Gonzaga is still undefeated. Zags are no longer unpublished.
However many of his critics would point to this as evidence that Mark Few’s team isn’t all that great – despite a 26–0 record, the Nets and KenPom rank No. 1 in computer ratings and now both regular-season and tournament championships in the West. Coast Conference – Gonzaga’s 88-78 win over BYU late Tuesday was its best possible result.
The Zags made it through 25 games of the regular season without a loss. On Monday, they cruised through the semifinals of the West Coast Conference tournament. Only once did they fail to win by a double-digit margin. Their streak of consecutive double-figure victories reached 22 games, with no team having managed major-college basketball of the last 60 years.
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They expected a more difficult exam from BYU in the WCC finals, which they had faced in a while. He certainly did not expect to surrender 53 points in the first half and score more than a dozen points in the week, and still by nine midway through the second half.
The Zags didn’t panic, though. they escaped.
All-America wing Corey Kispert told ESPN, “Coach Something hugged and congratulated me and said, ‘This is the best thing that can happen to us.” “The resilience that young people have shown. Just the competitive fire we showed in the second half is that stuff you can’t teach. We could easily roll over and dump-truck those people for the rest of the game. But this is the real mark of a champion that you can come back from going down so much. “
The Zags remained perfect as All-America freshman Jalan Suggs seized the moment, and has exactly the kind of ingredient he would need to become a champion: an NBA-level talent ready and one of the biggest moments and disarmament Able to take the pressure of whatever the purpose of defense is in his direction.
The Suggs played a little precariously in the opening minutes of the second half, trying to get Gonzaga out of their deficit with an early 3-point effort. Then he became serious.
At the 7:56 mark there was a crisp 3-pointer that reduced the deficit to 68–64. He grabbed a rebound and gave a long pass for a backpart to Joel Ayay for a backup that put the Zags in front for the first time since the early stages of the game. He blocked a shot with six minutes remaining. When BYU pushed back into a tie, Sugg clapped his right hand vigorously and leaped over the defenders of the two Cougars to make it 75-73 for four minutes. Gonzaga held the lead to that end, and it grew as the Suggs made consecutive 3-pointers. He finished with 23 points and five assists.
Ultimately, despite battling for so long in such a tight game, Gonzaga stretched his lead to double digits and increased his record number of such victories to 23 games.
“It’s a great thing,” he told reporters after the win, and it puts us in some incredible company. “It’s a height of an accomplishment, a heck of an accomplishment in return for these atmospheres that are so stale and sterile and lend themselves to defensive efforts, quite frankly as we were in the first half, quite frankly . “
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Gonzaga would become only the fifth team to enter the NCAA tournament with a perfect record as it finished a successful 32-0 at Indiana State in 1976, Indiana State in 1979, UNLV in 1991, Wichita State in 2014 and Kentucky in 2015. Has joined
“It’s hard not to think about it,” said Sugg. “But I think all of us have done a good job of keeping the focus. But at some point, you acknowledge how special it is for a team and how special we are on the ride right now. I think the best thing about it is that we are all excited for it, we are all happy to keep it going, but we are ready to get back to work and ready for Indy. “
What they all have in common since Hoziers: They fell short of winning it all.
UNLV lost to Duke in final four Specially Because Rebels was rarely challenged, he did not have the tools to react when he refused to react. Everyone was, at some point, dissolved against the relentless pressure of the Vegas defense. The Duke continued to advance and pressurized the rebels into play.
Given that Gonzaga had won his WCC games by an average margin of 24 points and had blown high-key powers such as Kansas (12), Iowa (11) and Virginia (23), it seemed to the Zags. Make it into March Madness with a lack of awareness of how to deal with adversity. Coaches can organize technical situations in practice – five on the clock, 2:30 down, dig themselves out of it – but they cannot build up the tension inherent in tight play.
A team must live to understand it. Now there is Gonzaga. This is not good news for the rest of college basketball.
Zags is not just an accurate record. They are now fully ready to come forward.
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