Inside the long, tense wait before the Gonzaga women learned they would host NCAA Tournament games

Don’t you dare call them drama queens. And yet on Sunday afternoon, the Gonzaga women couldn’t help themselves.

All the tension and excitement of Selection Sunday was magnified for the Bulldogs as they sat on the edges of their seats at GU’s Volkar Center.

The NCAA Tournament selection show ran half an hour, every other moment packed with emotional highs and lows as the Zags hoped that a 30-win season would be rewarded with a home game or two.

For added effect, the NCAA teased the Zags for almost the entire show before the Portland 4 Region was unveiled and they earned their reward: a first-round matchup with UC Irvine on Saturday in the Kennel.

“In front of the best fans in the world,” said senior guard Kaylynne Truong said.

The drama had built since their upset loss to Portland in the West Coast Conference tournament only five days earlier: Would they be at home as a 4 seed or exiled as a 5 seed to who-knows-where?

“I was just trying not to get my hopes up, but at the same time having hope,” said senior guard Kayleigh Truong, who was seated front and center for the big reveal.

“My heart started racing and my hands started getting clammy,” Truong said.

She wasn’t the only one.

A few seats over sat her twin sister, Kaylynne. Like almost everyone else in the room, they’d done their homework and checked the predictions of the online bracketologists. Most had GU on the 5 line, possibly shipped to Kansas State or Virginia Tech.

“I was just high in emotions, honestly,” Kaylynne Truong said. “A lot of us were chatting about who the potential 4 seeds were.”

The show opened with a reveal of the Albany 1 Region. The first 4 seed on the board was Indiana. And the 5? Oklahoma.

Everyone exhaled – for about 5 minutes, when the Albany 2 bracket appeared. The 4 seed was Kansas State, sending the Zags almost out of their seats with anxiety. A moment later, the 5 seed was revealed: Colorado.

That meant that should the Zags win their first two games, they would travel to Portland and not to New York for the Sweet 16.

Cheers all around. But not from coach Lisa Fortier, who was seated two rows back with her husband, assistant coach Craig Fortier, and their three children.

Fortier appeared as stoic as the occasion allowed. She had been disappointed before. In 2018, a GU team that won the WCC regular-season and tournament titles was handed a 13 seed and shipped to Stanford.

A year later, the Zags had a 4 seed in their grasp before falling to BYU in the WCC title game, slipping to a 5 and being sent to Corvallis, Oregon.

Kaylynne Truong’s thoughts drifted back to her freshman year in 2020, when the Zags were a near-lock to host, only to have the entire tournament scrapped by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I feel like we’re coming full-circle from that,” Truong said.

Next up was the Portland 3 bracket. Up went the 4 seed: Virginia Tech.

A trip to the East Coast? Say it ain’t so.

“We had a lot of emotional ups and downs,” said senior forward Yvonne Ejim. “I was excited, then nervous and worried and then excited again.”

But the 5 seed was Baylor, which meant the last 4 seed was between the Zags and Utah.

The Utes had a strong resume, with two wins over USC, an eventual No. 1 seed in the Portland 3 bracket.

After an eternal commercial break, players found one another’s hands and held on tight.

Suddenly, the screen flashed: “4 – Gonzaga.”

The room erupted. Almost as one, players soared into the air – not for a rebound but for pure joy.