Tim Benz: The harder you look to disqualify Gonzaga as an all-time great, the more you see it belongs

For as many upsets as there were through the first two rounds of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, a lot of chalk made its way into the Final Four. Two top seeds (Gonzaga and Baylor) and a No. 2 seed (Houston) make up three of the Final Four teams, with a Cinderella No. 11 seed in the UCLA Bruins serving as the outlier.

The thickest chalk line we were able to draw went straight from Spokane, Wash., to the final weekend in Indianapolis. That’s the currently unbeaten Gonzaga Bulldogs. Coach Mark Few’s team is looming to be the first unbeaten men’s team to win a title since the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers.

If they can do it, the debate will reign about whether we should consider the Zags as one of the best all-time teams and whether they should be considered with some of the other iconic teams in the NCAA pantheon of greatness: like the UCLA teams of the 1960s and ‘70s, that unbeaten Hoosiers squad, the 1980s North Carolina Tar Heels and Georgetown Hoyas, Duke and UNLV teams from the early 1990s, and any number of Kentucky teams under Rick Pitino or John Calipari.

Was the road tough enough for Gonzaga playing in the West Coast Conference? Do they have the overall talent that some of those other clubs had? Did adjusted covid-19 scheduling make it easier on the Bulldogs?

In my opinion, you can’t hang an asterisk on Gonzaga. If Few’s players go 32-0, then that’s 32-0. Just like the 1976 Hoosiers went 32-0. Just like four of the John Wooden UCLA teams went 30-0. Just like the Miami Dolphins of 1972 were 17-0. Just like LSU’s football team went 15-0 in 2019.

Heightening Gonzaga’s case is that it usually blows out opponents. The Bulldogs have won 26 games in a row by double digits, and their first four NCAA tournament games (Norfolk State, Oklahoma, Creighton, USC) have been victories by an average of 21.5 points per game.

So just because the Bulldogs had some games canceled because of coronavirus, including one against Baylor on Dec. 5, that’s easily a representative number of games to test the starch of going unbeaten.

Keep in mind, Gonzaga took down the likes of Kansas, West Virginia, Iowa and Virginia in nonconference games. All of those teams were a four-seed or better in the NCAA tournament. Not to mention Gonzaga has three wins over a conference foe in Brigham Young that went 20-4 in all other contests.

To me, that mitigates any bias you might have against Gonzaga because they “only” play in the West Coast Conference. Look at the ‘91 UNLV team (34-1), which is still in the conversation for the best college basketball team of all time even though it got eliminated by Duke in the national semifinal.

That Runnin’ Rebels crew played in the Big West. Like the WCC this year, it yielded only two teams in the NCAA tournament field that year, as No. 12 New Mexico State (23-6) joined UNLV. No one else was over .500 in conference play or overall. The WCC advanced only Gonzaga and BYU into the NCAA bracket this year.

Like Gonzaga, the Rebels won a handful of games against teams out of conference — Michigan State, Princeton and Arkansas — that wound up ranked in the AP Top 25. They also traveled to Louisville.

The easy retort to that is, “Well, UNLV was a dynasty team. They had already won the NCAA tournament the year before.”

OK. Gonzaga was 31-2 last season. The Bulldogs would’ve been a No. 1 seed if the tournament hadn’t been canceled. They were an Elite 8 team in 2019. They were a Sweet 16 club the year before that, and they lost to North Carolina in the 2017 national championship.

In our final “Bracket Busting” podcast for this year, Robert Morris basketball coach Andy Toole talked about why there might be hesitation by some to lump Gonzaga in with some of the all-time great teams.

“It comes back to perception,” Toole said. “The perception of those UNLV teams. Because of the swagger that they had, playing for Jerry Tarkanian and the larger-than-life personality that he had, everybody looked at them as the baddest boys on the block.”

Toole said Few is such a quiet, understated “gentleman” that the Bulldogs get “roped into” that persona, that people may not appreciate how deadly the team can be once it gets on the court.

“But they do it the right way,” Toole said. “They play the right way. It’s so enjoyable to watch. It’s been a joy.”

I agree with that. Plus, there is the belief that there isn’t as much NBA-level talent on this Bulldogs roster as there was on some of those other teams listed above.

After all, the 1976 Indiana team had four first-round NBA picks. Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill made NBA rosters off the Duke teams. And the UCLA and Kentucky squads were caked with all-stars or Hall of Famers.

That’s not necessarily a slight on Gonzaga, though. That’s a commentary on the game itself. For the most part, if college players think they are NBA-ready, they go as soon as they can these days.

That said, Toole believes the Zags do have NBA talent. He says a lot of people are assuming freshman guard Jalen Suggs will enter the NBA draft after this season. He believes sophomore Drew Timme and senior Corey Kispert will have NBA futures as well.

“They’ll both be on NBA teams for a long period of time,” Toole insisted. “Kispert’s ability to make shots and stretch the floor is terrific. And Timme is as good as they get and is bigger than I think people understand (6-foot-10/235 pounds). They’ll have three guys who will have long NBA careers like UNLV with Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon and Greg Anthony.”

The bottom line to me is, you can give me a bunch of reasons you think this Gonzaga team isn’t as good as the others that you may place in your own Hall of Honor. And they all may be right.

But there is a big difference between “not quite as good in a vastly different era” and “they don’t belong.”

If Gonzaga goes unbeaten, Gonzaga belongs.

Listen: In our final “Bracket Busting” podcast, Robert Morris basketball coach Andy Toole joins me to preview the Final Four. Plus, we discuss Gonzaga’s place among the greats, the transfer portal and the retirement of Roy Williams.