LAS VEGAS, Nev. – The Gonzaga basketball team has been knocking down obstacles like so many wide-open 15-footers this season:
*An unbeaten regular-season West Coast Conference season: Wop!
*The program’s first-ever No. 1 national rating: Bang!
*Another WCC tournament: Count it!
*A first-ever No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament: As the late and oh-so-great Chick Hearn would have pronounced “This one’s in the refrigerator”.
The Bulldogs – or, as their players, coaches, followers and the world know them as “the Zags” – took care of that WCC tourney title in methodical fashion Monday night in front of 7,896 (6K or so seemingly wearing Gonzaga colors and regalia) in The Orleans Arena, whisking past Saint Mary’s for the third time, 65-51.
And they’ve got the better part of six days to wait until the Sunday night CBS broadcast reveals the NCAA tourney’s 68-team bracket that almost assuredly will show the Bulldogs as the No. 1 seed in the West Regional, with their path to the L.A. Staples Center – host of the regional semifinals and final – starting at second- and third-round site Salt Lake City or San Jose.
Barring conference tourney stunning losses, I think Duke, Indiana and Louisville will also receive regional No. 1 slots.
In fact, those programs may already have those sewn up, regardless of what happens in the respective ACC, Big Ten and Big East tournaments, although the Georgetown Hoyas could have a compelling argument if they roll in Madison Square Garden this week and one of those three stumbles early.
But Mark Few’s Gonzaga team has done everything – short of going unbeaten – it needed to in order to secure the No. 1 seed in the West.
The only losses were to Butler (by a point, at the buzzer, in that marvelous Jan. 19 clash in Indianapolis) and Illinois (by 11 points, in Spokane). Both of those clubs (16-2 and 10-0, respectively, on the nights when they beat the Bulldogs) will be in the NCAA tourney field.
So will Big Eight co-champion and Bulldog’s victim Kansas State, as well as two other teams from that conference that also fell to Gonzaga, Oklahoma State and Oklahoma.
Other non-conference clubs beaten by the Bulldogs include Southern Conference regular-season and tourney champion Davidson, as well as Pacific, which is playing better than anyone going into the Big West tournament in Anaheim, CA.
There are three victories (by a collective margin of 36 points) over Saint Mary’s – more on the Gaels to follow – which I believe should receive one of the 37 at-large bids Sunday.
And the Bulldogs – OK, the “Zags”, if you will – certainly pass the “eyeball test” with a litany of flying colors.
In center Kelly Olynyk and power forward Elias Harris, their starting posts are as good as any in college hoops.
The sophomore backcourt of Kevin Pangos and Gary Bell hasn’t received much in the way of national attention. But Pangos and Bell will likely prove to make up the best set of starting guards coached by Few before they depart Spokane.
Defensively, this is the best Gonzaga team I’ve seen (and I’ve seen most of them, including those coaches by Jay Hillock – he was John Stockton’s coach – and the late Dan Fitzgerald).
This club is the classic “makes you beat them over the top” squad – it doesn’t get beat off the dribble; it doesn’t allow excessive second shots; and it closes out, under control but with pressure, on all jump shooters.
The Bulldogs were twice oh-so-close to playing on the final season of the college season, losing to eventual national champion Connecticut (68-62) in the 1999 West final and to UCLA – via the Bruins’ stunning closing rally – during the 2006 West title game.
There are going to be some daunting roadblocks to Atlanta, including a No. 2 seed that figures to come from among Georgetown, Kansas, Ohio State or Miami.
But my hunch is that this Gonzaga squad is every bit as good as those 1999 and 2006 squads were – and maybe better in very large part (yeah, pun intended) of the presence of the rapidly improving 6-foot-11 Olynyk, who may be building a foundation for the longest and most prosperous NBA career of any player produced by the program since a fellow name John Stockton.
As for Saint Mary’s, the Gaels candidacy for one of those at-large bids will be among the most hotly debated topics until the moment the bracket is revealed – and that isn’t going to change, once they get the thumbs up or down, too.
The overall record (27-6) and conference marks – (14-2 in the regular season), within one of the more respected “non-BCS” conferences in the sport – are beyond “very good”.
But how many of those victories – or losses, for that matter – are really going to impress the NCAA Championship Tournament Committee?
That 73-66 win over Missouri Valley regular-season (and tourney) champion Creighton, led by soon-to-be two-time All-American Doug McDermott on Feb. 23 (on the Gaels’ Moraga campus) will do the trick.
But what else?
A sweep of fellow WCC member BYU would normally be sterling on the resume but the Cougars are National Invitation Tournament-bound this season.
A one-point victory over Harvard – in Moraga on New Year’s Eve – is glossier with the Crimson earning a second consecutive Ivy League title last weekend.
But the “non-Gonzaga losses” could prove problematic.
They came to Pacific in the semifinals of the DIRECTV Classic in Anaheim – which cost the Gaels a much-needed, resume-wise, game with Cal of the Pac 12 – and then to Georgia Tech (which won just six games in the ACC) in the third-place game.
The other was at Northern Iowa, which finished third in the Missouri Valley Conference.
But – and, yes, I know this is one of those subjective perspectives – the Gaels look and play like a team that belongs in the NCAA Tournament, even if it’s just as a 10 or 11 seed.
And I think the bulk of the tourney committee will agree with me.
Usually need relates to holes in your underwear and socks.
One is that the stores offer a large variety of clothes to choose from.
This is his debut work for the label after signing up to be the face of Bench three months ago.