They call it March Madness for a reason.

However, for the 2021 Men’s NCAA champion Baylor Bears, it was anything but madness.

The Bears dominated throughout the tournament, securing all but one of their wins by double digits.

In Monday night’s final, they took down the formerly undefeated Gonzaga Bulldogs with an 86-70 win.

Here is the Morning Coffee for April 6, 2021

Baylor Ends Gonzaga’s Perfect Season

Gonzaga entered the tournament as the overwhelming tournament favourite at +200 odds, with aspirations of becoming just the eighth undefeated team to win the title, and first since Indiana in 1976.

After making it all the way to the final with a perfect recorded intact, the Zags looked like they were in a good spot as a 4.5-point favourite versus Baylor.

However, Baylor jumped out to a quick 16-4 lead and never looked back, leading by as many 19 points.

 

 

 

Jared Butler put up a personal tournament-high 22 points to help Baylor (+165) to their first championship in school history.

Projected top-five pick Jalen Suggs, who stole the show in the Final Four with a dramatic buzzer-beater to propel Gonzaga to the finals against UCLA, had 22 points, but it wasn’t enough. 

 

Baylor entered the tournament with +600 odds to win it all, behind only Gonzaga. 

Maybe next time we should all listen to Jack Armstrong and Laura Diakun before filling out our brackets.

 

 

The Jack Campbell Show Continues

The Toronto Maple Leafs (-175) beat the Calgary Flames 5-3 on Monday night to sweep the two-game set and run their win streak to four in a row.

Jack Campbell made 26 stops in the victory, tying a franchise record with his ninth straight win, a record shared with Felix Potvin, Jacques Plante, and John Ross Roach. 

Auston Matthews scored twice for his 26th and 27th goals of the year, five ahead of Connor McDavid for the league lead.

 

Jason Spezza added his ninth of the year, while Wayne Simmonds and John Tavares chipped in with the other goals to propel the Leafs to victory in the back-and-forth affair.

The Leafs hold a six-point lead in the North over Winnipeg, and as of this morning they are sitting at -400 odds to the win division.

Calgary, on the other hand, remains in a complete downward spiral. They're currently on a four-game losing skid and sit eight points back of the fourth-place Canadiens, having played five more games. 

The Flames are currently 400-to-1 to win the North, which are actually very good odds if you consider yourself the most optimistic Flames fan in the universe.

The Arrival of Gary Trent Jr.

Gary Trent Jr. must have been more inspired by Jalen Suggs’ buzzer-beater against UCLA than the entire Gonzaga team last night, as his last-second three lifted the Raptors (-180) to a 103-101 win over the Wizards in Washington.

 

In order for Trent Jr. to end the game in dramatic fashion, the Raptors first had to claw back from a 19-point deficit for their second win April, already one more than they had in all of March. 

Pascal Siakam led the way with 22 points, while rookie Malachi Flynn chipped in with 16, tying the career high he set in the Raptors previous game against the Warriors.

With the win, The Raps sit just one game back of the Bulls for the final play-in spot in the East.

Toronto will try to extend their winning streak to three tonight for the first time since Feb 19 against the Los Angeles Lakers, right here on TSN.

Blue Jays Spoil the Party in Texas

Videos of Globe Life park In Arlington spread across social media Monday afternoon, but they had very little to do with the play on the field.

To the disbelief of many, the Rangers hosted the Blue Jays in their home opener in front of a capacity crowd of 38,328, but they gave their fans almost nothing to cheer about.

The Blue Jays (-120) defeated the Rangers 6-2 to improve to 3-1 on the season, thanks to a couple of the new boys in blue.

 

While Marcus Semien has seemingly fit in perfectly with his new club to start the season, Steven Matz looked just as comfortable in his first start on the mound.

Matz went 6.1 innings strong and struck out nine on route to his first win since Sept. 28, 2019 as a member of the New York Mets.

Toronto is back action tonight (-135) against the Rangers with Tanner Roark set to take the mound in his season debut.

Shakeup In the South

Despite signing Teddy Bridgewater to a three-year, $63 million contract just last season, the Carolina Panthers acquired former third-overall pick quarterback Sam Darnold from the New York Jets on Monday in exchange for three draft picks.

Darnold is coming off a down year in which he threw just nine touchdowns and 11 interceptions.

However, some may consider that an impressive feat considering the offensive talent surrounding him.

With Darnold as their presumptive starter, the Panthers are now +650 to win the NFC South, while the Jets are all but certain to take a quarterback with the second-overall pick in the NFL Draft. 

BYU’s Zach Wilson is currently projected to be the second quarterback off the board, and with the Jets rumoured to be locked in on him, the odds are currently -1000 for Wilson to land in that spot.