SEATTLE — The Gonzaga Bulldogs didn’t want to win Sunday night to silence their critics as much as they wanted to earn dinner at Benihana in Houston next week.
OK, that might be oversimplifying things just a little bit. But what has become abundantly clear over the past few days is that, yes, the Bulldogs are well aware of the fact that they came into this year’s NCAA Tournament having lost in the round or 32 five straight times. It probably doesn’t help that we keep bringing it up, but that they also aren’t motivated by a need to prove anyone wrong as much as the desire to extend what for them has been a very enjoyable season.
And really, the way the Bulldogs dismantled Iowa in an 87-68 victory Sunday, anyone without a rooting interest — either for a team left in the field or against Gonzaga — should be happy to see such an offensively gifted team move on in a year when so many are lamenting increasing number of slow-paced, low-scoring college basketball teams.
Oh yes, you were promised an anecdote about Benihana earlier, weren’t you? Sorry ‘bout that. On a weekend when the Zags could have been letting the stress get to them, knowing that this year’s team, which earned a No. 2 seed a path to the Sweet 16 that kept them in their home state, absolutely had to get the Sweet 16 monkey off their back, at least one of their top players took to the court in a huge game dreaming of a nice dinner.
“Tonight we were extra motivated because we were going to dinner last night and we passed one of my favorite restaurants, Benihana, and we are going to a burger joint,” said junior forward Kyle Wiltjer, who scored a game-high 24 points on 10 for 12 shooting. “So I was like, ‘Coach, we should go to go to Benihana.’ And one of our assistants said, ‘Hey, if you get the win tonight, we’ll go to Benihana in Houston.’ So I was extra motivated because now we get to go to Benihana. So I’m hyped.”
In addition to eating well in Houston, the Bulldogs will also try to advance to their first Elite 8 since they first became NCAA Tournament darlings in 1999, the start of an incredible run of success that has featured 17 straight trips to the Big Dance (and yet still, so many national broadcasters can’t pronounce Gonzaga correctly. It’s not that hard, folks — Gone-ZAG-uh, Zag rhymes with “bag.” I got that pronunciation guide right out of Gonzaga’s game notes, because the school still feels the need clear this up, which is absurd).
So yes, Gonzaga coach Mark Few was happy to admit after his Gonzaga Bulldogs dismantled Iowa that he was tired of that question. Because in Few’s mind, and his players’, getting to the Sweet 16 wasn’t getting over that hump for the sake of silencing their critics; this was about moving on so players who had never been there, especially seniors like Kevin Pangos, Gary Bell Jr. and Byron Wesley could experience what so many of the great Gonzaga players before them have.
“Personally, yes,” Few quickly answered when asked if he was tired of hearing questions about a five-year Sweet 16 drought. “I mean, I think the program’s been six times, and it’s just interesting to see the corner or whatever that we’re being painted into. I mean, I don’t know who is being held to that standard. But try not to listen to the noise and you just usually block that out. The biggest thing was of all the groups I’ve had or been a part of at GU, which was the group with Kev and Gary and Kyle Dranginis and Prezemek (Karnowski) and all those guys that haven’t been to a Sweet 16, and all the other groups for the most part were able to get there at some point in their careers, so you just want it for these guys. It gives us another week.”
“I mean, this team loves each other. I mean, they are tight. They enjoy every second of everything they do together. So you want to — you want that season to last as long as possible. So, we just gained another week right here, and hopefully we can gain one after that.”
On one hand, Few is right that his team should be enjoying this ride, but on the other hand, when he says “who is being held to that standard?” well, you are, Coach, and it’s because of the beast you’ve created. Five straight trips to the round of 32 is quite a feat for a lot of programs, but for one as accomplished as Gonzaga over the past two decades, it was time to take another step forward.
Even so, Sunday wasn’t about exorcizing any round-of-32 demons as much as it was just playing some really darn impressive basketball for 40 minutes against a very dangerous opponent. Iowa didn’t play poorly as much as they were just overwhelmed by what on this night was an unstoppable Gonzaga offensive attack.
What started out as a very entertaining shootout quickly turned into a blowout; Iowa simply couldn’t keep up. The Zags were so dialed in, it’s entirely possible that nobody, not even mighty Kentucky, could keep pace if they play like this the rest of the way. When Wiltjer was draining threes early and Iowa forward was countering with a thundering one-handed jam, and when the score was 20-15 with 11:55 still left in the first half, it looked like the game was going to be a barnburner. But even though the Hawkeyes played solidly throughout, they simply had no answers for Gonzaga, which shot 61.5 percent from the field and 62.5 percent on 3-pointers.
“There’s a lot of things that they do that make it hard for teams to score,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said. “But we shot 47 percent, which isn’t a horrible number. The problem for us was at the other end of the floor.”
At one point when talking about how far his program has come, Few called it amazing, noting he went “from, literally, being an assistant that slept in cars back in the day or slept on buddies’ floors in the hotels, to in a little tiny gym, to dreaming about being involved in the NCAA Tournament,” to what the program has become today—one that has been to 17 straight tournaments, won 14 of 15 WCC regular season, and now six Sweet 16 berths.
But that growth also comes with what at times can seem like almost unfair expectations, expectations, which after Sunday’s performance, this Gonzaga team looks capable of living up to on their way to Houston, perhaps even Indianapolis, the site of this year’s final four, and yes, to Benihana.
Herald Columnist John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com
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