LAS VEGAS — Gonzaga entered the season ranked No. 21 in the AP poll and was considered a quality team, but if it had Final Four ambitions, well, that might have been too high.
The thought was: If top point guard Ryan Nembhard left a team that had its worst season in more than a decade, how good could it be now? The program's nine losses last season were the most in 14 years, and it failed to reach the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2015.
Gonzaga would likely receive Tier II status. Good, but not too good.
Everyone who thought so, including me, because Back in October, I ranked Gonzaga No. 21. – misinterpreted the situation. Badly.
The Zags are still good. Damn good.
Mark Few's program picked up its best win of the season with a 95-85 victory over No. 8 Alabama on Monday night in the first round of the Players Era Championship. The game between two dynamic attacking teams was expected to be a race to 90 points, and that's exactly what happened.
Incidentally, four of Gonzaga's six wins to date have come in power conference competition. That pushed Gonzaga up from No. 21 three weeks ago to No. 12 in Monday's poll update.
The Bulldogs dropped a cool 1.23 points per possession on Alabama's head, leading by 21 points apiece from a pair of guys whose combined ages were 48 years old. 23-year-old Graham Ike and 25-year-old Tyon Grant-Foster upped the tempo and crushed Alabama's superior front court. Another Gonzaga player, Brayden Huff, scored 18 points, and Steele Venters added 12 points off the bench.
“Our starting 3/4/5 scored 16 points and they scored 60,” a disgruntled Nate Oates said after the game. Oates has led an Alabama program that has been ranked among the top 10 programs in the sport for the past five years. He knows what competition looks like in the outback.
Looks like Gonzaga.
“The bigs, they're physical, every time we made a run they had an answer,” Oats said. “I gave away 25 second chance points, it’s so hard to win.”
The scary thing about Gonzaga: He scored 95 points and was just 6 of 22 from 3. Mark Few's team is old, proud, and certainly looks a lot tougher than some of his previous teams, which had a sheen of finesse.
Oates tried to warn his players about the physical aspects, but sometimes you can't learn without first-hand experience.
“We showed them video of Tyon Grant-Foster just destroying people on the glass and the boards kept coming,” Oates said.
Grant-Foster, 25, made his mark in key moments in the second half. In total, more than 50% of Gonzaga's points came in the paint.
“This game is all about sets, possessions, bad plays and things like that, and that’s where Ty really shines,” Few said.
Labaron Philo Jr. could prove to be an unstoppable talent for the Tide. He is one of the best defenders in the country and perhaps the most talented. Philo finished with 29 points in 30 minutes – because he failed to score in the last 10.
“He prepared us very well,” Few said.
Gonzaga completely shut down Philo, throwing a mixture of defenses at him to deny Alabama options.
“Going forward we knew what we needed to do and that’s when we put the locks in,” Grant-Foster said.
I love this quote. This team has real excitement.
Taking a closer look at Gonzaga, it's clear that this Bulldogs roster has enough variety to rival just about anyone in college basketball. Freshman guard Mario St. Supery scored all 10 of his points from the free throw line against the Tide, but he's the most talented of the group.
“He plays with a lot of spirit and it’s contagious,” Few said. “We’re still handling things with crazy jump passes.”
With a 6-0 record and a game against a still-growing Maryland team heading into Tuesday night, Gonzaga is in good position to play for the championship on Wednesday.
However, his goals appear to be much larger. And Few is making it clear that he believes this team can be on par with some of its best players.
“Our wings are bigger than ever and we're a big team, much like that '17 team,” Few said.
He's talking about the 2016-17 team, which included Nigel Williams-Goss, Przemek Karnowski and Jonathan Williams, that went 37-2 but lost the NCAA Tournament championship. Few also mentioned the 2020-21 team, the one that included Drew Timme, Corey Kispert and Jalen Suggs, that went 31-1 but also had to settle for second place.
These were the two best teams in Gonzaga history.
“The teams are blue-blood caliber,” Few said.
This one hasn't made it into that group yet, but it's fair to say that just about everyone has sniffed Gonzaga's ceiling this year. There are few bona fide teams that have a chance to come out of this week with a strong statement and a better record as one of the very best teams in college basketball.
