Dave Boling: Gonzaga will try to avoid ‘chilling on the couch’ with desperate play against Georgia

WICHITA, Kan. – Creator and curator of a hoop phenomenon unique to college athletics, mastermind of offensive efficiency, motivator of elite athletes.

Mark Few is all of that. Globally appreciated.

Unknown until recently, though, has been his capacity to coach desperation.

Few has instilled the importance of athletic urgency for basketball teams come March so well that his players can preach the message verbatim.

Gonzaga point guard Ryan Nembhard put it like this Wednesday: “If you’re not desperate this time of year, you’re going home. The least-desperate team is probably going to be going home and chilling on the couch.”

It has been a curious season for the Gonzaga men, ranked as highly as No. 3 in November, then dropping outside the Top 25 by midwinter, absent a string of signature wins over other elite teams.

Narrow losses in big games proved their competitiveness, but not convincingly. “That’s why we’re such an interesting seed going into this tournament,” Few said.

Some analysts have listed the eighth-seeded Zags as a team most likely to overperform their seeding, and, if on a roll, perhaps advance deeply once again.

Others warned of a potential struggle in their tournament opener against an athletic Georgia team, with wins over highly ranked Florida, Kentucky and St. John’s.

Get past Georgia, and they would likely meet top-seeded Houston, a serious impediment to their current streak of nine consecutive Sweet 16 appearances.

The fact that the Zags are even in this tournament, for the 26th consecutive year, is largely due to Few’s late-season lessons in practical reality.

“This year was challenging because I think there were times where it was kind of up in the air,” Few said Wednesday of GU’s NCAA participation. “You have to be mindful of a sense of entitlement that kind of is everywhere. We talked about it a lot with our team, that nobody is gifted into this tournament. You’ve got to earn your way into it.”

Back-to-back losses in mid-January, when they gave up 200 points in two games against Oregon State and Santa Clara, forced some court-time adjustments and more pointed messaging.

It wouldn’t take many more such defeats to bring an end to that streak of NCAA invitations.

But how do you take a group of elite athletes, coveted and acclaimed much of their lives, some newly wealthy, and convince them that they must now approach the game like a pack of ravenous hounds?

Dunks and logo-3s get the highlights; defense and rebounds get the trophies.

Senior forward Ben Gregg said Few has “talked about desperation,” a number of times. “We weren’t guaranteed a spot in this tournament up to a few weeks ago, so we had to play with that sense of desperation and hunger. That really hit home with all the seniors, and we all kind of bought into that.”

They’ve now won 11 of their past 13 games, and avenged those two losses to Saint Mary’s by a slugfest win over the Gaels in the West Coast Conference Tournament last week.

It caused the 2024-25 Zags to resemble their immediate predecessors, who hit a midseason slump and rallied into March all the way to a Sweet 16 loss against national runner-up Purdue.

“I think (coach Few) honestly lets us know around this time of year (that) it’s always desperate,” guard Nolan Hickman said. “He does a great job at trying to push that point through to us at practice.”

Surely, the streak of consecutive NCAA berths carried pressure for the current Zags, none of whom was alive when it started in 1999.

“Obviously, we know the history of the program, and what’s been done in the past,” Gregg said. “But this is our story and we’re still writing it. You don’t want to let any of the streaks slip, but that’s not our focus now. We’re here to win games.”

The message hasn’t just been to his players, as Few has occasionally mentioned that fans and media sometimes fail to recognize how hard it is to get into the NCAAs, especially over such a long period.

It’s not a birthright. And it shouldn’t be taken for granted.

“I guess it’s human nature, right?” Few said. “When something happens over the course of time, I think we all have a tendency to expect it to happen. That’s not the case, and that’s what makes this tournament so cool and so fun and such an amazing worldwide sporting event.”

Motivation is a part of coaching.

Desperation is motivation, but amplified with a hint of fear and the sting of finality.

And if players don’t have it this week, they soon might be back home chilling on the couch.