The Gonzaga Bulldogs have been great for a long time. The program has made the NCAA tournament since the 1998-99 season (excludes 2019-20 due to COVID-19). In 14 of those seasons, Gonzaga made at least the sweet sixteen which is also something they have done for the past nine times dating back to the 2014-15 season. That streak was kept alive and extended to nine years this season.
Mark Few Continues Winning with Gonzaga
This big-time success has been thanks to head coach Mark Few. He has been with the team in Spokane, Washington since the 1999-2000 season taking over for former coach Dan Monson. He is the current, winningest active coach with a 688-135 record. What is also impressive is that Few has never dropped below 23 wins in a season with the Bulldogs.
This type of consistent winning has become the standard for Gonzaga basketball as it has also led to a large amount of conference titles. Few has won 19 conference tournament titles and 22 regular season titles with Gonzaga. This season was the first time since 2012 that Gonzaga did not get a share of either West Coast Conference title.
However, that did not keep the Zags from having a bad season. They finished the year second in the WCC behind the champion Saint Mary’s and their overall record finished at 24-6 on the season and they had a 14-2 record in the West Coast Conference.
Gonzaga Advances to Sweet 16
Despite an early exit by Gonzaga standards in the WCC tournament, they landed in the midwest region of this year’s NCAA tournament as a 5th seed. They got matched up with McNeese in the first round. There was lots of speculation that the Zags would get upset by a McNeese team that had rolled through the 2023-24 season with a 30-3 record and a championship in the Southland Conference. But, the Zags were able to dominate pretty cleanly by shooting 51.7% from the field and 47.6% from three-point range.
The second round of the tournament saw Gonzaga match up with Kansas. The Jayhawks had been a team going through a successful but also turbulent season with tons of injuries to their roster. The Bulldogs took advantage of this getting another 21-point win in the tournament against Kansas. It was another dominant team shooting performance for the Zags as they shot 60.3% from field goal range and 53.3% from three-point range.
This has been the weapon for the Gonzaga Bulldogs all season. They rank as the second-best division one shooting team with a 51.9% field goal percentage. They sit only behind Wright State who was the best shooting team in the country.
This kind of effort has marched the Bulldogs right back into the Sweet Sixteen and has them in a position to make another run for the national title. It would be the school’s first and it is easy to believe that it is a goal Gonzaga has had their eyes on.
Back during the 2019 NCAA tournament, Few was blunt and direct about the Gonzaga program’s goals that have stood the test of time after his team got a sweet sixteen win over Florida State.
“It’s the culture of winning. And, oh yeah, the older guys teach the younger guys. This is what you do at Gonzaga. You win.’’
This winning culture and winning ways is something Few and his Zags will look to implicate coming up this Friday, March 29th in the sweet sixteen of this NCAA tournament. They have a tough test as they will face the number one seed in the Midwest region, the Purdue Boilermakers, who have been on a roll through their first two games of March Madness. The game in Little Caesars Arena between Purdue and Gonzaga will tip off at 7:39 p.m. E.T. with the game being televised on either Tru TV or TBS.
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