Dominant college basketball teams are not built overnight, even in a year when it seems like the best programs fast-tracked success by cornering five-star freshmen talent. It's easy to forget that John Calipari had to coach the 2012 Dominican Republic national team to earn the trust of Karl-Anthony Towns or that Mike Krzyzewski first identified Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones for Team USA's youth squads as 15-year-olds.
It’s now or never for Gonzaga
If the ‘Zags are ever going to advance past the Sweet 16 and reach the Final Four, this is their best chance.
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
It takes years to build relationships that, with a little bit of luck, might one day lead a program to the Sweet 16 or maybe the Final Four. Even by those standards, Mark Few and Gonzaga have taken the scenic route when it comes to constructing one of the deepest and most talented teams in the country.
The foundation for what could go down as the best team of Few's dominant run at Gonzaga took almost five years and 5,000 miles to bring together. It started in a tiny Ontario gym in 2010 when Kevin Pangos chose the 'Zags over a host of other quality programs. It was completed when a long courtship with Domantas Sabonis finally landed the freshman forward in Spokane last summer.
There was plenty of luck along the way, too. Gonzaga needed Kentucky to land McDonald's All-Americans like Julius Randle and Marcus Lee to push Kyle Wiltjer out of Lexington. It needed to pry 7', 300-pound center Przemek Karnowski out of Poland and then get him into game shape. It needed Byron Wesley's belief in USC to collapse. It also needed to keep all of these individual pieces healthy and get them to buy into a selfless team attitude.
Few has built great teams before only to see them lose too soon in the NCAA Tournament. In 2013, the 'Zags grabbed a No. 1 seed by entering the tournament at 32-2 behind first-round NBA Draft pick Kelly Olynyk, only to get upset by Wichita State during the Shockers' improbable run to the Final Four. In 2006, a team led by Adam Morrison opened up a 17-point lead in the first half against UCLA in the Sweet 16. As you might remember, the game would eventually end in tears.
Even if the postseason track record doesn’t back it up, few programs are more consistent than Gonzaga. Few has made the NCAA Tournament 15 straight seasons in what’s usually considered a one-bid league. Gonzaga is one of two programs (Kansas) to reach the round of 32 for the last six years. It’s also never advanced beyond the Sweet 16 under Few, and hasn’t even been this far since 2009.
It’s easy to make the case that this is the best team Few has ever had, though. Gonzaga absolutely torched the regular season, beating opponents by an average of 18 points per game, second-best in the country next to (who else?) Kentucky. Its only non-conference loss came at Arizona, in overtime, by one possession. It lost only one other time during the season, to a desperate BYU team playing for its tournament life. Otherwise, Gonzaga has essentially been blowing out anyone on the schedule.
Sure, that schedule wasn’t particularly difficult. Such is life in the WCC. But if you go beyond the RPI and actually look at the skill set of the roster, it becomes abundantly clear that this is a golden opportunity for Few and the ‘Zags. Teams with this type of size, shooting, heady guard play and cohesion don’t come around often.
There isn’t a player in the NCAA Tournament one program has invested more in than Pangos, Gonzaga’s four-year starter at point guard. He scored 33 points and made nine three-pointers in his second-ever college game back in November 2011, and he’s been steering the ‘Zags ever since.
This season, Pangos finished with the fourth-highest individual offensive rating in the country, per KenPom. He posted an incredible true shooting percentage of 64.2, which finished top 30 in the country. He posted the lowest turnover rate of his career and the highest assist rate. He also made 45 percent of the five three-pointers he attempted per game.
Next to Pangos is Gary Bell Jr., a 6’2 senior two guard who gives the ‘Zags defensive intensity and, of course, some extra outside shooting. Bell is a superstar role player in the scope of Gonzaga’s season, often defending the opposition’s best perimeter scorer and shooting nearly 38 percent on threes. The backcourt is a major reason why Gonzaga led the country in effective field goal percentage.
Then there’s Kyle Wiltjer, the man who pushed this team over the top. Wiljter’s story is widely known at this point: He was SEC Sixth Man of the Year on Kentucky in 2013, but decided he needed to find a new place to play with Calipari adding a record six McDonald’s All-Americans for the next season. He chose Gonzaga in part because of the way the program helped turn Olynyk into a first-round pick, and the year off gave him the necessary time to work on his body.
This season, as a redshirt junior, Wiltjer has been among the most productive players in the country. He’s ranked No. 7 in KenPom’s player of the year predictor, No. 9 in individual offensive rating and top 25 in both effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage.
At a more basic level, Wiltjer is the type of player who changes the entire complexion of the court. He’s a pure stretch four who averaged more than 17 points per game this year by shooting 48 percent on three-pointers. He’ll never be a tough rebounder or physical defender, but he’s arguably the nation’s biggest offensive weapon.
Whatever flaws Wiltjer has as a player became less of an issue for Gonzaga this season when Sabonis came aboard. He's almost a picture-perfect complement, providing the rebounding and defense and athleticism to the front court that Wiljter lacks. Sabonis has come on strong of late, scoring 15 points in the WCC Tournament title game in a win over BYU and dropping 18 points and nine rebounds in Gonzaga's Round of 32 win over Iowa. He's only getting better.
Finally, there’s Karnowski, perhaps the least publicized of Gonzaga’s stars, but every bit as essential as the rest of them. Karnowski is a mountain of a man whose soft hands are reinforced by a shooting clip north of 61 percent this season. When Karnowski gets position, he’s usually scoring, and it’s difficult to stop a man his size from doing what he wants.
The pieces have been in place at Gonzaga for a long time, and those paying attention could see this coming even before the season started. Gonzaga has the easiest path to the Elite Eight with a game against the lowest-seeded team left in the field, UCLA. Then it faces the winner of Duke-Utah. If the Blue Devils are the opponent, it could be one of the best games of the season.
With Few in charge and Pangos on the floor, this Gonzaga team might not look all that different from the ones that have failed in the past. It has more size than any of those previous teams, though, and it shoots the ball better, too.
This chance has been a long time coming for Gonzaga. Now the Bulldogs have to take advantage of it.
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