Gonzaga Nation

What Mark Few said after Gonzaga’s win against San Francisco

“Saint Mary’s is going to give problems to anybody they play in the NCAA Tournament, in any round, and I think we are, too.”

Bernie Wilson

Gonzaga head coach Mark Few.
Gonzaga head coach Mark Few. / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
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It’s March — Gonzaga’s favorite month — and the regular season is over for the Bulldogs, who beat the San Francisco Dons 95-75 at the Chase Center on Saturday night. Two blowout Quad 1 wins in the Bay Area in five nights helped the Zags get themselves right after a home loss to regular-season champion Saint Mary’s. They clinched the No. 2 seed in the West Coast Conference tournament, meaning they don’t have to play again until March 10 in the semifinals.

If Gonzaga and No. 1 seed Saint Mary’s both win in the semis, they’ll have an eagerly awaited showdown for the league’s automatic NCAA Tournament berth. Saint Mary’s swept the season series this year. Gonzaga is looking for its 26th straight March Madness bid and is the only program in the country to appear in each of the last nine Sweet 16s.

While discussing Ben Gregg’s big game and another brilliant night by Ryan Nembhard, coach Mark Few praised the depth of the WCC going into the tournament.

“I think it’s just, nationally, it’s terribly underrated, which we always talk about,” Few said. “Some of these other leagues, even though they’ve been really good in the past, I don’t think are that good this year and I think ours is right there with them. I think I’ve got a pretty good foundation of experience to share that information.”

Gregg scored 23 points on 8 of 14 shooting while Nembhard had 15 assists for the second straight game to match his career high and extend his WCC single-season record to 310.

The Zags (23-8, 14-4) beat the Dons (23-8, 13-5) for the 32nd straight time and could meet again in the tournament.

Here’s what Few said after Gonzaga beat USF:

Few on another strong team performance

“To get that number of points is huge. That’s a really, really dangerous team. I don’t think anybody’s done that to them. Coming in here, on the road to do that to both Santa Clara and San Francisco, I think we’re playing our best ball of the year. That’s what we told those guys.”

Few on the importance of the No. 2 seed

“This is two years in a row now we’ve had to go on the road to and win. These teams are good. San Francisco is an NCAA Tournament level team. They just are. As is Santa Clara this year. They’re old, they’re big and they’ve got really good guard play. So, to be able to do that is huge. Obviously we feel like we have a little bit of momentum and now we get home and get a couple extra days to work on ourselves.”

 Few on the big night for Gregg, aka “Mr. Zag”

“They were kind of insulting him. They chose not to guard him, which we thought they might do. Ben handled it great. Sometimes that’s hard. The hardest shot to shoot sometimes is when you’re wide, wide open. He missed his first couple, which shows even more character and some real mental toughness. He hung with it, was able to get going a little bit and banged in a couple of 3s after that. Great game out of Ben tonight.”

Few on the general state of the Zags

“We’ve played everybody tough this year. We just haven’t had that play to break through in probably five or six of those games. Who knows, if we did, we’d probably be 30-2 or something. We had some unfortunate things happen at the end of the UCLA game and we had some things that were our own problem at the end of the West Virginia game, some difficult plays on the last possession. I don’t think anybody has as many one-possession losses as we’ve had. That’s going to be very concerning for any team out there that sees our name pop up opposite them in the bracket.”

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Bernie Wilson
BERNIE WILSON

Bernie Wilson recently retired from The Associated Press after nearly 41 years, including stops in Spokane, Los Angeles and, for the final 33 years, San Diego. He remains well-versed on teams that play in the WCC, Pac-12 and Mountain West. He grew up in Coeur d'Alene and graduated from the University of Idaho.

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