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The Breakfast Buffet: Jalen Suggs created a “Christian Laettner” caliber moment

Who’s hungry for college basketball?

Here’s today’s installment of “The Breakfast Buffet”, a daily column that can be found here every single morning getting you caught up to date on everything that’s happened from the day/night before and everything that’s going to happen in the next 24 hours.

Mangia!

Things To Sample

Jalen Suggs created a “Christian Laettner”caliber moment
Remember where you were and who you were with on Saturday night. It’s a date — April 3rd, 2021 — that will forever live in college basketball history. Suggs’ half court buzzer beater to give Gonzaga an overtime win over UCLA in the Final Four will be to this generation — along with Kris Jenkins’ shot for Villanova in 2016 — what Laettner’s buzzer beater was for many people when Duke beat Kentucky in 1992. It was a vintage NCAA Tournament moment made by a team trying to do something that hasn’t been done since 1976 — complete a perfect season. Gonzaga (31-0) will now have that opportunity on Monday night against Baylor. 

Baylor-Gonzaga is the most anticipated national title game since 2005
16 years ago, North Carolina and Illinois were clearly the two best teams in college basketball and wound up playing for a national title in Saint Louis. The same type of script will occur on Monday night when Baylor faces Gonzaga. The Bears and Bulldogs were supposed to play earlier this season in Indianapolis, but the game was cancelled due to COVID-19. Now they’ll finally lock horns to try and ultimately determine who is truly the best team in the sport.

Mick Cronin was a breakout star in the NCAA Tournament
Johnny Juzang was brilliant for UCLA over the last month, but the last couple of weeks also cemented Cronin as one of the sport’s truly elite coaches. Despite losing three of his projected starters — Daishen Nix, Chris Smith, and Jalen Hill — during the season for different reasons, the Bruins still miraculously reached the Final Four as an 11 seed and took Gonzaga all the way to the brink as the Bulldogs were chasing an undefeated season. College basketball is a better sport when UCLA is a national story. It will stay that way as long as Cronin is the coach in Westwood. 

Baylor has eight starters
Don’t tell me that Adam Flagler, Matthew Mayer, and Jonathan Tchamwa-Tcatchoua are reserves because they’d be starters on 95 percent of the other teams in college basketball. The Bears’ first three guys off the bench combined for 30 points and 13 rebounds in Saturday night’s 78-59 win over Houston. There was zero drop off when Flagler, Mayer, and Tchamwa-Tcatchoua entered the game as a substitute. The most underrated thing about Baylor? Its depth.

Kelvin Sampson has built Houston into a perennial contender
The Cougars didn’t play their best game on Saturday against Baylor, but that doesn’t take away from the season that they had. Houston’s program operated in complete obscurity before Sampson arrived in 2014 and now it’s viewed nationally as a regular threat to play meaningful games in March and April. Remember: Houston is one missed three-point shot away from playing in the Sweet 16 or beyond in three straight NCAA Tournaments. The Cougars were knocked out by Michigan in the Round of 32 in 2018 when Wolverines guard Jordan Poole made a shot at the buzzer.

Leftovers: