Yahoo Sports Gonzaga extends longest active Sweet 16 streak to 5 with win over Baylor
Gonzaga threatened to steamroll its way into the Sweet 16 on Saturday.
Baylor had other plans, stopping Gonzaga from running away with their second-round matchup. But the Bulldogs won nonetheless, securing a fifth straight appearance in the Sweet 16 with an 83-71 victory over the Bears.
Gonzaga cruised early, opening up a 39-23 halftime lead in what looked like a second straight runaway win after beating Fairleigh Dickinson, 87-49 on Thursday.
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Baylor punched back to open the second half, scoring the first 10 points of the stanza. But the Bulldogs never let the Bears get closer than five points after halftime.
Brandon Clarke leads the way for Zags
Brandon Clarke led the way for Gonzaga, scoring a game-high 36 points to go with eight rebounds and three assists. His point total marked a new school record for a Gonzaga player in the NCAA tournament, surpassing Adam Morrison’s old mark of 35.
The win marks the longest active Sweet 16 streak in the NCAA tournament. North Carolina’s streak of nine straight Sweet 16s from 1985-1993 and Duke’s from 1998-2006 are the longest since the NCAA expanded the tournament to 64 teams in 1985.
Zags looking beyond Sweet 16
The goal for this Gonzaga team, of course, is not the Sweet 16. The top-seeded Bulldogs have come up short of the ultimate goal of a national championship in each of their prior trips to the tournament’s second weekend.
The closest they came was a 2017 loss to North Carolina in the national championship game. Last year, they lost to Florida State in the third round. In 2016, Syracuse knocked them out in the third round. And in 2015, Duke knocked them out of the Elite 8.
ACC standing in Gonzaga’s way again
There’s a trend there, and one that will come into play in Gonzaga’s next game against a tough Florida State team that just cruised past Ja Morant and Murray State.
And if they get that far, there’s a good chance the Final Four will present at least one ACC opponent with Virginia, North Carolina and Duke representing the tournament’s other No. 1 seeds.
Gonzaga has long established itself as an NCAA force, a mid-major team that consistently competes for national championships. But it has yet to scale the pinnacle of the mountain against power conference foes.
Through the NCAA tournament’s first two rounds, the Bulldogs have looked like a team with legitimate aspirations of cutting down the nets in Minneapolis. But things are about to get a whole lot tougher.
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