2024 NCAA Tournament Bracketology: Could Gonzaga play at Spokane Arena?
How fortunes have changed over the last month for the Gonzaga Bulldogs.
In late January, Gonzaga didn't boast much of a postseason resume; it was a 0-5 record in Quad 1 games with two Quad 2 wins. Some prognosticators kept the Zags out of their projected 68-team fields with an unlikely chance to earn the West Coast Conference's automatic bid over Saint Mary's due to a lack of quality wins. Almost inexplicably, a team that entered the season with high hopes of playing at home in the Spokane Arena for the first and second rounds of the 2024 NCAA Tournament was on the brink of not playing in the middle of March at all.
Since then, Mark Few's bunch has come together to play its best basketball of the season. Gonzaga (24-6, 14-2 WCC) ended the regular season on an eight-game winning streak that included three Quad 1 wins on the road over Kentucky, San Francisco and Saint Mary's. Only two teams in the country have been more efficient on offense since Feb. 4 in large part due to Graham Ike's dominance down low (seven straight games of 20 or more points for the Wyoming transfer).
The latest surge all but unofficially guaranteed another trip to the NCAA Tournament. Gonzaga is 17th in the NET Rankings, one spot ahead of the Gaels at No. 18, with a combined 6-6 record in Quad 1 and 2 games. Those same prognosticators and experts from before have reconsidered the at-large resume: ESPN's Joe Lunardi has the Bulldogs on the 7-seed line, CBS Sports' Jerry Palm has them on the 8-seed line and Fox Sports' Mike DeCourcy has them as a 7-seed in their respective bracketology updates.
The latest projections indicate the Zags are a near lock to go dancing regardless of what happens at the WCC Tournament in Las Vegas. Now it's whether they can impress the NCAA Selection Committee enough to play in the Spokane Region, which would require leaping up to the 5-seed line before Selection Sunday. To do that, the Bulldogs need to win the WCC Tournament championship with wins over San Francisco and Saint Mary's in back-to-back days, at least based on previous NET Rankings and resumes in years past.
A case could be made that a team's NET ranking doesn't indicate much in this scenario. Miami was 44th in the NET on Selection Sunday when it earned a 5-seed last season. The year before that, Houston was on the same seed line despite being ranked third in the NET. ESPN's bracketology has Washington State on the 5-seed line as the 44th team in the NET, while three of the four 5-seeds in CBS Sports' bracketology are ranked 20th or worse in the NET.
Rankings aside, a team's resume is a much clearer indicator of what seed it can earn from the committee. In Gonzaga's case, if it beats the Dons and Gaels one more time each in the conference tournament, it would enter Selection Sunday with an 8-6 record in the first two quadrants without a Quad 3 or Quad 4 loss.
Since 2021, only one team has earned a 5-seed with less than nine combined Quad 1 and Quad 2 victories — Tennessee was 8-8 in the first two quadrants without a loss in the other two quadrants in 2021. Saint Mary's was 9-5 in Quad 1 and Quad 2 games as a 5-seed last season, though the Gaels also had two Quad 3 losses on their resume. So even if the Zags can only finish with a maximum of eight Quad 1 and Quad 2 wins, they can still hang their hat on the fact they took care of business against the rest of the competition on their schedule.
Some help from other teams during conference championship week would be beneficial though. All four of Lunardi's predicted 5-seeds have at least nine combined Quad 1 and Quad 2 wins on their resumes already, with Clemson leading the way with 10. Even Lunardi's 6-seeds have more quality wins than Gonzaga at this point and three of the four don't have any losses in Quad 3 or Quad 4.
The path back to Spokane for the first and second rounds isn't out of the realm of possibility for the Bulldogs, though it'll require a WCC Tournament championship and some help from the outside.
