Gonzaga receives surprising grade in ESPN's 2024-25 season review

Bulldogs earned a "C" grade from ESPN's Myron Medcalf in his end-of-year report card

Gonzaga Bulldogs forward Graham Ike. | Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford

The 2024-25 college basketball season did not play out like prognosticators thought it would for Gonzaga.

After Mark Few and his staff returned several key pieces from a Sweet 16 team, the Bulldogs entered the fall with serious aspirations of claiming their first national championship. But those hopes dwindled as the Zags struggled to close out pivotal games against their marquee competition, in addition to a couple of discouraging losses to West Coast Conference foes.

Gonzaga persevered to claim the conference tournament championship and an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament, where it lost to national title runner-up Houston in the second round as a No. 8 seed. Their streak of nine straight Sweet 16 appearances broken, the Zags (26-9) came in at No. 23 in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll released in early April — five months after being slotted at No. 6 to start the campaign.

Based on the preseason hype surrounding the Bulldogs, and their subsequent finish to the 2024-25 season, ESPN's Myron Medcalf gave Gonzaga a "C" grade in his end-of-year evaluations of the Big East, Saint Mary's, Memphis and the Zags. Medcalf cited Gonzaga's shortcomings in nonconference play; its losses to Oregon State and Santa Clara, as well as its second-place finish in the WCC, in his reasoning.

Meanwhile, the WCC team that beat the Bulldogs twice in the regular season — the Gaels — earned an "A" grade from Metcalf, who noted that the developments of Mitchell Saxen and Augustas Marciulionis were key in helping Saint Mary's (29-6) claim its sixth WCC regular season title under Randy Bennett.

Penny Hardaway's Tigers also received an "A" grade. Despite firing four assistant coaches in September, Memphis rode the coattails of Tyrese Hunter and PJ Haggerty all the way to 29 wins in 2024-25, the program's most victories in a single campaign since 2012-13.

Creighton, St. John's and Xavier were among the select group of "A"-caliber teams. DePaul, after increasing its year-end win total from three in to 14, was in the "B" group with Georgetown, which doubled its win total in Ed Cooley's second season at the helm.

Marquette, UConn and Villanova joined the Zags in the "C" group. Butler, Providence and Seton Hall — three teams that finished in the bottom four of the Big East standings — received "D" grades from Metcalf.