What does that stats say?
Before I go any further, allow me to highlight what you’re all thinking: Where’s the National title? Notice I’m not calling Gonzaga a Blue Blood, merely presenting the idea that one day it shouldn’t be that far-fetched of an idea to slap that title on them.
Of course not being the last man standing in a 353 battle royal makes it pretty absurd to dub them among the college basketball elite…but what about if or when it does happen?
A national title for Mark Few and his Bulldogs would go along with quite the laundry list of accolades the program has already accrued: 18 Conference regular season titles, 16 Conference tournament titles and 20 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances.
During those 20 trips to the Dance, Gonzaga has made the Round of 32 17 times, Elite three times and the Final Four and Championship games once respectively.
KenPom shows Gonzaga to be one of the most effective teams on a year-to-year basis. Their eFG% tells a tale of a team that is almost never off their game. Since 1999, the Zags have ranked in the top-55 in the country in that respective stat-line. If defense is your thing, during the Mark Few era, Gonzaga has also been ranked somewhere in the top-85 in eFG% defense with three exceptions being 2003 (113), 2005 (130) and 2006 (156.) Should we dig for any similarities, these three years were three of the worst when it came to the Zags defending the long ball and ranking anywhere in the high 100’s to mid-200’s.