This is the first in a 3-part series about the 2016-17 Gonzaga Bulldogs. In upcoming articles, I’ll analyze their performance against the best teams on their schedule, and examine which of their standout centers was the better player that season.
I’m surprised that nobody emailed me to let me know that I had a typo in last week’s email….I referred to the upcoming series on the 2017-18 Gonzaga Bulldogs, who I hyped as maybe the best mid-major since early 90’s UNLV. Of course, I did not mean the 2017-18 Gonzaga team but rather 2016-17. I humbly apologize to the Zags and their fans, but it’s the kind of mistake that typifies the Gonzaga program.
That 2016-17 team were runners-up for the national title, but in many ways Gonzaga has become more of an overall program than a collection of individual seasons. No one Gonzaga team is significantly more deeply embedded in the national consciousness than another, because they all live up to the ideal of a program full of lightly recruited players, with a handful of international recruits, who play above their recruiting rankings and achieve something greater. Gonzaga doesn’t usually churn out NBA prospects, but they always have players who fill their role. In the 2016-17 season, however, they had something greater.
Finally breaking through in the postseason
The Gonzaga program became synonymous with “Cinderella” mid-majors interrputing the ball throw on behalf of more storied programs with their 1999 Elite Eight run, but the program had yet to make a Final Four by the time the 2016-17 season rolled around. They had advanced to the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight in the past 2 seasons, but prior to that had a run of 7 times in 8 years without making it past the 2nd round of the tournament. There was a real question as to whether Gonzaga had reached their ceiling; there had even been articles asking if the program was overrated.
Spoiler alert: Gonzaga went on to finish as runner-up for the national title to a tremendous North Carolina team. The Bulldogs finished the season ranked #1 in KenPom’s efficiency metrics. That laid the groundwork for the current Gonzaga team, who is in their 3rd straight season in the top 2 in KenPom’s rankings and is making a run at an undefeated season. 2016-17 was the season Gonzaga broke through and took their place among the heavyweights.
Rising above their conference
Gonzaga is frequently tagged with an extra modifer when discussing their results. They play in a mid-major conference, the West Coast Conference, where the competition is not as strong as it is in the Power 5 (or 6, if you include the Big East). Occasionally St. Mary’s or BYU puts together a strong team that can give Gonzaga a test, but the bottom 2/3 of their conference is populated with the kind of team that usually gets a healthy check to lose non-conference games at the home arenas of bigger programs. The Bulldogs tend to play a challenging non-conference schedule to compensate, but they are frequently dogged by questions of how they’d handle a more rugged schedule.
Those questions persisted in the 2016-17 season. This article in the James Madison student newspaper (odd, right?) lays out both sides of the debate around Gonzaga. The Bulldogs played 3 teams in the KenPom top 50 in non-conference (Florida, Iowa State, Arizona) plus home-and-away against St. Mary’s in conference play, and beat them all. But 24 other wins against lesser teams (21 against teams outside the top 100) did little to silence the critics.
In hindsight, Gonzaga wasn’t overrated or just feasting on cupcakes, but it was hard to see in real time. Looking back, was Gonzaga’s profile inflated by blowout wins against cupcakes or were they upholding their reputation against the best? I’ll dive into the numbers Gonzaga put up against the best teams on their schedule and make the case in an upcoming article that Gonzaga was every bit as good as their metrics suggested.
The parade of frontcourt stars continues
Gonzaga has produced a fair number of NBA players, although the disappointing career of Adam Morrison overshadows the parade of solid role players who have gone on to the NBA. It may seem implausible, but since 2003 Gonzaga has had a future NBA player starting in their frontcourt every season but 2 (2007, 2013). Players such as Rony Turiaf, Robert Sacre, Kelly Olynyk, Austin Daye, Kyle Wiltjer, Domantas Sabonis, Rui Hachimura, and more have called Spokane home. In the 2016-17 season, Johnathan Williams would eventually make the NBA, but was not the top NBA prospect or draft pick on the team. That would be Zach Collins.
Collins became the highest rated freshman to suit up for the Zags in 2016, ranking #28 in the RSCI for his high school class. Other Zags had been rated more highly, but they all transferred in; Collins was the most elite recruit they had landed. 4 years later Jalen Suggs would surpass Collins’ prep ranking, but at the time Collins was a new type of player: a one and done in Spokane.
Collins indeed did leave after his freshman season despite not starting a single game, and was drafted in the lottery. During the season Collins largely split time with upperclassman (and human typo) Przemek Karnowski. Karnowski had quite a reputation himself; he actually won the Kareem Abdul Jabbar award as the best center in college basketball that season. But was Collins or Karnowski better on the Zags? I’ll attempt to measure the impact of both players in an upcoming article.
At the time, the 2016-17 season felt like a sigh of relief for Gonzaga coach Mark Few as he finally broke through and made the Final Four. In hindsight, that season may eventually come to be viewed as the start of something even bigger. Since that season Gonzaga has not fallen off at all; in fact, they’ve sustained themselves as an elite program. While the Zags were robbed of a postseason run in the 2019-20 season, they look poised this year to make yet another run at a national title. I look forward to exmaining the breakthrough 2016-17 season in more detail in the coming weeks, and I hope you enjoy reading.