With their 86-69 victory over Loyola Marymount on Saturday night, Gonzaga’s men’s basketball team completed its first undefeated regular season and became the first Division I team to enter its tournament. undefeated conference from Kentucky in 2015.
Although this season has been full of uncertainties due to COVID-19, i.e. reduced conference hours, multi-week breaks for teams across the country and more than 1,500 games postponed or canceled. : Gonzaga’s dominance and 24-0 record stand out
Although the non-conference schedules of many teams were reduced due to COVID-19 factors, the Zags chased one of the toughest boards of the nation’s first season and won a lot. They won then-No. 6 Kansas by double digits in its opening season and surpassed the then-No. 11 West Virginia a week later.
After a positive test of COVID-19 ended a potential game of the year between the best teams Gonzaga and Baylor on December 5, the Bulldogs returned from a break from COVID-19 to beat the then No. 3 Iowa for 11.
As Baylor’s replacement, the Zags faced – and then stepped on – him. 16 Virginia 98-75, as the Cavaliers surrendered their points in more than a decade.
In the process, Gonzaga became the first team in Division I men’s college basketball history to beat four AP top 20 teams in his first seven games of the season.
It was the Bulldogs ’fourth consecutive double-digit victory as a top team in the AP poll. Today, that streak has reached 21 consecutive double-digit victories, surpassing the UCLA squad mark, coached by John Wooden and led by Bill Walton, 1971-72, which went 30-0 en route to a national championship.
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Jalen Suggs ceded the ball to Anton Watson in a transition for a goal against Loyola Marymount.
Only three teams (regardless of rank) in the last 60 seasons have won 21 games in a row in double digits, according to Elias Sports Bureau: Gonzaga 2020-21, Gonzaga 2018-19 and Gonzaga 2016-17. The previous two iterations of the Bulldogs teams failed to extend the streak to 22.
The typical goal against Gonzaga is that he plays in the West Coast Conference, which is not comparable to a major conference. KenPom.com’s tight efficiency margin, which measures how much better a team is than the average Division I team per 100 possessions, ranked the CMI as the ninth best DI conference this year, across the Atlantic. 10 and the Missouri Valley.
But the tight margin of efficiency also says Gonzaga belongs at the top level regardless of the conference. Since KenPom started the metric in 2002, only two teams have finished a season with an adjusted efficiency margin of 35 or higher. Gonzaga walks to be third, behind the 2014-2015 Kentucky team that lost in the Final Four:
Best adjusted margin of efficiency since 2002
According to KenPom.com
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2014-15 Kentucky +36.9
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2020-21 Gonzaga * +36.6 (until February 27)
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2007-08 Kansas +35.2
How did the Zags do it? Gonzaga has shattered opponents in the paint all season, averaging 51.2 PPG, the highest average in 15 seasons. This season there have only been five games in which a team has scored 70 points against a Division I rival; Gonzaga is responsible for three of the five.
And the dominance of painting has not been only against the WCC or against the weak enemies of non-conference. In Gonzaga’s five games against major conference teams (Kansas, Auburn, West Virginia, Iowa and Virginia), the Zags scored 264 points in the paint, good at 52.8 per game, more than a point better than average of the season. These 264 paint points are the most teams have had in any five-game period against opposition to the major conference in the last 15 seasons. Even against the toughest of the competition, this team has been a paint juggler.
As a result, the Bulldogs are firing 64.4% from two points away, at the rate of the highest mark in the last 25 seasons, and are firing 55.3% from the field, at the rate of being the maximum since 1988-89 national champion Michigan shot 56.6%.
Don’t confuse it, though, with a team capable of scoring on the edge of midfield. Gonzaga’s average possession lasts only 14.2 seconds, the third shortest in the country, and the team scores nearly 23 points per game in transition, also among the top five nationally.
What does this style of play mean for March? Before Gonzaga, the last team to lead Division I in KenPom’s tight offensive efficiency while playing at a pace in the top ten was North Carolina’s 2008-09. That team, led by Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Tyler Hansbrough, won a championship.
Gonzaga’s combination of efficiency and pace produces 92.9 PPG. The last national champion to average at least 90 PPG was Duke in 2000-01. Overall, four teams have led Division I in points per game and have won the NCAA Tournament the same season:
He led DI in PPG and won the national title
Gonzaga leads DI at PPG this season
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2018 Villanova
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2005 UNC
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1963 Loyola-Chicago
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1960 Ohio State
As history goes on each year, Mark Few’s team will be defined by their ability to make a deep run in March and, if all goes according to plan, in April.