Gonzaga Basketball is the latest team to get a No. 1 national ranking. Here’s why the No. “1” will be associated with something else for the Bulldogs.
It’s been a very good Holiday season overall for fans of Gonzaga Basketball. After exacting some revenge against North Carolina in front of a packed home crowd, the Bulldogs dropped 112 points in a win over Eastern Washington to move to 13-1 on the season. That gave the program another No. 1 national ranking to celebrate. And while the top spot has been a revolving door so far this season, it could be staying with the WCC powerhouse for a while.
And that has huge consequences. Because barring unforeseen massive upsets, Gonzaga is well on its way to 30+ wins and another No. 1 seed in the West Region of the 2020 NCAA Tournament. It seems crazy to make that prediction considering the many upsets that have already happened this NCAA Basketball season. And while knowing that there nothing is guaranteed with a bunch of 18-22-year-olds deciding the games, the Bulldogs are the closest thing to a “sure bet”.
That’s because while Gonzaga faces an improved overall WCC slate of games, history tells us it’ll be more of the same results. Excluding Saint Mary’s and BYU, the Bulldogs haven’t lost a game to the other seven WCC opponents since falling at San Diego on February 22 in 2014. That’s going on six full seasons without a “bad” loss, as both the Gaels and Cougars don’t hurt Gonzaga’s resume if they win.
So let’s assume that Gonzaga splits the matchups to both BYU and Saint Mary’s (both are projected in the NCAA Tournament as of now), and beat everyone else and wins the WCC Tournament. That would give the team a 31-4 total record with wins over Oregon, UNC, Arizona, Washington and a couple over BYU and/or Saint Mary’s. And most importantly “0” bad losses overall. Considering how much carnage has happened throughout the sport, few, if any teams can compare to that.
That puts the Bulldogs in a great position for that 1 seed out west once again. There are going to be the usual contenders such as Duke, Louisville, Kansas, Villanova and Michigan fighting for other bids but the depth in both the ACC and Big Ten will prevent conferences from likely having multiple teams on the top seed line. Far as the West Region goes, only two other programs have a remote shot of competing with Gonzaga.
One is a fellow mid-major in San Diego State, who is currently unbeaten overall at 12-0 (2-0). If they go unbeaten or even have just one loss themselves, then they should get the nod over Gonzaga in my opinion. But the Aztecs don’t have the same history of running through the Mountain West in the same way Gonzaga does with the WCC. In fact, they need a game-winning three-pointer just to get by San Jose State, arguably the worst team in the conference, earlier this season.
The other is Oregon, who does have wins over Houston, Memphis, Michigan and Seton Hall. However, those wins may not look as strong going forward. The Wolverines just lost their leading scorer Isaiah Livers for a while with a groin injury, while Seton Hall is without their two leading scorers at the moment. And Memphis won’t have James Wiseman after he decided to go pro. The Ducks do have the advantage of being in the Pac-12 compared to the WCC but recent defeats by Arizona, Washington and Arizona State have once again hurt the league’s standing.
And besides, Oregon needs to have a clear and obvious better resume considering that they lost to Gonzaga in the Battle 4 Atlantis already. Head-to-head may not have a decisive impact during consideration but t would be hard to dethrone a 30+ win team without any bad losses as the Bulldogs are likely to have.
There are 20 more games to be played and of course, anything can happen. But there’s a long stretch of history that says Gonzaga won’t be falling to the “upset” phenomenon the rest of the way. And as long as the Bulldogs can avoid that, their fans should start booking tickets to the first weekend slate of games.