Last week the ‘Zags were the #1 team in the country for the first time in school history. They promptly went out on Saturday night, and were upset by BYU 79-71 on their home floor. The Cougars were also a 20-win team coming in, but Gonzaga was the lone undefeated team left in the nation, at 29-0.
Head Coach Mark Few is five wins short of 500, with his first season being 1999. Under Few, Gonzaga is an astonishing 243-29 in conference play, and has only two years where they did not finish the regular season with at least a share of the conference title.
However, for all the joy in Spokane, mighty Gonzaga has only reached the Elite Eight once (2015), after being seeded on the 2-line. The other time Gonzaga was seeded that high by the Selection Committee was 2004, when they finished with a 28-2 record. The Bulldogs proceeded to go out in the second round to 10-seed Nevada.
Few is one of those coaches from a smaller school you can tell could be successful anywhere he goes, much like Brad Stevens did in jumping from Butler to the NBA’s Boston Celtics. If you wanted to keep it on a college level, hoping things turn out like when Sean Miller left Xavier for Arizona wouldn’t be a bad way to dream. Then again, he could flame out miserably like Matt Doherty did at North Carolina, after coming over from Notre Dame, who was still a college basketball afterthought at the time.
Not to rain in Gonzaga’s parade, but there is a reason it’s called a “kid’s table.” The Bulldogs have a strength of schedule of 81. At 29-1, that’s worse than 4-24 Oregon State (Pac 10), 7-20 Mizzou (SEC), and 9-19 DePaul (Big East)...among others. Granted, their non-conference RPI is sixth in the country (.6616). One loss dropped them to 11th (.6412), and fourth in both the Associate Press and Coaches polls.
Some pundits already began wondering if the loss against BYU would cost the Bulldogs a place on the 1-line when the pairings are announced in a couple of weeks. Remember that time Wichita State was a #1 seed in 2014 coming out of the Missouri Valley, only to lose in the second round to eventual runner-up Kentuky? How about when St. Joseph’s was #1 coming out of the Atlantic 10 in 2004, and were dumped in the Elite Eight by Oklahoma State?
Villanova, Kansas, and UCLA are clearly the three best teams in the country. Don’t let UCLA’s three losses fool you...they were all to teams they avenged (Arizona, Oregon, and USC). The fourth team is debatable. Is it North Carolina? Is it Oregon?
The fact is it sure is not Gonzaga.
When you’re talking college football, you don’t put Ball State against Clemson in the playoffs so you can see the little guy pull off the stunning upset. The committee just has to make the right call, and not put them on the top line. Giving Gonzaga a top seed would be about on par with giving a 14-year-old the keys to a Maserati, without ever having taken a single lesson...something’s going to break badly.
For the teenager, it’s an axle. In Gonzaga’s case, it’s every bracket in the country by the end of the first weekend.
-JC24