A reputation is a hard thing to shake, especially when it comes to the imaginary hierarchy of men’s college basketball. A program like Indiana can go nearly two decades without making an Elite Eight appearance but still retain a thin veil of prestige with the national media and rabid local fans. Gonzaga represents the other end of the spectrum. No matter what the Zags accomplish, there will always be skeptics that discount their success because of their tiny conference and lack of triumph before the ‘00s.
Why Gonzaga is good enough to be an undefeated national champion
Gonzaga isn’t just playing for a national championship. It’s trying to be one of the best college basketball teams ever.
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.
There was a time when it was fair to question Gonzaga’s viability against against the elite tier of the sport. Though head coach Mark Few has led the program to the NCAA tournament in 21 straight seasons, the Zags ended seven of eight seasons without advancing past the first weekend of March Madness between 2007-2014. Ever since, Gonzaga has consistently made deep tournament runs as often as any school in America.
The Zags have advanced to at least the Sweet 16 in the last five NCAA tournaments. That includes an appearance in the national championship game in 2017 when they pushed North Carolina to the brink and came out on the wrong end of some spotty officiating. If the Zags don’t look like a blue blood in size and scale, they certainly perform like one in March.
Gonzaga enters this year’s field with a No. 1 seed next to its name for the fourth time in the last eight tournaments. The Zags are the No. 1 overall seed for the first time, but that doesn’t quite incapsulate their true power: with an undefeated record at 26-0, Gonzaga can do more than just win a national championship by running through the bracket. This can also go down as perhaps the greatest college basketball team of the modern era.
No college basketball team has finished a season as undefeated national champions since Indiana in 1976. Even teams with multiple future NBA All-Stars like John Calipari’s 2015 Kentucky squad have come up short. While anything can happen in March in a single-elimination tournament, make no mistake: this Gonzaga team is worthy hyperbole and historical comparison.
If anyone beats the Zags this year, it’s going to count as a major upset. This is how Gonzaga built a historically great college basketball team.
Gonzaga recruits at an elite level now
Few has had success in multiple avenues when he comes to roster construction. For years, Gonzaga was known for its international pipeline to Spokane, bringing over Kelly Olynyk (Canada), Domantas Sabonis (Lithuania), Przemek Karnowski (Poland), Rui Hachimura (Japan), Killian Tillie (France), and French guard Joel Ayay on this year’s team just to name a few. Gonzaga has also found success with transfers, with Nigel Williams-Goss, Brandon Clarke, Jonathan Williams, and Florida transfer Andrew Nembhard on this year’s team serving as the greatest examples.
Gonzaga didn’t need five-star recruits to become a great program. Now that they’re getting them, it’s pushed the Zags over the top.
Zach Collins was Gonzaga’s first McDonald’s All-American and one-and-done as a freshman on the 2017 team that went to the title game. Few leveled up this year by adding Jalen Suggs, a Minnesota native who was the No. 6 overall recruit in his class. From the very first game, it was apparent that Suggs was going to be a top-five NBA draft pick after one year of school. Gonzaga has had a lot of great players over the years, but they’ve never had someone as dynamic as Suggs with the ball in his hands.
Few appears poised to land an even better recruit next year: Suggs’ former high school teammate, 7-footer Chet Holmgren. Holmgren is currently rated as the No. 1 player in his class by ESPN.
Gonzaga is excellent at developing their players over time
The foundation of Gonzaga’s team remains veteran players who have been groomed to fit the system over multiple years. Corey Kispert was ranked as the No. 106 overall recruit the class of 2017. Four years later, Kispert is arguably the most dangerous shooter in the country, maybe the best senior in the sport, and is now projected as a possible NBA lottery pick.
The case can be made that Drew Timme was both an elite recruit and a player who developed well at Gonzaga. A consensus top-50 prospect out of Texas, Timme spent his freshman year backing up Filip Petrusev before emerging as one of the best centers in the country this year as a sophomore. Ayayi’s development into a double-figure scorer as a redshirt junior has also been key, giving the Zags another ball handler who can penetrate, hit an open three, and defend multiple positions at 6’5.
Gonzaga runs a pro-style offense that puts everyone in position to succeed
The Zags don’t just have the most efficient offense in the country — they have the second most efficient offense since KenPom started tracking stats in 2002. The Zags are scoring 126.8 points per 100 possessions, which is more than 2.5 points ahead of the second best offense (Iowa) in America. Gonzaga’s halfcourt offense ranks in the 100th percentile of the country in points per possession, and the transition offense ranks in the 97th percentile.
Few’s offense thrives off spacing and ball movement to open up easy paths to the basket. Suggs, Nembhard, and Ayayi all have dribble-pass-shoot skill sets and often share the floor together. Kispert is an knockdown spot-up threat, and Timme is incredible as a roll man (92 percentile nationally) and on post-ups (98th percentile).
The Zags don’t shoot a ton of threes — only 23.8 percent of their field goal attempts come from beyond the arc, which ranks No. 322 in DI — only because they typically generate wide open looks from two. The Zags’ 64 percent mark on two-pointers is the best in the country.
By the way, Gonzaga is posting the tenth-best defensive efficiency in the country entering the tournament, too.
Gonzaga is battle-tested in the non-conference schedule
The Wes Coast Conference is better than its often given credit for — it was the No. 9 conference out of 32 in DI this season, per KenPom — but Gonzaga is still head-and-shoulders above the rest of the league. If the Zags aren’t challenged much in their conference slate, they’ve made a habit out of scheduling marquee games to open the season.
This year, Gonzaga beat four teams that were ranked in the top-16 of the AP Poll when they faced them. They drubbed Kansas, West Virginia, Iowa, and Virginia through November and December with average margin of victory across was the four games of 12.75 points. Only the Mountaineers came within single-digits. Gonzaga was supposed to be play fellow No. 1 seed Baylor during the non-conference slate too, but the game was canceled due to Covid protocol.
The Zags also beat BYU three times during the regular season, and that’s an impressive accomplishment, as well: the Cougars ended the year No. 24 in the KenPom efficiency rankings and earned a No. 6 seed to March Madness.
Gonzaga checks every box as one of the great college basketball teams we’ve seen in the modern era
The Zags one of the best coaches in the country in Mark Few. They have perhaps the most effective offense of the last two decades paired with a defense that’s performed at a top-10 level this season. They have marquee wins on neutral floors against multiple top-4 seeds in the tournament. They have three potential All-Americans in the starting lineup, with one player projected as a top-five NBA draft pick and another projected to go in the lottery.
Gonzaga has won every game it has played. The only thing missing is a national championship.
The 2015 Kentucky squad showed us that even historically good teams can come up just short of cutting down the nets. For now, that’s the only thing separating Gonzaga from their place among the best teams we’ve seen do it in recent memory.
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