Marvel March Madness: Champion Baylor/Cyclops
After more than 2,680 minutes of play, 67 matchups, and 19 days, we have 1 champion. The Bears of Baylor (or in our Marvel Bracket, Cyclops) have taken home their first ever NCAA Tournament Championship after a dominant win over Gonzaga (Spider-Man) on Monday night. If you’d like a refresher on all the teams and how they’ve progressed in the tourney, check out our previous two articles: Marvel March Madness: Marvel Comics Meets the 2021 NCAA Tournament and Marvel March Madness: The Sweet 16.
Throughout the season Baylor and Gonzaga were the two heavy favorites to make it to the finals, but very rarely do the two best teams actually make it that far. This year was the exception, but it wasn’t always easy. Baylor had a tough time maneuvering around the stretching limbs of Villanova (Mr. Fantastic) in the Sweet-16 and took some punishment from Arkansas (Jean Grey… former lover turned rival of Cyclops) in the Elite-8. Gonzaga also encountered a sticky situation before making it to the finals. UCLA (Luke Cage) put up a tenacious fight against Gonzaga in the Final-4, which was without a doubt the most entertaining game of the tournament (unless maybe you’re a Baylor fan). It’s interesting that Luke Cage would give Spider-Man so much trouble when in the comics the two New Yorkers often team up and work together.
The final, as mentioned above, did not turn out to be the battle we eagerly anticipated. It was only the fifth time ever the preseason 1 and 2 met in the Natty, but this game did not live up to the hype. A bigger, stronger, and longer Baylor squad broke out fast and Gonzaga never found the legs to catch back up. Throughout the year, Gonzaga would go on sneaky fast ten-point runs that would extend their leads from close to comfortable. However, in the title game, they were in the unfamiliar role of playing from behind, and anytime they tried to make one of these runs stick, Baylor was ready to blast apart their webbing.
Baylor and Gonzaga are not complete strangers. They met as recently as 2019 in the round of 32 of the Big Dance where 1-seed Gonzaga beat 9-seed Baylor 83-71. However, the two teams have only fought it out four other times previous to 2019. So no, they aren’t strangers, but they’re not all that familiar either. Similarly, in the comics, Cyclops and Spider-Man don’t interact all that often. In fact, at one point, Spider-Man “joined” the X-Men and started teaching young mutants, but instead of being a part of the faculty in which Cyclops is the headmaster (New Xavier School) he joins the faculty at the rival Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. It’s almost as if they’re trying to avoid each other… and maybe after Monday’s game, Gonzaga should consider taking a moment to rehab before they meet again. That being said, I think betting on either of these two teams in the future is pretty safe.
There is much to reflect on from this past season and tournament. Although only a handful of people from Central Texas are going home “winners”, we’re all winners for having received the gift of March Madness. A gift we will never take for granted again.
