Gonzaga not worried about NCAA Tournament talk ahead of WCC Tournament: 'Everything is in front of us and it's in our hands'
With conference tournament week approaching swiftly, the Gonzaga Bulldogs simply do not care to pay any attention to the talk surrounding which teams should or shouldn't be in the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
“I don’t really care about all that man," said Ryan Nembhard after Saturday's 70-57 win over Saint Mary's. "We just going to keep hooping, keep winning games and I feel like if we do that we’ll get into that tournament.”
While bracketology experts debate over whether Nembhard's sentiment is valid, this much is true— the Zags closed the regular season on an eight-game winning streak and have won 12 of their last 13 games overall. In that stretch, they've won on the road at Kentucky in Rupp Arena, at San Francisco in the Chase Center and in front of a hostile crowd as it toppled Saint Mary's, which owned the country's longest active win streak at 16 games heading into the matchup.
Three Quad 1 wins in the last month have greatly improved the Bulldogs' at-large resume in the eyes of most prognosticators, but that noise hasn't reached the inner walls of Mark Few's office.
"We’ve gotten a lot better and that’s what you’re supposed to do during the season," Few said. "And so I think that’s what’s been lost in all this narrative and crap that’s out there. You know, you got amateurs making comments on TV so that’s what you get. I don’t even follow that stuff cause it’s just, amateur hour."
Whether or not the so-called "experts" are correct in their assessments or not, Few has a point or two about his team's steady improvement over the course of the year.
Since Feb. 4, Gonzaga has climbed from 31st in the country in offensive efficiency to No. 10 according to Bart Torvik and has posted the third-best efficiency in the country over that span. The Zags effective field goal percentage has gone from 26th-best in the country to top-10 status. Few teams have been more effective from inside the arc, as the Zags have the third-best 2-point field goal percentage in the country since their last loss at home to Saint Mary's.
"I mean I think we’re just trending in the right direction towards the end of the year," said Nembhard. "We’re playing our best basketball right now and that’s where you want to be."
Gonzaga's floor general has certainly elevated his game as he builds stronger chemistry with his teammates game by game. After struggling from behind the arc in nonconference play, Nembhard shot a team-high 46.0% on 3-point attempts in WCC games and knocked down the second-most triples behind Nolan Hickman. Playmaking has come naturally to Nembhard all season as the league's leader in assists per game (6.4) yet his growing connection with the other Bulldogs has been evidenced by six consecutive games with six or more assists.
Speaking of streaks, no one in the WCC ended the regular season on a tear quite like Graham Ike, who was named the conference's player of the week after averaging 25.0 points and 8.5 rebounds against the Dons and Gaels in the Bay Area. The 6-foot-9 post has scored 20 or more points in seven consecutive games, a feat no Gonzaga player has pulled off since Adam Morrison in the 2005-06 campaign. He finished the regular season as the WCC's leading scorer in conference play at 18.1 points per game while shooting 64.0% from the floor, also a league-best.
Few had been on Ike to assert himself more often on the low block from the early stages of the season, and safe to say he's answered his coach's call. Ike is averaging 13.9 field goal attempts during Gonzaga's win streak, compared to 9.9 in the team's first 22 games. An aggressive Ike is an important ingredient to the Zags' winning formula — they're 14-1 when he scores 20 or more points this season.
Whether the last four weeks of hoops translate to the program's 25th-straight NCAA Tournament appearance, or a WCC Player of the Year honor for Ike, none of the outside narrative has dictated how the Bulldogs approach every game.
"Control what we can control," Ike said. "Everything is in front of us and it’s in our hands so we’re just going to keep playing the right way and see what happens from there.”
