LAS VEGAS — As they climbed a ladder to slice off their souvenir strands of net after winning a third straight WCC tournament on Tuesday night, many Gonzaga players admit they had already begun looking ahead to their next challenge.
The Zags are eager to play deep into March for the first time in a while.
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A program that rose from obscurity by outperforming expectations during the NCAA tournament has endured a string of early exits in recent years. Gonzaga has survived the opening weekend only twice since its remarkable stretch of 17 consecutive NCAA tournaments began with a stunning run to the 1999 Elite Eight and surprise Sweet 16 appearances the following two years.
Whether or not this could be Gonzaga's breakthrough team has been a topic of discussion since before the season even began. The deep, skilled Zags have only fueled those hopes by going 32-2, ascending as high as No. 3 in the AP poll and positioning themselves to earn no worse than a No. 2 seed on Sunday when the NCAA tournament bracket is revealed.
"I'm hungrier than ever," senior point guard Kevin Pangos said. "Some of the guys who have been here in the past are hungrier than ever. We just know that we have a great team and great guys on this team. We want to play together as long as possible."
If the national perception is Gonzaga has been astonishingly consistent in the regular season under coach Mark Few but has underachieved in the NCAA tournament, a closer look reveals it's a bit more complicated than that.
Gonzaga has advanced past the opening round in each of the past six NCAA tournaments, an achievement only Kansas has duplicated. The Zags also have seldom crashed out of the NCAA tournament at the hands of a lesser foe.
They were outclassed by a juggernaut North Carolina team in 2009 and by superior Syracuse and Arizona teams in 2010 and 2014. They endured late-game heartbreak in a double-overtime round of 32 loss to Arizona in 2003 and in a Sweet 16 loss to UCLA in 2006. The only loss that looked inexcusable at the time came when ninth-seeded Wichita State upset the top-seeded Zags in 2013, but the Shockers validated that win by reaching the Final Four two weeks later and piling up a 63-5 record the past two seasons.
"I don't think we're going to change what we do to prepare for the NCAA tournament," Few said. "We've won a game in that thing for [six] straight years. Our problem is we keep running into Arizona, North Carolina, Syracuse in Buffalo, Wichita hitting 13 threes."
Gonzaga won't be able to make the excuse that it ran into a vastly superior team if it loses early in the NCAA tournament this month. Aside from top-ranked Kentucky, there aren't many programs that boast the combination of size, depth, skill and postseason experience that the Zags have this season.
Where Gonzaga is strongest is in the frontcourt because of a trio of big men whose skill sets complement each other perfectly. Przemek Karnowski is a wide-bodied 7 footer who is proficient in the low block on offense and protects the rim defensively. Kyle Wiltjer has evolved into a versatile scorer capable of knocking down pick-and-pop threes, facing up and driving or doing damage with his back to the basket. And freshman Domantas Sabonis has become a valuable third big man because of his knack for scoring at the paint and his ability to defend and rebound.
Seniors Pangos, Gary Bell and Byron Wesley start on the perimeter and junior Kyle Dranginis and Vanderbilt transfer Eric McClellan are two of the first guards off the bench. All are 3-point threats with the exception of Wesley, a slasher who averaged 17.8 points per game last season at USC but has settled into a complementary role with the Zags.
The potency of Gonzaga's offense was on full display in the WCC title game when the Zags avenged a loss to BYU the previous weekend with a 91-75 victory. Karnowski, Sabonis and Wiltjer punished the smaller, thinner Cougars in the paint, Pangos and Dranginis attacked aggressively off the dribble and Gonzaga's array of shooters took advantage when they were left free and sank 8 of 12 3-pointers.
"We need to keep getting these guys to play the way we did [Tuesday night]," Few said. "We were attacking on offense. We were spread out. It was Kevin, it was Gary, it was Wiltjer, it was Przemek, it was Domantas. It was coming at you from a bunch of different directions. We've got to continue to do that. We've got to be able to count on our defense and we've got to be physical."
Playing in the WCC instead of a power conference has sometimes been a disadvantage for Gonzaga in years past because its focus tends to wane late in conference play and then it struggles to get it back. That's why it's a potential longterm positive for the Zags if BYU emerges as a perennially worthy challenger.
The Cougars had won eight straight entering the WCC title game and boast a formidable perimeter-oriented offense. Gonzaga came out sharp from the opening tip-off Tuesday night because the Zags knew they were facing a quality opponent and they wanted to avenge their previous loss.
"Losing was a wakeup call for us on how we had to approach the game and how we had to focus," Pangos said. "It gave us a chance to learn how we have to play. It would be nice to learn that in a win, but we responded to the loss like we had to."
Gonzaga has enjoyed a great regular season this year, defeating NCAA tournament-bound SMU, St. John's and Georgia, handing UCLA its only loss at Pauley Pavilion and taking Arizona to overtime in Tucson. Fair or unfair, however, the Zags know they'll be judged by what they accomplish this March.
One advantage this Gonzaga team has over previous editions is the postseason experience of Wiltjer, who was a shooter off the bench for the 2012 Kentucky team that won the national championship. Asked if he learned any lessons during that run that he has passed onto his current teammates, Wiltjer said that he's only told them how much fun those three weeks were and how great it would be to do it again.
"We thought we had a chance to be special that year, but there were a lot of freshmen and we were unsure of ourselves at first," Wiltjer said. "There was a lot of the same uncertainty with that team that there is with this team right now too. What we have to do is the same thing that team did. We have to play harder than our opponent each night and just try to prove people wrong."
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
from Yahoo Sports http://ift.tt/1HKqAli
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