Why Gonzaga's Path To NCAA Glory Is Far From Certain

The Gonzaga Bulldogs are the No. 1 overall seed in the 2022 NCAA Tournament. Just as they were the No. 1 overall seed for the 2021 NCAA Tournament as well.

Last year, Gonzaga reached the national championship game, yet Baylor was simply a better team. This year, there’s no team as great as last season's Baylor, but the Zags also aren’t quite as strong as they were a year ago. 

Plenty of people will pick the Bulldogs when filling out an NCAA Tournament bracket. The Stats Insider NCAA futures model has them winning it all in 34.4% of their simulations, and the bookies have them as firm favourites too, offering around the $4 mark.

However but there’s a strong case to be made that the Dogs path to a maiden men’s basketball national title is far from straightforward.

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Let’s make one point clear: If Gonzaga makes the Final Four but doesn’t cut down the nets in New Orleans, that’s still a great season. Making the Final Four – being on the floor for those national semifinals instead of watching from the stands at the national coaches convention – is the professional goal of college basketball coaches at high-profile basketball schools. 

If Mark Few makes back-to-back Final Fours – his third in six years – he would burnish his legacy and credentials. He would grow in stature among those who know and appreciate college basketball. Lots of fans and sports talk radio hosts would skewer him for not lifting the trophy, but serious college basketball insiders know that making the Final Four is the defining standard for the upper-tier programs and coaches in the sport. 

Failing to win the national title would sting, but making the Final Four would still be a significant accomplishment for the Zags if they can pull it off. 

With that as prelude, let’s note up front that Gonzaga is very likely to make the Final Four. It just isn’t that likely to win the national championship. 

Gonzaga got placed in a West Region where the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds, Duke and Texas Tech, have already played the Zags this season. Gonzaga lost to Duke in November and beat Texas Tech in December. Both games were at neutral sites, which is exactly what NCAA Tournament games involve as well. Having met those opponents before should give Gonzaga a meaningful comfort zone, although Texas Tech’s rugged defence could, like Saint Mary’s, bother GU in its half-court offence.  

As an aside, also remember that in 2019, Texas Tech was seeded third in the West Region. The Red Raiders beat top-seeded Gonzaga in the Elite Eight. We could have a dose of déjà vu this year. 

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Yet, it seems more likely than not that GU will make the Final Four and fly to New Orleans for the big season-ending showcase in college basketball. 

That’s where the Zags will probably run into a matchup which will bother them. 

Texas Tech does like to turn games into a physical slugfest. Gonzaga showed in its loss to Saint Mary’s that it can be pushed around by a rugged team. Texas Tech can bother Gonzaga, but the Bulldogs are likely to get past that game because Texas Tech’s offence is so conspicuously limited.  

A rugged team with better attack than Texas Tech is built to handle Gonzaga. In the Final Four semifinals, there’s a very good chance the Zags will come up against just such a team.  

The West Region champion plays the East Region champion in the Final Four semifinals. That means either Baylor or Kentucky could be waiting for GU in the Big Easy. Nothing will be easy for Gonzaga against the defending national champions or a Kentucky team which thrived this season in spite of a number of key injuries. 

Baylor and Kentucky both have bruising, powerful front-court players who can push around Chet Holmgren, Gonzaga’s magnificent freshman star. 

Holmgren is the real deal, and when his body fills out, he will become a strong, chiseled, supremely skilled NBA player. However, right now, Holmgren is a freshman. His body hasn’t developed enough. He is a string bean who can get bullied. Saint Mary’s showed how to accomplish that task. Holmgren has many bright years ahead of him, but he is going to encounter a matchup at the Final Four in which he is bound to struggle. Gonzaga would need a monster game from Drew Timme or Andrew Nembhard to overcome a low-output performance from Holmgren. The margins for the Zags would become very small against Kentucky or Baylor. 

If Gonzaga can get past Kentucky or Baylor, the national championship game would still be extremely difficult. Villanova has veteran guard Connor Gillespie playing at a national title level, and since Villanova has won two national titles in the past seven seasons, VU coach Jay Wright would be very hard to bet against if he returns to the championship game.  

If Villanova isn’t the opponent, it could be Arizona. Tommy Lloyd, one of the two or three best coaches in college basketball this season, spent two decades as Mark Few’s assistant at Gonzaga. He clearly knows how to coach, and he clearly knows how Few works. He knows what makes Mark Few tick. Tommy Lloyd gets Arizona to play with pace, force, spacing, and purpose. Gonzaga-Arizona would be a game in which two teams which are mirror images of each other would do battle. That’s a 50-50 game at best for Gonzaga, and it could become a matchup in which the Zags are outgunned. 

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Gonzaga could definitely win the national championship in a wide-open tournament. 

The Zags are a good bet to reach the Final Four. Yet, if they are able to go to New Orleans in early April, a few specific teams with particular matchup components could bother Gonzaga enough to defeat the No. 1 overall seed for the 2022 NCAA Tournament. 

Winning the school’s first-ever national championship would be a dream come true, but Kentucky, Baylor, and Arizona could be the bearers of nightmares for the Zags in the coming weeks.  

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