On Saturday night, winning 86-69 over Loyola Marymount, the Gonzaga men’s basketball team completed its first regular season undefeated – and became the first Division I team to enter its undefeated Kentucky conference tournament in 2015.
While this season has been full of uncertainty due to COVID-19 – namely shortening of non-conference programs, multi-week breaks for teams across the nation and over 1,500 games postponed or canceled – Gonzaga’s dominance and 24-0 record stand out. .
While the non-conference programs of many teams were reduced due to COVID-19 factors, the Zags followed one of the toughest lists since the beginning of the nation’s season – and won big. They beat then – No. 6 Kansas with two digits in the opening of the season and they surpassed then-no. 11 West Virginia a week later.
After a positive COVID-19 test eliminated a potential Game of the Year between top teams Gonzaga and Baylor on December 5, the Bulldogs returned from a COVID-19 break to win then No. 3 Iowa with 11.
As a replacement for Baylor, the Zags faced – and were trampled on – then-No. 16 Virginia 98-75, while the Knights have conceded the most points in over a decade.
In the process, Gonzaga became the first team in the history of men’s college basketball in Division I to defeat four teams in the top 20 in the first seven games of the season.
It was the Bulldogs’ fourth straight double-digit victory as the top team in the AP poll. Today, that series has achieved 21 consecutive double-digit victories, surpassing the mark held by John Wooden’s team and coached by Bill Walton in 1971-72 UCLA, which went 30-0 on the road to a national championship.
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Jalen Suggs gives Anton Watson the ball in transition for a shot against Loyola Marymount.
Only three teams (regardless of rank) in the last 60 seasons have won 21 double-digit games in a row, according to the Elias Sports Bureau: 2020-21 Gonzaga, 2018-19 Gonzaga and 2016-17 Gonzaga. The Bulldogs’ previous two iterations failed to extend the series to 22.
The typical beating against Gonzaga is that he plays in the West Coast Conference, which is not comparable to a major conference. KenPom.com’s adjusted efficiency margin, which measures how much better a team is than the average Division I team based on 100 possessions, ranked CMC as the ninth-best DI conference this year – between Atlantic 10 and the Missouri Valley.
But the adjusted efficiency margin also says that Gonzaga belongs to the upper echelon, 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 is on track 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 go? Gonzaga beat his opponents in paint all season, averaging 51.2 PPG, the highest average in 15 seasons. There have been only five games this season in which a team has scored 70 points in the paint against a Division I opponent; Gonzaga is responsible for three out of five.
And the dominance of the paint was not against the WCC or the weak enemies of non-conference. In Gonzaga’s five games against the major conference teams – Kansas, Auburn, West Virginia, Iowa and Virginia – the Zags scored 264 points in the paint, good for 52.8 per game, one point better than their season average . These 264 points in the paint are the most by any team in any five-game opposition to the major conference opposition in the last 15 seasons. Even against the toughest competitions, this team was a paint player.
As a result, the Bulldogs shoot 64.4% of the 2-point distance, at the rate of the highest score in the last 25 seasons, and shoot 55.3% of the field, at the rate of being the highest since 1988-89. Michigan national champion shot 56.6%.
However, do not confuse this with a team full of abilities capable of scoring only on the edge in the middle of the field. Gonzaga’s average possession lasts only 14.2 seconds, the third shortest in the country, and the team records almost 23 points per game in transition, also in 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 adjusted offensive efficiency while playing at a top 10 pace was North Carolina 2008-09. The 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 led Division I in points per game and won the NCAA Tournament in the same season:
He led DI in PPG and won the national title
Gonzaga is leading DI in 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 the story goes every year, Mark Few’s team will be defined by its ability to make a deep run in March – and, if all goes according to plan, in April.