

Sorry, Chip and Joanna Gaines. There is a new power team in Waco receiving national attention. And they play on a hardwood floor, they don’t refinish one.

The Baylor Bears are the 2021 NCAA National Basketball Champions, and they earned their place at the top facing remarkable odds. When coach Scott Drew took over the Bears, they weren’t a “Fixer Upper.” They were a complete disaster, still reeling from a player’s murder and stiff NCAA sanctions.

Drew, upon taking over the downtrodden Bears, promised an NCAA Championship. In his first season in 2003-04, Baylor went 8-21. In 2020-21, they went 28-2, with their only losses to NCAA tournament teams Kansas and Oklahoma State. They lost three important weeks of play in February due to a COVID-19 outbreak, when the team was 17-0 and on a roll.

In the NCAA Finals, they had to conquer the undefeated No. 1-rated Gonzaga Bulldogs by beating the Zags at their own game. The Bears scored at will and played a smothering defense. Baylor relied on a total team concept, as eight players scored in the 86-70 win that really wasn’t that close. The Bears jumped out to an 11-1 lead to start the game and never looked back.

Gonzaga were the media darlings, and a perfect season seemed inevitable for the eclectic group that gathered in Spokane, Wash. to play the game they loved. Brilliant coach Mark Few is known for overcoming obstacles. Maybe they were still recovering from a game many are calling “the greatest college basketball game of all-time” — a 93-90 overtime thriller against UCLA in the NCAA Semifinals late into the night on April 3.

But maybe history was not on their side. Including Gonzaga, three teams that entered the NCAA finals undefeated in the last six decades lost. Ohio State was tripped up by Cincinnati 70-65 in overtime in 1961, and Indiana State and Larry Bird lost to Magic Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans 75-64 in 1979. Only Bobby Knight’s 1976 Indiana Hoosiers and four of John Wooden’s juggernaut UCLA teams have run the table in that timespan.       

The Zag’s best players, Richardson’s Drew Timme and the remarkable Minnesota high school legend Jalen Suggs, were held in check. Timme scored just 12 points, and Suggs was hampered by early foul trouble. Baylor forced Gonzaga into making more turnovers (14) than Joanna could ever produce from her refurnished Magnolia-identified home kitchen.

In Indianapolis on April 5, Baylor swept the floor with Gonzaga and added a new addition to NCAA basketball history. The Gaines’ should be proud.

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The Texas Rangers also made history on April 5, although the historical footnote will not be revered as Baylor’s achievement. Much to the distain of physicians, scientists, many media outlets and the current White House, the Rangers hosted the Toronto Blue Jays on Opening Day before a sold-out crowd of 38,238, the first fully attended sporting event since the COVID-19 pandemic significantly altered sports viewing norms more than a year ago.

Gov. Greg Abbott was supposed to throw out the first pitch at the shiny new Globe Life Field. But Abbott pulled himself from the game in protest of MLB’s decision to move the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver over the recently approved voting rights changes made by the Georgia State Legislature. In retrospect, Abbott, an ardent supporter of opening up Texas “100 percent,” didn’t miss much he could be proud of.

It is not just because the product on the field was so bad. The Rangers sleepwalked through a 6-2 loss, amassing only five hits and had two errors, two passed balls and hit four batters. It was just one game and little is expected of Texas in the next few seasons. But from what I could see, sitting among the mask-less, many Rangers fans were treating the event like they were on spring break in Miami’s South Beach.

Even the hundreds of cops on hand were not wearing masks.

As part of the new high-tech stadium features and COVID-19 protocols, tickets were self-scanned. No cash exchanged hands except by the parking lot attendants. And there were no in-seat vendors hawking beer, hot dogs and peanuts.

All transactions had to be made with a credit or debit card. Even a game program ($10) had to be purchased with a card, which was a first in my more than one-half century of attending professional baseball games. All food lines required cards, which not only slowed the lines but caused long backups. There was absolutely no social distancing despite signs that encouraged the practice.

When signing my concession stand bill, a number of tip options for the staff were prominently displayed. I always tip, but have never been forced to. I am very aware that the workers have struggled to make a living because of the pandemic, but I did wax nostalgic for the days at old Rangers Stadium when tips went to the local high school drill team or youth sports.

As I stopped at the men’s room on my way out, it looked like a frat party out of “Animal House.” The overserved youth were not only screaming but were actually” slam dancing” each other. Blutarsky would have been proud. For me, it just “made me want to shout.” 

If the Rangers had just played with such reckless abandon.