GONZAGA BULLDOGS
Record: 14-0 AP ranking: 5 RPI: 14 Coach: Mark Few (18th season, 480-111) Best win: 69-62 over Arizona Best stat: The Bulldogs not only are hitting 39.5 percent from the 3-point line but also are holding opponents to 28.5 percent behind the arc. Best player: Nigel Williams-Goss. The 6-3 redshirt junior transfer from Washington does it all, leading the Bulldogs in scoring (13.8), assists (4.7) and steals (1.7), as well as averaging 5.7 rebounds and hitting 88.6 percent of his foul shots. Can be dancin' in the desert if: They play to their talent level. The Bulldogs have size, depth, skill and experience this year and they're hitting 74.1 percent of their free throws as a team. This is arguably Few's best squad ever, though it will reach the NCAA tournament being only lightly tested. Prediction: Elite Eight Coachspeak: "You have to give them credit, they answered the bell. They're the No. 7 team in the country (at that time), and what they did was they wore us down." - Pacific coach Damon Stoudamire after his team lost an eight-point lead in a 81-61 loss to Gonzaga last week
A couple of weeks ago, after watching his Volunteers take it on the chin against current No. 5 Gonzaga, Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes said of the Bulldogs team directed by his close friend Mark Few: "That's as good a team as he's had. He's got a team capable of being undefeated going into postseason play."
Three games later, Gonzaga is 14-0 heading into Thursday night's West Coast Conference game at San Francisco. That's one of the last three men's major college perfect records still standing, the others being No. 1 and defending national champ Villanova and No. 2 Baylor.
Not that Few's fighters are seriously considering such a run at the moment.
Said guard Jordan Mathews after Saturday's 20-point win over Pacific: "We don't think about running the table. We just hoop and out and play. You want to win every game and that's our goal. If we keep winning, then it'll handle itself."
There are signs the Zags (their popular unofficial nickname) may be capable of doing just that, especially if they can escape their two WCC games against No. 19, 12-1 Saint Mary's - in Spokane on Jan. 14 and at Saint Mary's on Feb. 11.
Win those and handle Brigham Young in Provo, Utah, on Feb. 2 and Gonzaga should enter its conference tournament with a perfect record
"They are a well-oiled machine," Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said after a 98-71 loss to the Zags. "They can beat you from the outside; they can beat you from the inside. You can't make mistakes against them."
The stats show what a well-oiled machine they are. Gonzaga hits nearly 40 percent of its 3-pointers (39.5) and knocks down 74 percent of its free throws. Five players average double-figure scoring, and two others score 8.4 points or more a game. Despite posting single-digit wins over No. 17 Arizona and No. 24 Florida, the Zags' average margin of victory is 21 (84.9 to 63.9).
"They're very, very good," Arizona coach Sean Miller said after a 69-62 loss to Gonzaga on Dec. 3. "They've got great talent, they're very well coached and they're very confident. They feel good about who they are."
However, what they've often looked like come the NCAA tournament is overrated. Though the Zags reached the Elite Eight in 2015 before losing to eventual national champion Duke, they had been on a five-year streak of Round of 32 exits before that. There also have been five losses to lower-seeded teams.
Yet they also reached the Sweet 16 a year ago as a No. 11 seed, and this team seems to have the toughness it has sometimes appeared to lack, as witness its first win over Arizona in five years.
For proof, merely consider this quote from Few after that victory over the Cactus Cats: "We showed some toughness. In this series with these guys it seems like we've led for 75, 76 of the prior 80 minutes and just didn't close it out."
The pieces would all appear to be there to at least close out the regular season with a perfect 30-0 mark.
There's leading scorer and physical point guard Nigel Williams-Goss, a former prep All-American who transferred from Washington. There are the two shooting guards, Josh Perkins and Mathews, who both hit more than 40 percent of their 3s. There's Przemek Karnowski, the 7-foot-1, 304-pound center who basically owns the lane by his massive size alone.
Then there's the X-factor - 7-foot freshman post player Zach Collins, who hits 73 percent of his field-goal tries and 73 percent of his free throws and averages 5.2 rebounds a game in just 16.9 minutes of court time per game. If Collins can maintain that confidence and production into March, he could be the addition the Zags need to reach their first Final Four after twice falling short in regional finals.
But first there's a possibly historic regular season to complete.
"I mean, we know we're undefeated, but at the end of the day we take one game at a time," Karnowski said on the Gonzaga website after the Pacific win. "If we take it one game at a time and we keep winning, that's why we'll stay undefeated."
If the Zags keep winning long enough, they'll make college basketball history far beyond the regular season.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.