BYU vs. Gonzaga March Madness 2021 odds: Top-ranked Zags can become 20th school to reach NCAA Tournament unbeaten

A total of 19 teams have reached the NCAA Tournament unbeaten, and that number likely will reach 20 on Tuesday night as top-ranked Gonzaga puts its 25-0 record on the line in the West Coast Conference Tournament title game against BYU. It's a 9 p.m. ET tip from Las Vegas. The Bulldogs are 14-point favorites on the college basketball odds at William Hill Sportsbook and +250 favorites to win their first national championship.

How dominant have the Zags been this season? Their 78-55 win over a solid Saint Mary's team in the WCC semifinals Monday extended their streak of double-digit wins to 22 straight. Gonzaga is the only Division I team over the last 60 seasons to win 22 games in a row by 10 or more points.

The Zags' last single-digit victory was 87-82 over then-No. 11 West Virginia at a neutral site on Dec. 2 -- that's Gonzaga's only single-digit win this season. Coach Mark Few's team beat BYU by 17 in Spokane on Jan. 7 and by 11 in Provo on Feb. 8.

Even a loss on Tuesday (barring major injury) is not likely to knock Gonzaga from the favored role at William Hill to win the national title or to be the top overall seed on Selection Sunday.

CBS Sports' Jerry Palm has the Zags as such and opening against a No. 16 TBA in Bloomington, Ind. (Hinkle 1 bracket). Palm then has Gonzaga facing either No. 8 Oklahoma or No. 9 Wisconsin in the second round, but that obviously could change depending on what the Sooners and Badgers do this week in their conference tournaments.

The last school to reach the NCAA Tournament without a loss was Kentucky at 34-0 in 2015. That team, which had the likes of Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker, Willie Cauley-Stein and Trey Lyles, was knocked off in the Final Four by fellow No. 1 seed Wisconsin, 71-64. 

Only seven schools have won a national title with an unbeaten record but none since the field expanded to 64 (now 68) in 1985. Perhaps the most memorable unbeaten team in the Big Dance since then was that incredibly talented 1990-91 UNLV club which lost in the Final Four to Duke as the Rebs were trying to repeat. 

SportsLine's proven model simulates every college basketball game 10,000 times. It absolutely crushed its March Madness picks in the last tournament, beating nearly 90 percent of all CBS Sports brackets one year after finishing in the top five percent. Join SportsLine now to get winning college basketball picks.