Gonzaga, Mark Few primed to finally win an NCAA championship
What a journey it has been for Mark Few and the Gonzaga Bulldogs.
It’s the journey of a small school in Eastern Washington that became a Cinderella, morphed into a perennial mid-major bully and finally grew into an undeniable national powerhouse.
Few has been there for it all.
He was an assistant on Dan Monson’s staff in 1999, the year the 10th-seeded Bulldogs upset No. 7 Minnesota in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, then toppled No. 2 Stanford to reach the Sweet 16. That’s when they leaped into the national consciousness – thanks to a Casey Calvary tip-in that eliminated No. 6 Florida – and Gus Johnson embossed all of it on our brains with his scream: "The slipper still fits!"
The Zags didn’t reach the Final Four that year, losing by five to Richard Hamilton’s Connecticut Huskies in the West Regional final. But that didn’t matter. The journey had begun, and when Monson left for Minnesota after the season, Few grabbed the reins.
From there, the build started, with Few establishing a familiar pattern.
- Schedule any national power with the guts to play his team.
- Give those national powers hell.
- Breeze through the West Coast Conference schedule.
- Go to the NCAA Tournament.
Gonzaga has reached the NCAA Tournament in 21 of 22 seasons since that magical 1999 run. The only exception was last year, when the COVID-19 outbreak caused the tournament to be canceled.
Few’s squad was 31-2 at the time.
But one can’t mention all of the success and amazing consistency without pointing out a certain nagging negative: the 23-year run has, in a lot of ways, been disappointing.
Three times during this run, the Zags have been eliminated in the first round, and four other times, they failed to make it past the second. In a stretch from 2004 to '06, Gonzaga was a 2-seed once and a 3-seed twice yet didn’t get past the Sweet 16.
The last of that stretch was devastating in Gonzaga circles, as UCLA scored the last 11 points of the game to win 73-71, leaving co-National Player of the Year Adam Morrison sobbing on the court.
But Few and Gonzaga kept going.
They kept scheduling national powers. They kept dominating the WCC. They kept going to the NCAA Tournament.
In 2017, the Zags got as close as possible to their dream, falling to North Carolina in the national championship game.
And now, here we are again. The Bulldogs are good, perhaps the best team Few has ever had. They’re the No. 1 overall seed. They’re undefeated at 26-0.
And they’ve introduced a new twist this season, adding something they’ve never had before: a legitimate one-and-done player in point guard Jalen Suggs.
Few spoke to Colin Cowherd on "The Herd" and addressed how Suggs came to be a Bulldog, saying it took some convincing on his part to recruit the star guard.
"I don’t know if people will believe this, but it’s true," Few said. "They literally had to convince me to recruit him. They had reached out and said, 'Hey, we’re really interested in you, and Jalen’s really interested in you and the family and the AAU coach,’ and I’m like, ‘Come on now. This guy is one of the best players in the country, and that’s usually not the waters we fish in.’"
Few said Suggs’ physicality as a high school football star made for a seamless transition to college basketball. It also gave the coach a guy who can take over a game when things get tight.
Cowherd addressed that topic as well, asking Few if he were doing anything to prep his undefeated team to battle nerves in the first couple of rounds of the tournament.
Few said he thought his team’s win over BYU in the WCC Championship game, in which Gonzaga had to rally from a 12-point halftime deficit, was a good sign.
"I never sensed that our guys got tight or anything," Few said. "It was more just adjustment about us making plays and kind of amping it up to BYU’s toughness and energy."
Few said that his team’s mindset is strong. Even though the Bulldogs are undefeated and the prohibitive favorites, they aren't looking at it from a defensive point of view.
"We're going into this tournament as aggressive as we can possibly be. We're not buying the hype of Gonzaga or the field," he said. "That isn't who we are.
"This is one [game], and you either move on or your season’s over. We have to be good on that particular day and in some instances even great. The only way we’re going to do that is if we’re the hunters and not the hunted."
For the Zags, it’s all business.
But even though this year feels different, will there be a different result? Is this the year Gonzaga breaks through and finally wins it all?
FOX Sports College Basketball Analyst Steve Lavin thinks so, recently writing:
"Gonzaga has the balance of size, strength, skill and quickness. The Bulldogs are led by Suggs, who is complemented by a veteran core of players. The Zags will be attempting to become the first undefeated national champion team since the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers.
"This is the year Gonzaga wins it all."
