Another Gonzaga Discussion

jontaejones said:

FSU has the horses, but it's so rare that a program comes out of nowhere to win like that. Usually there's some buildup.

UVA, I just think this is not their year. Next year, they will be tremendous.

Oregon I should have thrown in. I didn't because they were University of Oregon basketball, but then I remembered I picked them to win the PAC-12 over two teams I threw on that list.

Wisconsin has all of the pedigree but I just don't feel it from this team. I could be convinced to throw them and UVA in, but not FSU...

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I only included a team like FSU because I wouldn't be surprised if they won it all. A team that has that type of talent IMO should be under consideration, because if they are playing well, they are tough to beat. But they're also a team that could lose before the 2nd weekend. Their results this year have been a lot of great, with some puzzling losses(Temple, and Ga. Tech/Syracuse, especially with MOV)

BPI has Gonzaga at 10th place with an SOS of 124th.

The Future Modal said:

UW or Wazzu? Can't they do better than that?

Gonzaga basketball is a lot like Boise State football - good enough to play with the best, but can't get enough blue bloods to travel to the home crib.

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It's at least something with minimal travel this part of the year.

Cave_Johnson said:

Brought this up before but Gonzaga refuses to play WSU now. Same with the two other local schools EWU and Idaho. Granted they would destroy all 3 but they haven't replaced those three teams with anybody decent.

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I was just thinking that those two schools were close enough that travel shouldn't be an issue. An the competition level is raised a bunch from almost everyone in their conference.

Great Dayne said:

BPI has Gonzaga at 10th place with an SOS of 124th.

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BPI is a complete joke. Gonzaga is much better than the 10th best team in the country

dcZONAfan said:

BPI is a complete joke. Gonzaga is much better than the 10th best team in the country

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I agree. I honestly think the BPI is the worst metric out there. And I'm talking in terms of selection/seeding. Baylor would be a 4 seed according to the BPI. That's absurd. Along with a bunch of other stuff.

dcZONAfan said:

BPI is a complete joke. Gonzaga is much better than the 10th best team in the country

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Just realized they have AZ at 18. My god truly awful.

dcZONAfan said:

BPI is a complete joke. Gonzaga is much better than the 10th best team in the country

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Don't anger the ESPN nerds.

ericd7633 said:

I agree. I honestly think the BPI is the worst metric out there. And I'm talking in terms of selection/seeding. Baylor would be a 4 seed according to the BPI. That's absurd. Along with a bunch of other stuff.

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It's been that way since they introduced it. It might be worse than QBR, and that's saying something

Gonzaga at least challenged themselves in non-conference play. They can't help their conference.

There's a lot of teams in there that have had success before but suck now.

Cave_Johnson said:

Brought this up before but Gonzaga refuses to play WSU now. Same with the two other local schools EWU and Idaho. Granted they would destroy all 3 but they haven't replaced those three teams with anybody decent.

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I'm not sure if it's refused. I don't know about Eastern and Idaho. With UW, they didn't play for awhile but UW was full of retards in their athletic department. With us just recently it was because neither team could find a sponsor for the proposed games in Seattle or Spokane. We aren't giving up the money for a home game to go to Seattle or Spokane for a neutral site game, which was the agreement. It's a scheduling issue, not because either team refuses. They don't want to play only on the Pac 12 networks and we aren't playing a game at midnight eastern on ESPN2. They have leverage and we are at the wims of our shitty conference commissioner.

I don't know what to say about the Zags. I've been a big critic of them in the past. I think GU is a great program and Few is a great coach. I understand that other teams have gotten to the FF in the past with weak SOSs (especially CSOS). I'm not saying that they can't make it to the FF or win it (especially in a win or go home setting), but I just don't think it helps them to play against WCC competition for the final two months of the season every year.

I just can't get past some pretty blatant facts.

Over the past 18 years (not counting this season) GU has:

won 500 games at 27 wins per season
a better than .800 winning % overall
a better than .890 winning % in conference
never finished worse than 2nd in their conference
won their conference every year except twice
2 EE and 7 S16
is 28-51 against top 25 teams.

Doesn't it mean something when a team wins almost 30 games every year, wins their conference every year, and does so bad against ranked teams and has only ever made it to 2 EEs in almost 20 years?

Few started coaching the year after they went to their first EE (1999). Since then, he has had those same stats above and only 1 EE in 17 years despite winning 27 games per year. Doesn't that mean something?

CatsTopPac said:

I don't know what to say about the Zags. I've been a big critic of them in the past. I think GU is a great program and Few is a great coach. I understand that other teams have gotten to the FF in the past with weak SOSs (especially CSOS). I'm not saying that they can't make it to the FF or win it (especially in a win or go home setting), but I just don't think it helps them to play against WCC competition for the final two months of the season every year.

I just can't get past some pretty blatant facts.

Over the past 18 years (not counting this season) GU has:

won 500 games at 27 wins per season
a better than .800 winning % overall
a better than .890 winning % in conference
never finished worse than 2nd in their conference
won their conference every year except twice
2 EE and 7 S16
is 28-51 against top 25 teams.

Doesn't it mean something when a team wins almost 30 games every year, wins their conference every year, and does so bad against ranked teams and has only ever made it to 2 EEs in almost 20 years?

Few started coaching the year after they went to their first EE (1999). Since then, he has had those same stats above and only 1 EE in 17 years despite winning 27 games per year. Doesn't that mean something?

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I feel the same about the zags. They do so poorly post season that I can't get excited. They need to win in March and April.

CatsTopPac said:

I don't know what to say about the Zags. I've been a big critic of them in the past. I think GU is a great program and Few is a great coach. I understand that other teams have gotten to the FF in the past with weak SOSs (especially CSOS). I'm not saying that they can't make it to the FF or win it (especially in a win or go home setting), but I just don't think it helps them to play against WCC competition for the final two months of the season every year.

I just can't get past some pretty blatant facts.

Over the past 18 years (not counting this season) GU has:

won 500 games at 27 wins per season
a better than .800 winning % overall
a better than .890 winning % in conference
never finished worse than 2nd in their conference
won their conference every year except twice
2 EE and 7 S16
is 28-51 against top 25 teams.

Doesn't it mean something when a team wins almost 30 games every year, wins their conference every year, and does so bad against ranked teams and has only ever made it to 2 EEs in almost 20 years?

Few started coaching the year after they went to their first EE (1999). Since then, he has had those same stats above and only 1 EE in 17 years despite winning 27 games per year. Doesn't that mean something?

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28-51 against top25 teams......Enough said

CatsTopPac said:

I don't know what to say about the Zags. I've been a big critic of them in the past. I think GU is a great program and Few is a great coach. I understand that other teams have gotten to the FF in the past with weak SOSs (especially CSOS). I'm not saying that they can't make it to the FF or win it (especially in a win or go home setting), but I just don't think it helps them to play against WCC competition for the final two months of the season every year.

I just can't get past some pretty blatant facts.

Over the past 18 years (not counting this season) GU has:

won 500 games at 27 wins per season
a better than .800 winning % overall
a better than .890 winning % in conference
never finished worse than 2nd in their conference
won their conference every year except twice
2 EE and 7 S16
is 28-51 against top 25 teams.

Doesn't it mean something when a team wins almost 30 games every year, wins their conference every year, and does so bad against ranked teams and has only ever made it to 2 EEs in almost 20 years?

Few started coaching the year after they went to their first EE (1999). Since then, he has had those same stats above and only 1 EE in 17 years despite winning 27 games per year. Doesn't that mean something?

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I don't care to look it up, but I wonder how many of those games against top 25 teams they played at home? My guess is probably 2/3 if not more were road/neutral site games.

They haven't gotten to a FF simply because they haven't. I'm not sure why people feel its because they play a bad conference schedule. They've only been favored to get to a FF one time during this run, and that was in 2013 when they lost to a mid major team that ended up getting to the FF. Getting to 7 S16's in an 18 year period is pretty impressive. I'm not sure where that would rank, but my guess would be its places them in the top 20. Its not like Gonzaga is a perenial 1/2 seed every year that doesn't get to the E8 or FF.

Since Few has taken over at Gonzaga this has been their seeds in the NCAA Tournament:

10, 12, 6, 9, 2, 3, 3, 10, 7, 4, 8, 11, 7, 1, 8, 2, 11.

Based on their seed, they were expected to make 6 S16's. They made 6.
Based on their seed, they were expected to make 3 EE's. They made 1.
Based on their seed, they were expected to make 1 FF. They made 0.

Crazy stuff happens in a one and done scenario. For instance when a team that shoots 33% from 3 pt. range during the season, happens to shoot %50 from 3 pt. range in a one and done scenario.

ericd7633 said:

I don't care to look it up, but I wonder how many of those games against top 25 teams they played at home? My guess is probably 2/3 if not more were road/neutral site games.

They haven't gotten to a FF simply because they haven't. I'm not sure why people feel its because they play a bad conference schedule. They've only been favored to get to a FF one time during this run, and that was in 2013 when they lost to a mid major team that ended up getting to the FF. Getting to 7 S16's in an 18 year period is pretty impressive. I'm not sure where that would rank, but my guess would be its places them in the top 20. Its not like Gonzaga is a perenial 1/2 seed every year that doesn't get to the E8 or FF.

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I agree that they haven't been too shoddy.

They've been well coached and consistent. I'm pretty sure that's more Sweet 16s than Villanova has in the past 30 years!

That said, I think they are knocking on the door. They've had 4 potential Final 4 teams. The one with Morrison, the one that lost to WSU, the one that lost to Duke, and this year.

It's only a matter of time before you make it if you get enough chances.

ericd7633 said:

I don't care to look it up, but I wonder how many of those games against top 25 teams they played at home? My guess is probably 2/3 if not more were road/neutral site games.

They haven't gotten to a FF simply because they haven't. I'm not sure why people feel its because they play a bad conference schedule. They've only been favored to get to a FF one time during this run, and that was in 2013 when they lost to a mid major team that ended up getting to the FF. Getting to 7 S16's in an 18 year period is pretty impressive. I'm not sure where that would rank, but my guess would be its places them in the top 20. Its not like Gonzaga is a perenial 1/2 seed every year that doesn't get to the E8 or FF.

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That's right, it probably does make them top 20, which is where I'd have them finishing every year. But that is a long way from 8, 4, or 1.

ericd7633 said:

Since Few has taken over at Gonzaga this has been their seeds in the NCAA Tournament:

10, 12, 6, 9, 2, 3, 3, 10, 7, 4, 8, 11, 7, 1, 8, 2, 11.

Based on their seed, they were expected to make 6 S16's. They made 6.
Based on their seed, they were expected to make 3 EE's. They made 1.
Based on their seed, they were expected to make 1 FF. They made 0.

Crazy stuff happens in a one and done scenario. For instance when a team that shoots 33% from 3 pt. range during the season, happens to shoot %50 from 3 pt. range in a one and done scenario.

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I agree. They do what you'd expect a consistent S16 team to do, get to Sweet 16s and then there is a sharp drop off to the EE.

jontaejones said:

I agree that they haven't been too shoddy.

They've been well coached and consistent. I'm pretty sure that's more Sweet 16s than Villanova has in the past 30 years!

That said, I think they are knocking on the door. They've had 4 potential Final 4 teams. The one with Morrison, the one that lost to WSU, the one that lost to Duke, and this year.

It's only a matter of time before you make it if you get enough chances.

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Like I said, Few is a great coach and GU is a solid program. What he's able to do in Spokane with not much else going in their athletic department, and with many teams refusing to go to the kennel is really impressive.

But I just don't consider Few having 1 EE in almost 2 decades to be knocking on the door of the FF. I think up until a couple years ago, he was knocking on the door of the EE. Now he's gotten in, he's only knocked in the FF door once.

When I think of someone knocking on the door of the FF, I think of Miller, or Drew. Drew has only had 2 EEs but they have both been in since 2010. Wright was knocking on the door before last year.

I'm not trying to take anything away from Few. I see that teams don't go to The Kennel. I get it. AZ is one of the only top 10 teams to go there, and they recently signed up for another home and home for the coming 3 years (a break in between years if I remember). He dominates the regular season. And he does really well because he is willing to play anyone, anywhere, any time. But I think that not playing in a P5 conference limits his ability to play top teams throughout the year, and have those 27 wins per year transfer into top 5 finishes to say they are a threat year in and year out to make the FF or NC when they do get 27+ wins.

CatsTopPac said:

That's right, it probably does make them top 20, which is where I'd have them finishing every year. But that is a long way from 8, 4, or 1.



I agree. They do what you'd expect a consistent S16 team to do, get to Sweet 16s and then there is a sharp drop off to the EE.




Like I said, Few is a great coach and GU is a solid program. What he's able to do in Spokane with not much else going in their athletic department, and with many teams refusing to go to the kennel is really impressive.

But I just don't consider Few having 1 EE in almost 2 decades to be knocking on the door of the FF. I think up until a couple years ago, he was knocking on the door of the EE. Now he's gotten in, he's only knocked in the FF door once.

When I think of someone knocking on the door of the FF, I think of Miller, or Drew. Drew has only had 2 EEs but they have both been in since 2010. Wright was knocking on the door before last year.

I'm not trying to take anything away from Few. I see that teams don't go to The Kennel. I get it. AZ is one of the only top 10 teams to go there, and they recently signed up for another home and home for the coming 3 years (a break in between years if I remember). He dominates the regular season. And he does really well because he is willing to play anyone, anywhere, any time. But I think that not playing in a P5 conference limits his ability to play top teams throughout the year, and have those 27 wins per year transfer into top 5 finishes to say they are a threat year in and year out to make the FF or NC when they do get 27+ wins.

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Nobody is trying to argue that they are a top 10 program or anything. The reason they are getting this much pub, like they did in 2013 is because they are a top 5 team this year. Will that translate into them making the FF? Who the hell knows. They are a top 20 program since 2000. They just haven't cracked through to the FF. But that has nothing to do with the schedule strength or lack there of.

How a team performs in the tournament isn't an indication on how a team performed in the regular season. Hell they may lose in the S16 this year to a team like WVU, that doesn't mean they didn't deserve to be a #1 seed or somehow playing in the WCC didn't prepare them for the tournament. I think that argument is bs.

CatsTopPac said:

But I just don't consider Few having 1 EE in almost 2 decades to be knocking on the door of the FF. I think up until a couple years ago, he was knocking on the door of the EE. Now he's gotten in, he's only knocked in the FF door once.

When I think of someone knocking on the door of the FF, I think of Miller, or Drew. Drew has only had 2 EEs but they have both been in since 2010. Wright was knocking on the door before last year.

I'm not trying to take anything away from Few. I see that teams don't go to The Kennel. I get it. AZ is one of the only top 10 teams to go there, and they recently signed up for another home and home for the coming 3 years (a break in between years if I remember). He dominates the regular season. And he does really well because he is willing to play anyone, anywhere, any time. But I think that not playing in a P5 conference limits his ability to play top teams throughout the year, and have those 27 wins per year transfer into top 5 finishes to say they are a threat year in and year out to make the FF or NC when they do get 27+ wins.

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I'm not looking at how many EEs they made. The Gonzaga team from way back made the EE. But they were not a FF team/

I watched those Gonzaga teams in 2006, 2013, 2015 and know how strong they were and how strong the tournaments were those years. And I think they could have made it those years.

Just like Arizona in 2014, 2015. Did they make the Final 4? No. Were they a FF caliber team? Yes.

I also think its funny you're making this argument since Arizona hasn't made the Final 4 since the days before I had my first cell phone.