‘Such an amazing feeling’: Gonzaga women earn No. 4 seed, will host first two rounds of NCAA Tournament
The air is back in the basketball for the Gonzaga women.
It came down to the final 4 seed reveal during the NCAA Tournament Selection Show on Sunday, and the final fourth seed appeared to be between Gonzaga (30-3) and Utah (21-9).
The 14th-ranked Zags erupted in Gonzaga’s Gaffney Champions Room when the Zags learned they have at least one more game at McCarthey Athletic Center. Maybe two.
Gonzaga will meet the No. 13 UC Irvine Anteaters (23-8), 53-39 winners over UC Davis in the Big West Tournament championship game. Tipoff is set for Saturday at 4:30 p.m.
The air was sucked out of Gonzaga on Tuesday when it was upset by Portland 67-66 in the West Coast Conference Tournament championship game.
But the setback wasn’t as devastating as thought.
Gonzaga is one of five teams in the field with at least 30 wins. Defending national champ South Carolina (32-0) was given the true No. 1 seed.
Joining the Zags at McCarthey is No. 5 Utah (21-9) and South Dakota State (25-5).
There were a few yo-yo moments before the Zags saw their name come up on the bracket. Not with whether they’d be in the NCAA Tournament – that was a foregone conclusion.
But until Gonzaga lost to Portland, it appeared to be a lock for a No. 4 seed.
The first 4 seed went to Kansas State, which ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme had heading to Spokane as a 5 seed.
Gonzaga coach Lisa Fortier and assistant Stacy Clinesmith exchanged uncertain glances moments later.
The dramatic moment came when the final Portland Regional bracket was revealed.
“When we saw Kansas State (come up), it was a gut -wrenching moment,” graduate forward Eliza Hollingsworth said. “Then Colorado was a 5, then maybe we thought we had a chance. Oh, my, it’s such an amazing feeling.”
This marks the first time Gonzaga has been a host since 2013 when the NCAA started awarding host berths after farming them out to the highest bid.
It’s the best seed for a Gonzaga team. The previous best was fifth. It’s the seventh straight year the Zags have made the NCAA Tournament. It would have been eight had it not been for COVID in 2019-20. In fact, GU was likely to host that year when the pandemic wiped out the tourney.
“I’m really happy for our team and I’m happy for Spokane and our staff,” Fortier said. “This is something new for us. Sometimes we think of new as being scary, daunting and bad. But it’s really exciting.”
As Fortier was meeting with the media, her assistants were starting the arduous task of finding video and scout information about UC Irvine.
“I’ve been able to coach (NCAA Tournament) games in the Kennel as an assistant coach but not yet as a head coach,” Fortier said. “I thought we had done a lot of work to prepare ourselves for hopefully hosting. And then it was just a little touch and go after our last game.”
Fortier beefed up her nonconference schedule in hopes of earning a host seed. At one point, the Zags’ nonconference schedule was considered the fifth toughest in the nation.
“I’m just happy that we scheduled how we needed to and we beat some teams that we needed to beat,” Fortier said.
Fortier said she and her players were checking their heart rates before the reveal.
Gonzaga and UC Irvine have four common opponents. The Anteaters opened the season with a 64-58 loss to Pepperdine and suffered losses to Eastern Washington (71-63) and Saint Mary’s (52-37). The lone win against a common foe was against Pacific (68-60).
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Fortier gave her team a couple days off after the loss Tuesday. She hopes the setback proves to be a blessing in disguise.
“We’ve run the gamut (emotionally),” Fortier said. “There was some frustration, there was some ‘what could I have done better?’ – which as a coach I was saying what could I have called better, should I have shouted more, should I have been nicer to them, what should I have changed in my demeanor.
“… So trying to go through each play, which is not overly productive but I think that’s what our mind does a little bit in those types of situations. Then over the last couple of days we see lots of teams don’t win their tournament. As you start to see that happening we were able to take some breaths and we got back to practice. Then we were back in the driver’s seat of controlling what we can.”