In his 2013 book David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell revisits the title parable, suggesting David, the small shepherd, might not have been the stark underdog often depicted.
Gladwell carefully examines the fateful encounter, emphasizing David's advantage of an unorthodox approach to an unsuspecting warrior like Goliath.
No part of the sports calendar casts as many Davids and Goliaths as March Madness. And Gonzaga, the program from the plucky, Eastern Washington Jesuit school, has come to play the role of the shepherd over the better part of the past two decades.
Like the David of lore, Gonzaga has found unlikely sustained success through an unorthodox approach. Coach Mark Few would be crazy to try to recruit top American players against resource-wealthy powers like Kentucky, Duke, or Arizona. Instead, it collects overlooked players like Big-Blue-castoff Kyle Wiltjer. But this is not news.
Instead, in 2015, 27-1 third-ranked Gonzaga's tournament seeding is already generating pre-angst. In a pattern repeated by the Bulldogs as well as other Davids in seasons past, the glittery resume of an accomplished but lower-profile program likely won't be rewarded in tournament treatment as it would be from another conference.
By nature, March bubble discussion inevitably includes comparison between major-conference teams and slightly more accomplished nominees from lesser leagues. Somewhat bizarrely, much of the analysis often acknowledges — and ignores — that the big-conference team would likely win a head-to-head matchup while favoring the smaller-conference institution for an at-large bid.
And to this point, the Bulldogs, quite simply, don't have the basket of quality wins of major conference peers because their conference schedule is definitively weaker. If we excuse this deficit in competition as a faultless inheritance, we do so at the expense of the teams who do face more consistent tests during January and February.
For comparison, consider Arizona, sitting at no. 7 in the RPI, one place ahead of Gonzaga as of Sunday.
To date, Arizona has five RPI top-50 wins (including one over the Bulldogs), which compares fairly evenly with Gonzaga's 4-1 record against the top-50. But the drop-off in games against RPI 51-100 is stark; the Wildcats have played 11 and won eight games against this tier of competition, which makes up almost half of its schedule. The Bulldogs, on the other hand, have only faced four such contests. (This does not include the disparity in remaining games, as Gonzaga will likely face one more top-100 team before the conference tournament, while Arizona could see four.)
Might Few's team have more quality wins given more opportunities? Of course. But these hypothetical wins cannot outweigh real ones.
Maybe Gonzaga cannot control the quality of its conference schedule*, but is that Arizona's fault?
(*And even this claim has eroded in recent years, as teams like Butler and VCU have sought more exclusive league membership for their institution-defyingly strong basketball teams.)
We feel sympathy for the Gonzagas because we have all been underdogs at some point and loathe the seeming inevitability of our defeat in those moments. But that's not Goliath's fault.
In fact, the roles of David and Goliath have been greatly distorted as applied to college basketball. Goliath lacked the imagination to see the avenues of his own demise. Supremely confident in his hand-to-hand fighting skills, the warrior never considered his vulnerability to a less brutish strategy.
While highly seeded traditional powers often lose to unorthodox underdogs in the tournament, it rarely represents the Earth-shaking shock we believe. These are games played between developing young players in a sport where the best shooters on the best days miss plenty of shots.
And this is Gladwell's point. In the vernacular, we describe David vs. Goliath games as though our nominated shepherd had little, or no, chance of winning. But in the tournament, while these teams face disadvantages, they still often win. And even further, the Goliaths know what tactics their underdog opponents will employ; they have dozens of games of tape for reference.
And these Davids are hardly helpless. Most of them arrive at the NCAA tournament having won their conference tournaments. Players at less-heralded schools lead longer college careers than their NBA-tempted big-conference brethren. The familiarity of additional time playing together and in a system is a weapon of its own.
No program represents this better than the Zags. The program has built a new gym, plays marquee games in the non-conference schedule, and employs a coach lusted for by countless weightier programs every offseason.
College basketball's Davids might not stand level to its Goliaths, but their sling-arms are yoked.
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