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Gonzaga Basketball

Gonzaga’s eroding NCAA Tournament resume can’t take more damage this week in Bay Area

Gonzaga Bulldogs forward Ben Gregg (33), guard Khalif Battle (99), forward Graham Ike (13) and guard Nolan Hickman (11) react during the second half of a college basketball game against the Saint Mary’s Gaels on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025, at McCarthey Athletic Center in Spokane, Wash. The Saint Mary’s Gaels won the game 74-67. (Tyler Tjomsland / The Spokesman-Review)
By Theo Lawson theol@spokesman.com(509) 459-5584

This time last year, Gonzaga was busy stacking Quad 1 wins, building its postseason resume and playing its way off of the NCAA Tournament bubble.

Coming off an eighth loss on Saturday against Saint Mary’s, Gonzaga’s resume continues to erode and the Bulldogs may start to find themselves in the thick of “Last Four In” or “First Four Out” debates if they can’t perform serious damage control this week during road Quad 1 opportunities against Santa Clara and San Francisco.

According to most projections, the Zags would be an NCAA Tournament lock if the postseason started today, but the scenarios become more interesting – and frightening from GU’s standpoint – if Mark Few’s team loses one or both games in the Bay Area, potentially giving the preseason WCC favorites as many as six conference losses and up to 10 total in the regular season.

A single voter included Gonzaga on their Associated Press Top 25 ballot, ranking the Zags at No. 23. GU now sits 10th among teams “receiving votes” in the AP poll. Saint Mary’s moved into the poll for the first time this year, debuting at No. 23 after winning in Spokane on Saturday to secure a season sweep of the Zags.

The Zags are still holding up in many of the predictive metrics and rankings that will be taken into account when selecting the NCAA Tournament field. GU didn’t slip in the NET rankings after Saturday’s loss, holding firm at No. 10, but the Zags squandered another Quad 1 opportunity and now sit at just 2-6 in those games. By comparison, every other top-30 NET team has at least three Q1 wins, with 24 of them holding five or more.

Gonzaga’s season-opening 101-63 win over Baylor still qualifies as a Q1 result, but could slide to Q2 if the No. 30 Bears slide out of top 30 of the NET rankings. Meanwhile, GU’s 89-83 victory over Indiana at the Battle 4 Atlantis could turn from a Q2 to Q1 result if the 56th-ranked Hoosiers can move into the top 50.

CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm and Bracketeer.org’s Rocco Miller both list Gonzaga as a No. 9 seed in updated bracketology projections. Joe Lunardi didn’t publish an updated bracket on Monday, but ESPN colleague Neil Paine named Gonzaga as one of seven mid-major programs that “should be in,” giving the Zags an 83% chance of making the field.

“They might need to sweat out the bubble – and that’s a more mixed bag than we’re used to seeing from this program,” Paine wrote. “Gonzaga has only one win against BPI top-50 teams to go with unremarkable SOR (strength of resume) and WAB (wins above bubble) rankings (mid-40s), though its more predictive metrics are all top-15 nationally.”

The Zags still rank No. 9 at EvanMiya.com, No. 11 at KenPom.com and No. 14 at BartTorvik.com. They’re still receiving votes in the USA Today Coaches Poll, where Saint Mary’s moved up four spots to No. 20.

Arizona, coached by former GU assistant Tommy Lloyd, dropped three spots to No. 22 in Monday’s AP poll and fell three spots to No. 21 in the Coaches Poll.