What separates college basketball from college football is its unpredictability, unexpected results and magic moments nobody could have seen coming. Below, The Post’s Zach Brailler makes four bold predictions for the coming season:
Gonzaga finishes the job
Drew Timme and Gonzaga coach Mark Few are back in Spokane to try and capture the national title that has long-eluded one of college basketball’s winningest programs in recent years. Icon Sportswire via Getty ImagesGonzaga has won 127 games over the last four seasons, more than any other D-I school. It has reached the title game in two of the last four tournaments. All that is missing is a national championship — until this April. Mark Few’s Zags will finish what last year’s team couldn’t. They won’t be quite as dominant. They will lose a few regular-season games — the non-conference schedule is brutal, including Duke, UCLA, Texas and Alabama — but will finally win the crown so many great Zags teams of the past have failed to secure. Nobody will have an answer for the NBA-bound frontcourt duo of Drew Timme and 7-footer Chet Holmgren, who will be named the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four — the first freshman to win the honor since Duke’s Tyus Jones in 2015.
Freshman to follow
Though he missed most of his senior season with an injury, Patrick Baldwin Jr. averaged 24.3 points and 10 rebounds per game as a junior at his Wisconsin high school. TNS via Getty ImagesIn what should be one of the most fun stories of the season, blue-chip freshman Patrick Baldwin Jr. will try to get his father, and coach at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Patrick Sr., to his first NCAA Tournament. The mega-talented Baldwin, a 6-foot-9 sharpshooter who was rated as the fourth best player in his class by 247Sports.com, eschewed the chance to play at Duke to join his father, who has yet to finish over .500 in four years as a head coach, at the Horizon League school. He will put up mammoth numbers in the mid-major league, the highest among all freshmen, en route to being a top-five NBA pick next summer.
Max adds to March heroics
Max Abmas helped Oral Roberts become one of the surprises of the 2021 NCAA Tournament by shooting 35 percent from behind the 3-point line in four games. NCAA Photos via Getty ImagesMax Abmas made a name for himself last March by leading Oral Roberts to upsets of Ohio State and Florida in the NCAA Tournament. The junior adds to that this year by becoming the first player to lead the nation in scoring in consecutive seasons since Reggie Williams at Virginia Military Institute in 2006-08. The 6-foot Abmas, needing to score even more this year for the Golden Eagles to have success after high-scoring forward Kevin Obanor’s departure to Texas Tech, eclipses his average of 24.5 ppg a year ago.
