The Pac-12’s joyride through the NCAA Tournament runs into the Big Gonzaga on Tuesday.
The Big Gonzaga is a conference of one. Only teams that shoot 55 percent for the season and win all 29 of their games need apply.
Its champion plays USC in the West Regional final on Tuesday.
There are those who think the Trojans have the elusive code, that their quicksand, sideline-to-sideline zone defense will deprive the Zags of time and space. Maybe so, especially if USC’s shooters keep shooting. But no other theory has survived a night with the Big Gonzaga.
“I was in the Big East (with Marquette) and Creighton was the best transition team I’d seen,” said Stan Johnson, the Loyola Marymount coach. “And you saw what happened.”
Gonzaga shot 59 percent and beat Creighton, 83-65, on Sunday.
Lorenzo Romar dealt with Gonzaga during two coaching terms at Pepperdine, where he is now, and another at Washington. He isn’t predicting a winner.
“I saw (USC freshman) Evan Mobley in high school and he was such a beast,” Romar said. “I told someone that ESPN will be doing a ‘30 for 30’ on him someday.”
But Romar is telling Trojans fans to hold their bets.
“In Gonzaga’s starting lineup, every guy can make plays,” Romar said. “They all can shoot. They all can pass. They all are very smart. They all are so versatile. They have enough shooters to deal with the zone. But at the same time, they’ll attack it the right way, from inside out.
“They have several guys who they can put into the middle of that zone and they’ll score from there. But the most underappreciated thing they do is score in transition. If you make one mistake and you’re not organized, someone has an open shot. And you have to have vision because they back-cut so well. (Joel) Ayayi is one of the best back-cutters in the country. (Center) Drew Timme is running to the rim on every break. You can’t let up at any point.”
Gonzaga is within a week of becoming the first team to finish undefeated and win a national title since Indiana in 1976. Doing so would make the Zags the best post-Alcindor team in college basketball history.
No team ever has won 26 consecutive games by double-digits as Gonzaga has. The Zags are first nationally in scoring (91.8 points), field goal percentage, and scoring margin (23.3).
True, a Dec. 5 meeting with Baylor was canceled. But Gonzaga beat West Virginia, Iowa (by 11), and Virginia (by 23) before it went back to terrorizing its neighborhood, the West Coast Conference. The Zags’ average win in league games was 91-69.
“You can’t make those live-ball turnovers, the ones I call turnovers-for-touchdowns,” Johnson said. “Their spurts are dangerous. You have to make sure you don’t run out of timeouts. But if they go on a 7-0 run, you gotta call one.”
The WCC is not a pickup league. Brigham Young was a No. 6 seed and is the last team to beat the Zags, 13 months ago. San Francisco beat Virginia. St. Mary’s beat Colorado State. Pepperdine took UCLA to triple-overtime. And Gonzaga, a quarter-century ago, was just a face in their crowd. It won the WCC’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament only once before 1999.
Gonzaga’s journey from there to here, and to becoming college basketball’s most righteous constant, is unparalleled. But this is a different chapter. No team should be this ruthless, with all the leveling effects of the transfers and one-and-dones.
“One of the toughest jobs with a team like this is to get your guys to play hard every game,” Romar said. “They’ve had slow starts at times. Sometimes they’re a little bored and that’s when they don’t guard so well. And they don’t have great rim protection. But the three perimeter guys – (Jalen) Suggs, (Andrew) Nembhard and Ayayi – are very tough defensively.
“They’re just a machine. You sit there and say, what in the world happened? We were down four and now we’re down 24. They kill you slowly sometimes, too. Nothing spectacular, not highlight-reel stuff. They just methodically pull away.”
Johnson sees some hope for USC if the zone actually makes the Zags stop and think. “If you force them to stand around you’ve got a better chance,” Johnson said. “We tried to play through the post against them, and USC can do that.
“But then you run into their IQ, and that’s harder to prepare for than the stuff they actually run. If you take Option 1 away, they can handle it. Whoever controls tempo can win. That’s easier said than done.”
In the Big Gonzaga, it hasn’t been done yet.
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