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Gonzaga responds to selection committee's snub with big road win
Hours after the NCAA tournament selection committee made it clear that Gonzaga’s No. 1 seed could be in jeopardy if loses even once before Selection Sunday, the Zags delivered a message of their own.
They have no intention of dropping a game and leaving even a shred of doubt.
Gonzaga survived its toughest test of West Coast Conference play Saturday night, cruising to a comfortable 74-64 road win at No. 20 Saint Mary’s. The Zags surged to a 15-point lead late in the first half and never allowed the Gaels to pull any closer than within five points the rest of the game.
Dispatching of Saint Mary’s for the second time this season leaves Gonzaga (26-0, 14-0) with a clear path to its first-ever undefeated regular season. The remaining schedule features visits from San Francisco, Pacific and BYU and a lone road game against a rebuilding San Diego team that the Zags routed by 36 earlier this season in Spokane.
A Gonzaga loss in any of those games would be one of this season’s biggest upsets. College basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy gives the Zags at least a 98 percent chance of winning each of those games.
Gonzaga certainly won’t lack for motivation after the NCAA tournament committee’s Selection Saturday snub. The committee slotted the Zags behind Villanova, Kansas and Baylor in its in-season rankings even though Gonzaga boasts a solid collection of wins to validate its blemish-free record.
In addition to sweeping Saint Mary’s and carving up the rest of the WCC, Gonzaga owns non-conference victories over Arizona, Florida, Iowa State and Tennessee. The Wildcats and Gators were the selection committee’s ninth and 11th-ranked teams respectively, while the Cyclones and Vols are both NCAA tournament contenders.
What being the fourth of four No. 1 seeds suggests is that Gonzaga’s place on the top line isn’t as secure as previously thought. A single loss, and the Zags could be in jeopardy of being overtaken by an outright ACC champion or one of three Pac-12 teams vying for that league’s crown.
Selection committee chairman Mark Hollis did insist that a sizeable gap currently exists between the four No. 1 seeds and the rest of the field, but Gonzaga can’t afford to give the committee any excuse. A No. 1 seed in the geographically friendly West Region is too important to a Zags program gunning for its first Final Four appearances after years of near misses.
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Saturday night’s win in a rabid road environment at Saint Mary’s offered further evidence that this year’s Gonzaga team has as good a chance at a Final Four as any previous edition. The Zags are deeper, more balanced and better defensively than they’ve been at any other juncture in Mark Few’s tenure.
In the first half against Saint Mary’s, Gonzaga played without foul-plagued leading scorer Nigel Williams-Goss for the final 10 minutes and hobbled center Przemek Karnowski for the last five. That hardly mattered as Silas Melson hit huge shots off the bench and Missouri transfer Johnathan Williams and McDonald’s All-American center Zach Collins anchored the frontcourt, helping Gonzaga build a nine-point halftime lead.
Saint Mary’s tried to mount a flurry of attacks in the second half, but the Gaels’ typically efficient offense never got into a rhythm against a sturdy Gonzaga defense. They shot 40.7 percent from the field and 4 of 15 from behind the arc. Junior center Jock Landale scored 24 points, but none of his teammates managed more than seven.
Karnowski and Williams led Gonzaga with 19 and 17 points respectively. Gonzaga’s guard play wasn’t up to its usual standards at times, but Williams-Goss and Melson sank the two biggest shots of the game, a runner and a corner 3-pointer that extended the lead back to 10 after the Gaels briefly pulled within 49-44.
Having passed its biggest tests, Gonzaga is now poised to become only the sixth Division I college basketball team since 1976 to complete the regular season without a loss. The only teams to previously accomplish that feat are Indiana State (1979), UNLV (1991), Saint Joseph’s (2004), Wichita State (2014) and Kentucky 2015).
Wayward focus might have been the only thing that could have prevented Gonzaga from reeling off four more wins, but that shouldn’t be an issue the next couple weeks after the NCAA tournament committee’s snub.
Now the Zags again have something to prove and it showed in their performance.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
