Gonzaga Basketball: 5 takeaways from Bulldogs tough 3-game road trip

5. Gonzaga still alive for a 1 seed in March

It’s become almost automatic that the Bulldogs end up as a 1 seed in the West Region of the NCAA Tournament. But this year it’s anything but automatic, as the team suffered three losses in non-conference play and has to deal with being in a WCC that doesn’t have many Quad 1 opportunities remaining.

At the moment, Gonzaga has a top 10 NET ranking, with a 3-3 record against Quad 1 opponents and 1-0 versus Quad 2. The problem is that it compares already with teams such as Purdue, Houston, Tennessee, Alabama, UConn, and Kansas. And that’s before the next month of more opportunities they’ll have compared to the Bulldogs for the rest of the regular season.

Another issue is that there are two Pac-12 programs with resumes just as good as Gonzaga in UCLA and Arizona. If someone from the coast is going to get a 1 seed, the Bruins will be favored and if the Wildcats don’t lose any other bad games, have a better shot than the Bulldogs.

But, there’s still an outside chance that Gonzaga Basketball finds its way there in the end if they a) run the table in the WCC and pick up three Quad 1 wins over Saint Mary’s (including in WCC Tournament), while the others lose several games, which is doable in the power conferences.

None of that would be in consideration had the Bulldogs lost any of those three games in the past two weeks. If they do end up with a 1 seed in March, it’ll be because they came back all three times.