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Baylor advances to 2nd title game after blowing out Houston

Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images Sport / Getty

No. 1 Baylor used a red-hot first-half shooting performance to dominate No. 2 Houston 78-59 in Saturday's first Final Four matchup.

With the victory, the Bears advance to their second NCAA Tournament championship game, and the school's first since 1948.

Jared Butler was the driving force for Baylor, scoring all of his team-high 17 points in the first half. The Bears dropped 45 points in the half, resulting in a 25-point halftime lead they didn't relinquish.

Marcus Sasser led Houston with his game-high 20 points, but the team didn't get significant contributions from others. Despite a valiant defensive effort down the stretch, the Cougars' early hole was too deep.

Baylor's season hasn't been quite as smooth as its 27-2 record suggests. The Bears sat at 18-0 after plowing through the squad's nonconference schedule and winning their first 10 Big 12 contests. Then the team struggled following a three-week pause due to COVID-19, losing a pair of games while lacking the dominance shown earlier in the season.

Still, the Bears persevered, and they appear to have returned to their previous form through five NCAA Tournament games. However, Butler feels like Baylor still has more to prove.

"We're extremely confident," Butler told Tracy Wolfson of CBS postgame on Saturday. "We didn't come all this way to not win it all. We came all this way to show who we are."

Baylor now moves on to face the winner of the other Final Four clash between No. 1 Gonzaga and No. 11 UCLA.

If Baylor faces Gonzaga, the game would make up for the highly anticipated clash between the two programs set for earlier this season, only to be canceled due to COVID-19 protocols. After the Bulldogs and Bears were ranked No. 1 and No. 2 throughout the season, respectively, many experts have pegged that matchup as the most desired March Madness finale.

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