‘They’re tough as all get out.’ Why ESPN’s Jay Bilas, Seth Greenberg & Fran Fraschilla believe in this Gonzaga team

A few weeks ago, longtime ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla was courtside at the Toyota Center for a nonconference matchup between top-10 heavyweights Auburn and Houston – teams that currently sit No. 4 and 7 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll.

Over the last month, Fraschilla’s had opportunities to get eyes on No. 1 Kansas, No. 13 Baylor, Texas and a variety of other teams many would include when listing potential national title contenders at this early stage of the college basketball season.

“Probably 10 to 12 of the top teams up front, live so far,” Fraschilla said.

Fraschilla dropped in on another one last week during a trip to the Inland Northwest. The ESPN analyst who’s based in Colorado Springs, Colo., and works primarily in Big 12 country, picked up a rare ESPN+ broadcast on Monday, covering Northern Colorado at Washington State so he could double up and observe the country’s third-ranked team two days later.

Fraschilla sat in for Gonzaga’s dominant 84-41 victory over Long Beach State at McCarthey Athletic Center – he’s watched a few of the Bulldogs’ more impressive wins, too – and left with many of the same overarching thoughts and impressions he had after watching the likes of Kansas, Auburn, Houston, etc.

“Well they fit right in,” Fraschilla told The Spokesman-Review in a phone interview two days after returning from Spokane. “I did the Auburn-Houston game and I came away thinking even the loser of this game a has a chance to get to San Antonio, and I feel that way about watching Gonzaga compared to a Kansas, an Auburn, a Houston for sure.”

The unbeaten Zags grade out well in all of the polls and metrics – they’re No. 3 in the AP Top 25, No. 1 at EvanMiya.com and had a recent stint at No. 1 in KenPom’s ratings – and they’re easily passing the eye test, according to those who cover the sport at the national level.

Two of Fraschilla’s colleagues – ESPN analysts Jay Bilas and Seth Greenberg – recently shared many of the same sentiments about Mark Few’s team when asked by The Spokesman-Review to evaluate this version of Gonzaga while they were previewing the network’s “Feast Week” coverage on a Zoom call on Wednesday.

“Gonzaga is a marvel,” Bilas said.

“Unbelievable,” Greenberg said.

“It’s amazing what Mark Few has done there,” Bilas said. “They have had some different rosters over the years, but they’ve also had continuity within their rosters. So they’ve added pieces, but it’s never been completely new.

“And the players that come in, because they come into a winning program that has an established culture, they’re willing to fit in within that culture and that’s really impressive. But they’ve got another really good roster.”

Known commodities like Ryan Nembhard and Graham Ike were expected to be catalysts for Gonzaga’s offense, which averages 93.2 points per game and ranks No. 1 nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency, per KenPom.

Where Gonzaga’s been more of a revelation through the first five games though? The Bulldogs rank top-20 in adjusted defensive efficiency, despite losing defensive ace Anton Watson from a roster that finished 51st in the same KenPom metric last season.

“When I watched them against Baylor, the thing that jumped out to me is how physical they were defensively,” Greenberg said. “… This is the most physical defensive team I’ve seen Gonzaga have. … (Khalif) Battle and (Michael) Ajayi give them a little bit of an edge, greater length in terms of defensively.

“… They’re experienced, they execute, they’re physical as hell defensively, they play a killer nonconference schedule every year.”

Arizona State scored 80 points in a loss at the Kennel, but Gonzaga’s four other opponents have averaged just 56.2 points per game. Teams that rank top-20 in offensive and defensive efficiency generally give themselves a good chance of playing into the first week of April. Gonzaga checks both of those boxes at the moment, and the Bulldogs are also posting high marks in another important category.

They rank 24th nationally in rebounding margin (plus-11) and are 54th in offensive rebounding at 13.6 per game, up from 10.8 last season.

“They’ve got players and they play their style, they are tough as all get out,” Bilas said. “… Years ago, when you go back to the (Matt) Santangelo days, (Dan) Dickau, all those guys. They were the little engine that could. They’d shoot it from the perimeter and all that stuff, then they’d play against Michigan State or someone like that, they’d get beat up on the glass then they’d realize we’ve got to get bigger and tougher and all these different things. And they did it.”

Ike doesn’t play above the rim at either end of the floor, but he’s been productive as an crafty, efficient low-post scorer in a similar mold as Drew Timme, Filip Petrusev and Domantas Sabonis. Without blocking multiple shots per game, he’s also found ways to limit paint scoring opportunities, anchoring Gonzaga’s frontcourt defense.

Fraschilla recently performed a deeper dive on Ike’s unique ability to impact the game on the defensive end without traditional rim-protecting attributes.

“He’s not a rim protector vertically, but he is horizontally,” Fraschilla said. “He really takes people out of their pick and roll offense because he’s got great feet and great physicality. He redirects guards, he redirects the ball in the pick and roll probably better than anybody in the country. They don’t have a rim protector per se, but I think Ike is the equal of where Anton (Watson) was and that’s a compliment.”

With its new roster, Gonzaga can reliably filter through eight bodies and find production from multiple players at every position. Three players on last year’s team averaged at least 31 minutes per game, with Ryan Nembhard and Nolan Hickman each totaling 35-plus. Nembhard is the only Zag averaging more than 30 minutes at the moment and two reserve players – Braden Huff (19.0 mpg) and Ben Gregg (16.2) – are averaging more, or close to the same, as Ike (17.2), a preseason third-team All-American.

“In many years, Ben Gregg would be a starter on a really good Gonzaga team,” Fraschilla said. “Braden Huff is much improved. He’s probably an X-factor in terms of an underrated Zag player who’s probably better than people even realize right now. Then Dusty Stromer is a sniper. Dusty’s really a starter.”

All three ESPN analysts are on the same page when it comes to Gonzaga’s chances of capturing an elusive national championship with its 2024-25 roster. There will be more data points available to inform those predictions after Gonzaga finishes up its trip to next week’s Battle 4 Atlantis, where the Bulldogs could play a third Big 12 team in West Virginia, No. 16 Indiana and No. 17 Arizona in consecutive days.

A busy and challenging December for Gonzaga will also include neutral-site games against No. 9 Kentucky, No. 2 UConn and UCLA before the Bulldogs open up WCC play.

“They’re like watching a European pro team the way they play and for them I always kind of recoil when I hear people say – and it’s said a lot – well of course they’re going to win 30 games, because they play in the West Coast Conference,” Bilas said. “When the truth is, every game they play is a storm the court game on the road and every game they play is a sellout on the road in their league. … And now the only thing people can say to take away from it is, well they haven’t won a championship. OK, well if that’s your standard then we shouldn’t talk about Tennessee or Texas or Wisconsin or all these other schools.”

Greenberg returned to the “physicality of their defense” when making his case for Gonzaga as a title contender, also noting the Bulldogs found “two great fits” when adding Arkansas’ Battle and Pepperdine’s Ajayi via the transfer portal.

“I think they can win a national championship this year,” Greenberg said. “I really do.”

Likewise, Fraschilla believes Gonzaga’s assembled a roster that’s capable of winning six games in March/April, particularly with older teams thriving in this era of college basketball.

“It’s a recipe, especially past COVID where we have so many fourth or fifth year guys,” he said. “The recipe in recent years is not one and done in terms of winning at all, it’s more five and done.

“… I just know from what I’ve seen they can compete with anybody in the country. As of today, I think they’re as likely to win it all as any of seven or eight other teams.”