The 2021 men’s national title game did not go as most anticipated, as Baylor jumped all over Gonzaga from the opening tip and ran away with what eventually became an 86-70 win to claim the school’s first men’s basketball national championship.
It was a stunning performance as they did to Gonzaga what the Zags typically did to their opponents, dominating every facet of the game early on and leaving the Bulldogs with a massive hole to climb out of, which they never were able to do. If it seemed as though Baylor entered the game more fired up than Gonzaga, there may be a reason for that. Baylor big man Mark Vital recently spoke with Sirius XM College about the title game and that furious start, and explained why the Bears had a little extra juice coming into the game after learning how Gonzaga was apparently already making preparations for a big celebration by ordering six cases of champagne.
@MarkVitalJr tells @sportsiren and @GabeIkard how a premature champagne order by Gonzaga motivated Baylor on Monday night. #SicEm | #TimeIsNow
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— College Sports on SiriusXM (@SXMCollege) April 7, 2021
The Bulldogs were the favorites, but only by 4.5 points so if they were making such plans and overlooking the Bears, it was a foolish mistake. That said, it’s also very possible that someone told the Baylor players that Gonzaga had been ordering cases of champagne to give them a little added motivation, when that wasn’t actually the case. If that’s what happened, it certainly seems to have worked. You can see Vital still upset at the thought that Gonzaga felt they were going to cruise past Baylor, and whether it’s actually what went down or simply some well-placed bulletin board material, the Bears certainly had some extra fire in their bellies and made good on their plans to “destroy” the Zags as Vital put it.