NCAA Basketball: Ranking of 20 best college teams from last 20 years
By Joey Loose
19. 2017 Gonzaga
Nearly twenty years after their first Cinderella run, Gonzaga had long since become a household name, but it was the 2017 team that really broke through on the national scale. It was the second time the Bulldogs earned a top seed in the NCAA Tournament (they’ve now done it in three straight Tourneys), and the first time Gonzaga advanced to the Final Four.
Led by Nigel Williams-Goss (16.8 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 4.7 apg), a roster with five future NBA players finished the year with 37 wins, including in each of their first 29 games. Przemek Karnowski (12.2 ppg, 5.8 rpg) was a force in the paint, while Jordan Mathews, Johnathan Williams, and Zach Collins all averaged double-digit points as well. Additionally, future stars Killian Tillie and Rui Hachimura were freshmen on the team.
The Bulldogs’ only two losses came to BYU in late February and to North Carolina in the national championship game. Five years later, Gonzaga is one of the best programs in the nation, long since considered a Cinderella mid-major team, and it was this season’s run that helped take the program to that next step. Sure, the Bulldogs couldn’t finish the job, but this was the beginning of their current era of dominance in college basketball, an era that will one day lead to Mark Few and company cutting down the nets.