A Grip on Sports: Which puts them first? Gonzaga’s dominance or Auburn’s ability to survive? It’s a question for the ages

A GRIP ON SPORTS • It’s one of those chicken-or-egg questions wrapped up in Chuck Taylors. And the answer depends on your perspective.

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• The polls have Auburn as the No. 1 team in the land. The Tigers play in the richer-than-Elon-Musk SEC. They have lost just once while winning 22 times. And their followers have guzzled the Kool-Aid.

Bruce Pearl’s team can do no wrong.

Saturday, they traveled one state to the east to play one of the nation’s most mediocre teams, Georgia. The Bulldogs aren’t good. They came into the game 6-16, ranked 215th in the NCAA’s NET system and 200th in Ken Pomeroy’s respected analytics. That’s the definition of mediocre – and we’re being kind.

The result? Auburn won. To Tiger fans, whose team ascended to the top of the polls for the first time ever this season, that’s what matters. It’s enough to justify the voters’ faith. Except it really isn’t. The final was 74-72. Auburn needed a last-second basket to survive. Did we mention Georgia is probably the third-worst team in college basketball with a “Georgia” in its name (and neither Georgia Tech nor Georgia State are any good)?

Oh no, said Tiger fans on social media. Playing on the road in the SEC is unlike any other experience. It’s hard. Heck, 10,523 were in Stegeman Coliseum and 10,503 of them were screaming for the Bulldogs. Just surviving the-1-9-in-SEC-play Dogs is a feat worthy of even more No. 1 votes.

No. 2 Gonzaga, their line of reasoning goes, doesn’t play anyone. Who did they play Saturday in that weak-as-dust West Coaster Conference, or wherever it plays? BYU? The Cougars are terrible. Haven’t they lost, like, 30 games in a row? No wonder GU won big. If it were in the SEC, it would be a .500 team at best.

Yes, the Zags did play in Provo last night. And, yes, the Cougars are struggling, having lost three consecutive games. And, yes, they certainly aren’t Georgia. They are incredibly better.

How much better?

Ken Pomeroy has them ranked 157 places higher than Georgia. Going into the game BYU was 166 spots higher in the NET rankings. And that’s after losing three consecutive times. Heck, the Cougars have wins over Oregon (by 32 points), USF and Saint Mary’s, all of whom are in the top 50 in NET.

And the Marriott Center, site of last night’s game? It’s big enough to fit almost two Stegeman Coliseums. There were 18,987 packed in the place and almost all without kin on the GU bench were there to cheer on their beloved Cougars. After BYU scored the first five points, they were going nuts. And then Gonzaga led 47-23 at the half. It won 90-57 after taking its foot off the gas late.

The ease of the win fuels the doubters. We saw the same thing 50 years ago with UCLA.

Which brings us to our egg-or-chicken thingamajig. Is it the competition or the team? Are the Zags really good or are the teams they play awful?

Thirty-point wins over good teams allow people to support the latter. It’s not true, of course. But it feeds off itself. Conversely, two-point wins over mediocre teams become hard-fought victories. They have to be better than their record indicates because our team is so strong.

It doesn’t matter, thankfully. The NCAA Tournament levels the playing field and determines a champion. The best survives. Rankings are meaningless.

With that on the horizon, this month is about watching games, cheering on your favorite team and eating wings. Or scarfing down some deviled eggs. Whichever comes out the kitchen first.

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Gonzaga: The Zags are No. 1 in Pomeroy’s system and the NET rankings (just ahead of Tommy Lloyd’s Arizona team in both). Mark Few’s system must be doing something right. Anyhow, it certainly did last night, with the Bulldogs rolling to the road victory. Jim Meehan was in the Marriott Center – does he get extra Marriott Points for that? – and had the game story duties. … Theo Lawson was also in attendance and he took care of the difference makers and recapping Chet Holmgren’s dominating week. … Tyler Tjomsland made the trip as well and he has this photo report. … The folks in the office put together a recap with highlights. … And we watched from home, where we had plenty of time to write our TV Take. … There are plenty of stories from the Salt Lake City area. … The women were in McCarthey and raced out to a double-digit halftime lead. And then left their game in the locker room. BYU dominated the second half and won 62-50, moving atop the WCC standings with the Zags. Jim Allen was there and has this story. … Dan Pelle covered the game with this photo gallery. … Around the WCC, Saint Mary’s just keeps winning. … San Diego had a GU hangover in the first half and it cost the Toreros in a home loss to Santa Clara.

WSU: Can Washington State put together enough wins down the stretch to entice the NCAA selection committee into picking them as an at-large team? The opportunities will be there. But the Cougars will have to play better than they did Saturday down the stretch at California. It was a struggle as Washington State survived with a 68-64 victory. Colton Clark has the coverage. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and college basketball, the state of Arizona held the two best games, with the late-night one, Arizona State’s 87-84 triple-overtime win over No. 3 UCLA, the best. It was an extra hour of listening to Bill Walton, as his Bruins dropped the second game of the weekend. … Arizona is poised to rise in the rankings again after Lloyd’s team held off USC 72-63. The Wildcats’ size, which includes Gonzaga transfer Oumar Ballo, was too much for the Trojans. … Oregon won over struggling Utah but the way the game played out also exposed the Ducks’ flaws for John Canzano to see. … Oregon State just can’t seem to right the ship. But Colorado certainly did at the Beavers’ expense. … Washington plays at Stanford tonight and it is a homecoming for one Husky. … In football news, Lincoln Riley has attracted transfers to USC that didn’t seem possible under his predecessor. … There will be a quarterback competition at Colorado. … Finally, Arizona State’s athletic department was given $67.3 million in help from the university last year.

EWU: The Eagles’ road trip continued at Southern Utah. Despite Steele Venters’ 19 points, Eastern fell 84-72. … Dave Cook has a look at a couple of former Eastern Washington players who suffered through the bad times with the now-Super Bowl-bound Bengals. … Around the Big Sky, Weber State’s eight-game winning streak is over, done in by a revved up Montana State. … The stunner of stunners? Idaho State went into Missoula and upset Montana. … Wait, maybe Northern Colorado’s last-second 3-pointer that made Northern Arizona a one-point failure was the biggest stunner of the night.

Preps: Dave Nichols has a roundup of Saturday’s action, dominated by wrestling results.

Chiefs: Portland is on a hot streak and Spokane saw it firsthand last night. The Winterhawks dominated the first of five games between the teams over the next 10 days, winning 7-3. Kevin Dudley was at the Arena and has this story.

Seahawks: Richard Sherman still isn’t shy about speaking his mind. It may cost him support among the Seattle faithful. … The Bengals are on a roll. But will it be enough?

Mariners: If you have questions, Ryan Divish has some answers.

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• We love college sports. All of them. It is the crazed responses of college fans we cannot stand. At times it is downright silly. Rolling through Twitter last night and seeing the interplay between the Auburn and GU fans was akin to conversations I had as a youth with my crazy uncle Benny. I can still remember how he finished them. By grabbing me and doing what he called a Dutch rub on my head. It hurt. A lot. Until later …