Gonzaga Basketball

GLENDALE, Arizona — After they had survived South Carolina's second-half surge and advanced to the national title game, after they had watched head coach Mark Few execute a soaking-wet handstand in the locker room, three Bulldogs made their way to a news conference shoulder to shoulder to shoulder. Along the walk, Nigel Williams-Goss thought it fit to remind Zach Collins and Przemek Karnowski about the doubters. "They said our schedule was too soft," he told them. "They said we couldn't win in the tourney."

He continued the thought after the presser, on the walk back to the locker room. "They were all wrong," he said. "We were right about who we were, and I couldn't be happier to get one more chance to prove it."

This is arguably not the most talented team Few has taken to the NCAA tournament, but it is the one that has gone the furthest—indeed, only a 40-minute tilt with North Carolina on Monday stands between Gonzaga and a national championship—in part because of the bond you could see in this moment and hear in Williams-Goss' words. It's a bond that was formed the second weekend of September in Hayden Lake, Idaho.

The trip was directed by Few and designed by assistant strength and conditioning coach Travis Knight. Knight spent the better part of a week ensuring he had enough tents and had sleeping bags to accommodate a team with three 7-footers and five other players 6'6" or taller. At the end of the week, players and coaches made the 45-minute drive across the state line to set up camp.

The players' first challenge was to figure out how to set up their tents. They were divided into teams of three to five, but most of them had never been camping before. Knight, an avid outdoorsman, enjoyed watching his guys fumble with poles and tarps until they finally erected their structures. He remembered one group needed nearly an hour to finish.

But they were building something together. This was a team that had lost Domantas Sabonis, who was the 11th pick in the NBA draft, and Kyle Wiltjer, now playing in the D-League. It returned only two starters from the 2015-16 season. It had brought in three transfers who were expected to be key contributors, including two—guard Williams-Goss and forward Johnathan Williams—who had sat out the previous season. And it welcomed a freshman class of five, including one, forward Collins, who had one-and-done potential.

"We saw the kind of pieces that we had," Williams-Goss said. "And we were confident because of them. But we needed to come together. That's what that trip did for us."

That night, after they'd eaten and grouped into their tents, the players started chatting with each other through the screens. And an idea sprang up organically. They would brave a walk into the woods, in the pitch-black. In the locker room months later, many of the guys described the site as "remote," but Knight laughed that off. "If you were from Idaho," he joked, "you wouldn't even have called it camping." Still, they set off on what seemed like a daunting journey at the time. When they came across a dock on the lake after a few minutes, they walked to the end and lay on the wood, looking up at the vast sky.

"That's when we first said it: That this would be the Gonzaga team that got to the Final Four," Williams-Goss said. "That this would be the team that won a national championship."

Though the trip stretched into Saturday and included a hike with four stations for team-building exercises, what most everyone in the locker room remembered was the walk they took that first night. They didn't have a destination in mind when they started, but when they went to sleep that night they knew exactly where they wanted to go. "That retreat helped more than anything with our team bonding," Collins said. "That's when we became brothers. Without it, I don't know if we'd be here right now."

As they rolled through the regular season, starting 29-0, Williams-Goss would remind his teammates that they had all seen this success coming. And when they lost to BYU on Feb. 25—the only blemish in an otherwise perfect season—he reassured the squad the outcome of one game didn't change any of the goals they'd set that night.

Against South Carolina, Gonzaga built a 14-point lead in the second half only to watch it evaporate under the Gamecocks' 16-0 run. After the win, several players talked about how the group's tight-knit bond helped keep them composed, even as they seemed to be collapsing. "We are all playing for the same reason," sophomore guard Josh Perkins said. "Each other."

With one more win, this team can redefine the program, can cement Gonzaga's status as a powerhouse basketball program for good and can end the journey that began many months ago in Idaho, where a group of guys wandered into the darkness, looked up at the stars and dreamed about reaching them together.

    

David Gardner is a staff writer for Bleacher Report and B/R Mag. Before B/R, he worked for Sports Illustrated and Yahoo Sports. His website is www.ByDavidGardner.com. You can follow him on Twitter @byDavidGardner.

Fact: Gonzaga beat South Carolina 77-73 on Saturday night, advancing to its first NCAA championship game in school history. 

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Gonzaga's Nigel Williams-Goss stormed out of the locker room on his way to the national championship Saturday, and he had a message for anyone who would listen.

"They said we couldn't close a game," Williams-Goss told teammate Zach Collins, pounding his fist into his hand. "They said we weren't tough. They said we were nervous. They said we played in a weak conference. They said we weren't battle-tested."

Do they like their crow with salt or pepper?

The doubters can shut up now. Gonzaga is one win away from its first national championship after a 77-73 win over South Carolina that answered every question they apparently asked.

This is the team that has crushed every stupid cliche ever uttered about Gonzaga, making up for silly narratives created by Mark Few's past teams that couldn't quite get to the final weekend.

Time to throw the Adam Morrison crying memes in the trash.

Time to stop crushing this program for its 2013 loss as a No. 1 seed to Wichita State in the round of 32.

And well past time to quit calling this a mid-major program.

"It's not 1997 anymore," South Carolina head coach Frank Martin said. "They were Cinderella and all that pretty stuff in '97. They've been in this thing for 20 consecutive years. They're as high major as high major can get."

This performance belongs at the front of the Gonzaga file and showed the country what was true all season.

The Zags are the most complete team in college basketball. And the only real competition for that title, not coincidentally, will be Gonzaga's opponent Monday night, the North Carolina Tar Heels.

But the Zags got the first shot at University of Phoenix Stadium to show they have it all—guard play, inside scoring, three-point shooting, depth, an elite defense and one of the best coaches in the game—against a team that had made simple acts of basketball extremely difficult the last two weeks.

Williams-Goss is the star—the one who is showing up on All-American lists—but even he knows this team is built from the inside out.

Gonzaga has the best front line in college basketball with two of the most efficient back-to-the-basket scorers in senior Przemek Karnowski and freshman Zach Collins, and the coaching know-how to use them effectively.

The Zags knew running sets against the Gamecocks would be difficult, so their initial plan on almost every possession was get the ball to the post immediately.

"You're playing a team who you literally can't swing the ball against," Gonzaga assistant coach Tommy Lloyd said. "If we come down and throw it into the post, now we can attack it from the inside and I don't think they've faced that very much

Gonzaga's coaches also knew that if post touches were the key to beating that defense, they might as well double down. So they went often to a lineup they rarely played together in the tournament with both Karnowski and his backup, Collins, on the floor together.

The freshman made his coaches look smart with his best game of the season. He recorded his first double-double of his career (14 points and 13 rebounds) and had six blocks and one assist.

"He isn't a backup; a lot of times he's a pickup," Lloyd said. 

Before Saturday, Collins had averaged 7.8 points and 5.3 rebounds in the tournament and played only 17.8 minutes per game. He told Williams-Goss before tipoff that "I wouldn't want to be playing against me today."

Not only was he prophetic, Collins was the answer to multiple questions that they may have asked ahead of this Final Four.

South Carolina star Sindarius Thornwell said this week Gonzaga was the most nervous team in the country—adding his name to the doubters list.

After the Zags led comfortably for much of the second half, the Gamecocks came storming back with a 16-0 run that gave them their first lead, 67-65.

This was exactly the moment Thornwell had banked on, when nerves typically get the best of teams on this stage.

Collins provided a bucket and comic relief when he had the guts to take a 17-footer with Gonzaga trailing for the first time. The ball died on the back of the rim and fell in.

"It was one of those shots he missed it so bad it went in," Lloyd said.

Collins was the best player on the floor as Gonzaga took back control, and the biggest of his six blocks came when he swatted away a Rakym Felder layup that would have tied the game.

South Carolina's defense got all the headlines this week, but it was third-best nationally, behind Gonzaga's No. 1 unit, per KenPom.com.

While the Gamecocks defend with constant pressure, the Zags thrive on contesting shots and giving up nothing easy at the rim. With Karnowski and Collins together, the paint became a no-fly zone.

"I think [rim protection] has been a sneaky little secret of Gonzaga since we've gotten Przemek," Lloyd said.

Lloyd is right in that Gonzaga's rim protection is often overlooked—probably because the Zags don't typically block a ton of shots—but that's the beauty of this group.

The pieces fit together so well and seem to be a part of Few's vision.

Few and his staff have never really gone after McDonald's All-Americans—Collins was their first out of high school, and he was a late-bloomer. Few gets them after it doesn't work somewhere else.

That was the case for Williams-Goss, who played on two mediocre teams at Washington and then looked for where he could win. He finished with 23 points and six assists in the box score, and he notched a huge assist this offseason when he texted back and forth with former Cal sharpshooter Jordan Mathews about joining the Zags.

"If you go back to those texts, we talked about a national championship," Williams-Goss said. "We didn't shy away from it."

Adding a knockdown shooter was the final piece to the puzzle, and Mathews, a grad transfer who could play right away, buried four huge threes against the Gamecocks.

Few is as good as it gets at roster construction, and this is his Sistine Chapel with three transfers mixed in with program guys he recruited.

Gonzaga got ahead of other mid-majors by putting money behind the program and then Few and his staff's recruiting smarter than their peers. They recruit better overseas than anyone, and they've figured out how to play the transfer game better than anyone else.

Now they can also compete for 5-star guys, and that should be the case even more if Few nets the program's first title.

But what gets lost in noise from Gonzaga's failure to reach this point in the past is that Few is one of the game's best tacticians as well.

This roster has allowed him to show off the goods, and now he has his moment in this run. His last move Saturday night turned what look like an accident into a brilliant maneuver.

Few believes in fouling up threes, and his team cooperated when Josh Perkins fouled Thornwell with 3.5 seconds left.

Perkins did not mean to foul, but the officials were looking for anything that appeared to be an attempt because Few had told the crew that the Zags intended to foul.

The strategy worked out perfectly when Thornwell missed his second free throw on purpose and Killian Tillie grabbed the game-sealing rebound.

Now the Zags are one win away from forever shutting up those in the they crowd.

"We've heard it all," Williams-Goss said.

Win on Monday night, and all that screaming will no longer be necessary.

               

South Carolina let the (Bull)dogs out! 

After beating the Gamecocks 77-73 Saturday in Glendale, Arizona, Gonzaga is going to the NCAA title game. 

Of course, B/R had to give the first-time championship contenders the Baha Men treatment with a little comedic animation.

The Gonzaga Bulldogs are understandably excited about their Final Four win.

The team advanced to its first-ever NCAA title game after beating South Carolina on Saturday in Glendale, Arizona, 77-73. 

Naturally, the players and head coach Mark Few marked the occasion with a locker room celebration, complete with water-bottle splatter and loud exclamations. 

Imagine what that postgame celebration will look like if they take the big one home. 

Gonzaga is now one game away from history after beating South Carolina in the Final Four.

The Bulldogs overcame a late charge from the Gamecocks and survived for a 77-73 victory Saturday in Glendale, Arizona, in the program's first-ever appearance in the national semifinals.

With Gonzaga up three points in the final seconds, a Bulldogs foul prevented the Gamecocks' Sindarius Thornwell from tying it by sending him to the line for two free throws. Quality rebounding and free-throw shooting was then all the team needed to hold on for the hard-fought victory.

Nigel Williams-Goss was everywhere for the No. 1 seed, finishing with 23 points, six assists and five rebounds.

Nicole Auerbach of USA Today summed up the performance from the junior:

https://twitter.com/NicoleAuerbach/status/848318759689363457

This is basically how Williams-Goss felt while running the show:

Zach Collins also played a significant role on both ends of the court with 14 points, 13 rebounds and six blocks despite dealing with foul trouble. He and Przemek Karnowski (13 points and five rebounds) in the low post helped sway the game in their favor.

Sam Vecenie of Sporting News also credited the coaching job in the win:

https://twitter.com/Sam_Vecenie/status/848329538891165696

Thornwell, who missed practice this week with the flu, had 15 points but struggled while shooting 4-of-12 from the field. Pat Forde of Yahoo Sports described the way he looked early:

Thornwell had been sick this week and may still be. Doesn't look like he has his usual bounce.

— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) April 1, 2017

The SEC Player of the Year had averaged 25.8 points per game in the tournament coming in but was not himself in this one.

Between the disappearance of the team's best player and Gonzaga's shooting 9-of-19 from beyond the arc and 48.3 percent from the field, South Carolina couldn't get over the top.

While fans expected an ugly game, the offenses were on point in the first half as the Bulldogs led 45-36 at halftime.

Brian Hamilton of Sports Illustrated described the surprising product on the court:

The best two defensive teams in the country, analytics-wise, are making shots all over the floor.

— Brian Hamilton (@_Brian_Hamilton) April 1, 2017

Not only were there 81 points scored in the first half, but there were limited turnovers, hot shooting from the perimeter and Gonzaga had made 57.6 percent of its shots from the field.

That didn't prevent some impressive defensive plays on both sides, though. Gonzaga showed why there were no easy baskets:

South Carolina also had a few moments of tough interior defense:

The block. The save. The hustle.#FinalFour https://t.co/mmF9SjKG31

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 1, 2017

Back-and-forth play dominated most of the half, but a 7-0 run helped the favorites go up nine points at intermission.

The Gamecocks struggled to keep up in the second half, with the Zags seemingly scoring on every possession.

Williams-Goss was especially impressive with his finishes, putting the team up 14 points with this three-point play, as NCAA March Madness relayed:

AND-ONE! #FinalFour #UnitedWeZag pic.twitter.com/HrvN2K5yqX

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) April 1, 2017

However, the game turned in a hurry after this moment. South Carolina increased its intensity on defense and started making shots to fuel a 16-0 run to not only get back in the game, but also take the lead.

PJ Dozier made a few big plays in this stretch and ended up leading the team with 17 points.

The Bulldogs responded with seven straight points of their own to regain control, but it set things up for a fantastic finish.

A defensive stop in the final minute set up South Carolina for a shot to tie the game while down three points. However, the Bulldogs did what was necessary to come away with the win.

Gonzaga will now take on the winner of Oregon and North Carolina in the national championship game Monday with a chance to bring home the first title in school history.   

            

Postgame Reaction

If it wasn't obvious from his postgame handstand, Gonzaga head coach Mark Few enjoyed himself after the win.

He told the media after the game he is "ecstatic to still be playing," per Mark Faller of the Arizona Republic.

The key in this win was the ability to respond despite a strong comeback from South Carolina in the second half.

"We've said all year that we're a tight group," Williams-Goss explained on the CBS broadcast (via NCAA March Madness). "We said that we're brothers; we said that we stick together, and it shows. Coach always said 'we can't just talk the talk, we gotta walk the walk,' and when things got tough, we banded together and we just pulled through."

South Carolina head coach Frank Martin was obviously disappointed with the result, but he stayed upbeat about his team's performance in the tournament.

"When you impact people by the masses the way these kids have, that means you're a winner," per NCAA March Madness.

Considering this is the first Final Four appearance in South Carolina men's basketball history, there is a lot to celebrate even with this loss.

Gonzaga forward Zach Collins held back the South Carolina Gamecocks during Saturday's Final Four matchup, shutting down South Carolina guard Hassani Gravett's dunk attempt near the end of the first half.

Collins' block maintained the Bulldogs' 40-36 lead, and Gonzaga extended it to a 45-36 cushion heading into the break in Glendale, Arizona. 

Gonzaga Bulldogs guard Silas Melson shut down the South Carolina Gamecocks' Rakym Felder with a well-placed swat during Saturday's Final Four matchup. 

Melson's block defended the Bulldogs' 22-19 lead in the middle of the first half in Glendale, Arizona.

GLENDALE, Ariz. — When Zach Collins walked onto the court for practice at the 75,000-seat University of Phoenix Stadium on Thursday, the Gonzaga freshman couldn't help but drop his jaw.

"It's just so big in there," Collins said, "and it makes the court look little. The rims look like Nerf hoops."

Already that day, Collins and his teammates had ridden on a bus guided by a police escort. Photographers acted like paparazzi as they snapped photos of the 19-year-old at his locker while he entertained questions from a throng of reporters—including one who asked Collins what celebrity he'd select for a "dream date."

Collins didn't hesitate.

"Margot Robbie," he said. "She's my girl crush."

As long as she doesn't mind tall guys, the Suicide Squad star may want to give the 7-footer a jingle. A reserve who averages 9.9 points off the bench, Collins isn't among the marquee names in this year's Final Four, but in three months he could be wealthier than any player in the field.

Collins will enter Saturday's national semifinal against South Carolina with a unique distinction as the only potential one-and-done player remaining in the NCAA tournament.

Even though he averages just 17.2 minutes per game, Collins has turned the heads of NBA scouts all season—not just because of his size, but because of a versatile skill set that includes a soft shooting touch away from the basket and high-level passing skills abnormal for a center.

"He's got a bigger upside than any player at the Final Four," an NBA scout told B/R by phone Thursday. "Still, it's hard to imagine someone playing such a small amount of minutes and still being so sought after."

Indeed, impressive as he's been, any team that drafts Collins will do so based more on potential than production—and that's assuming he chooses to turn pro, which is anything but a certainty.

DraftExpress projects Collins as the No. 11 overall pick in the 2018 draft, after his sophomore season. But sources familiar with the situation expect Collins, at the very least, to declare for the 2017 draft and attend the NBA combine, where he'll get feedback from scouts and front office types before deciding whether to hire an agent or return to school.

One big factor could be how he performs this weekend. It's certainly not unheard of for a player to jump significantly in the draft pecking order based on a strong two-game performance on college basketball's biggest stage.

Maryland's Chris Wilcox, for example, was considered a fringe first-round pick before dominant showings against Kansas and Indiana catapulted him to the No. 8 overall selection in 2002.

Collins conceded Thursday that the NBA buzz surrounding him has been difficult to ignore. Recently, he said, he stopped logging onto Twitter so he wouldn't be distracted during the tournament—particularly at the Final Four, where Gonzaga is appearing for the first time in school history.

"This late in the season ... I don't look at that stuff," he said. "I keep it all in the locker room, keep it with my team. All that stuff will take care of itself when the season is over. We have a chance to do something really special. I'm not trying to let anything get in the way of that."

Even though he's never experienced it at this magnitude, Collins is no stranger to attention.

Collins helped lead tradition-rich Bishop Gorman High in Las Vegas to four consecutive state championships. During his first three seasons he came off the bench, as he was playing behind high-profile upperclassmen Stephen Zimmerman (who signed with UNLV and is now in the NBA) and Chase Jeter (Duke).

Collins averaged 17.3 points, 14.0 rebounds and 6.4 blocks as a senior, when he became the first player to earn McDonald's All-American honors after signing with Gonzaga out of high school. Micah Downs, Kyle Wiltjer and Nigel Williams-Goss were McDonald's All-Americans who signed elsewhere before transferring to Gonzaga.

Longtime coach Mark Few has built a dynasty at Gonzaga by winning with transfers and third- and fourth-year players who have developed in the Zags' system. While one-and-done talents have never been a part of the fabric in Spokane, Washington, Few certainly isn't against it.

"We [aren't] ever really in that market, because it's a select market," Few said. "Obviously, Zach's got potential, and he's going to have some great choices, and those things will play out after we're done with this.

"But you know, there's a lot of different ways to build a program. You can do it through attracting the greatest talent out there, or you can do it by getting good players and developing them and getting them to play together. And that's always been our deal at GU."

That's certainly what Few has done with Przemek Karnowski, the fifth-year senior who plays ahead of Collins in the paint. The 7'1" Karnowski averages 12.2 points and 5.8 rebounds while playing 22.9 minutes per game.

The Zags don't lose anything when Karnowski needs a rest and Few replaces him with his star freshman.

"I wouldn't want to go against [that sequence]," Collins said. "It's pretty tough. If you're the other team, you've got to play both of us different ways because we do different things."

Collins said he wasn't frustrated by playing limited minutes:

"We've won 36 games. I don't think there's anything to be frustrated about."

And winning, after all, is why Collins picked Gonzaga over a list of suitors that included Cal, UNLV, San Diego State and New Mexico. Although he wasn't a huge college basketball fan as a young kid, Collins said he remembered that Gonzaga "would always be deep in the tournament" when he'd tune into March Madness.

Years later, when he was in high school, Collins was impressed with the way post players such as Kelly Olynyk, Wiltjer and Domantas Sabonis developed under Few, who is known for running offense through his bigs.

According to Synergy Sports, Gonzaga is the second-most efficient team in the nation on post-up touches, with 1.054 points per possession. And 18.7 percent of Gonzaga's possessions end in a post-up, which ranks third.

"This was really the perfect fit for him," Karnowski said. "Everyone knew he was going to develop, but I think a lot of us are amazed that it's happened this quickly."

Collins opened the NCAA tournament with 10 and 14 points, respectively, in wins against South Dakota State and Northwestern. But he had just one point and didn't attempt a field goal against West Virginia in the Sweet 16 and scored just six points in 13 minutes in the Zags' Elite Eight victory over Xavier.

For Gonzaga to beat South Carolina and advance to Monday's title game, Collins knows he'll have to be at his best.

"I initially thought, ‘There's no way it's going to be sold out,'" Collins said. "But now I hear it is going to be sold out ... 70,000 seats! It'll be nothing like anything we've ever experienced. We just can't be nervous.

"We've got to do what we've done all year and lock in mentally."

If Collins can manage that, perhaps he'll have his best game of the season and help Gonzaga advance—all while impressing NBA scouts.

And Margot Robbie, too.

Jason King is a senior writer for B/R Mag, based in Kansas. A former staff writer at ESPN.com, Yahoo Sports and the Kansas City Star, King's work has received mention in the popular book series The Best American Sports Writing. Follow him on Twitter: @JasonKingBR.

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One of the most exasperating narratives in men's college basketball is mercifully dead. In its 19th consecutive trip to the NCAA tournament, Gonzaga is going to the Final Four.

The top-seeded Bulldogs drained a dozen three-pointers and were in control from start to finish in Saturday night's 83-59 win over No. 11 Xavier in San Jose, California.

A lot has changed since their first trip to a regional final in 1999. Back then, Gonzaga was the plucky underdog—the Cinderella story that enthralled the nation by upsetting three straight major-conference programs before falling just short against the eventual national champions, UConn.

This time around, the Zags were the big bad bullies, using a roster full of future pros to put an end to Xavier's dream of becoming one of the unlikeliest Final Four teams ever.

As Sam Vecenie of Sporting News noted on Twitter, this squad has significantly more talent than it did in its days of shocking the world with the likes of Casey Calvary and Matt Santangelo:

https://twitter.com/Sam_Vecenie/status/845771336056123392

The biggest reason for that transformation was head coach Mark Few's aggressive use of the transfer market, bringing in former major-conference players Nigel Williams-Goss (Washington), Jordan Mathews (California) and Johnathan Williams (Missouri).

As a result, Gonzaga finds itself in waters uncharted by any other program.

Whether you want to call it an epidemic or just a new way of life, transferring has become an integral part of college basketball's offseason news cycle. More than 700 D-I players have transferred in each of the past two years, and we're already drowning in reports of players who have decided to move elsewhere this summer.

But while that trend has grown exponentially over the past decade, it hasn't resulted in much tournament success. Gonzaga will be just the seventh team since 2007 to reach the Final Four with a former transfer in its starting five, and it is the first to do so with multiple transfers.

Year	Team	Transfer(s)	Finish?
2007	Ohio State	Ron Lewis	Lost Title Game
2011	VCU	Jamie Skeen	Lost in Final Four
2012	Louisville	Chris Smith	Lost in Final Four
2013	Wichita State	Malcolm Armstead	Lost in Final Four
2016	Oklahoma	Ryan Spangler	Lost in Final Four
2016	Syracuse	Michael Gbinije	Lost in Final Four
2017	Gonzaga	Nigel Williams-Goss, Johnathan Williams III, Jordan Mathews	TBD

To put it lightly, Gonzaga would be hopelessly lost without the players it helped find a second home.

Earlier this month, Williams-Goss was named one of the 15 finalists for the Wooden Award after leading the one-loss Bulldogs in points (16.5), assists (4.7) and steals (1.8) per game. He did all three of those things against Xavier, scoring a game-high 23 points and pulling down eight rebounds for good measure.

"It's just been such a crazy journey," Williams-Goss told Lewis Johnson of TBS after the game. "From transferring and sitting out, all the hard work, the patience it took to get here."

One teammate who fully appreciates that sentiment was the one who might have been even more impressive against the Musketeers. Aside from shooting 2-of-8 from the free-throw line, Williams was an unstoppable force in the paint, finishing with 19 points, eight rebounds and three blocks.

Meanwhile, Mathews tied for third on the team in scoring in the Elite Eight with 11 points. He was the one consistent source of offense through the first three rounds. The only graduate-transfer of the bunch has now scored in double figures in each tournament game.

Add it all up and Gonzaga's trio of transfers darn near outscored Xavier, tallying 53 points compared to the 59 of the Musketeers.

The transfers aren't the entire story, of course. There's also fifth-year senior and beard-growing aficionado Przemek Karnowski. That 300-pound mountain of a man has a pair of excellent sidekicks in the paint in freshmen Zach Collins and Killian Tillie. Factor in the solid perimeter play of Josh Perkins and Silas Melson, and the Zags have one heck of an eight-man rotation that had one of the most dominant regular seasons of the past 15 years.

Now that this "mid-major" is in the Final Four, though, can it finish the job?

As impressed as we are with this achievement, if Gonzaga loses to either Florida or South Carolina in the next round, you just know the haters will try to say this was one of the weakest runs to the Final Four. They'll say that the Zags didn't deserve their No. 1 seed, that they benefited from some questionable officiating in the second and third rounds and that they were lucky to draw a No. 11 seed in the Elite Eight instead of a title contender like Kentucky or Oregon.

But a national championship would shut those people up and instead spark a debate about whether this is one of the greatest teams in college basketball history.

If they win it all, the Bulldogs would be 38-1 with 11 wins over teams that at least made it to the second round of the tournament. They won 21 consecutive games—more than half of the entire season—by a double-digit margin and were one second-half letdown against BYU away from an undefeated season.

Doing all that while led by three new transfers only makes the feat that much more impressive.

         

Stats are courtesy of KenPom.com and Sports-Reference.com.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.