Sometime in the late 1990s, I remember seeing a Jazz/Suns game with my dad in Phoenix. On the stat board, I remember seeing the word "Gonzaga" under John Stockton's name. I had no idea where that school was.
No more than a couple years later, I would be recording (on VHS tape!) Gonzaga's 1999 West Coast Conference championship game to watch before school the next morning as a hoops-obsessed 11-year-old. And a couple weeks after that, I'd be watching Gonzaga stun Florida in person in the Sweet 16 at America West Arena.
At the time, this Jesuit school from Spokane, Washington, was a great story, but one that the NCAA tournament had produced before and would produce again. Even Gonzaga's own West Coast Conference produced an Elite Eight Cinderella nine years earlier. No one could have thought it was the birth of a sustained powerhouse.
Since that 1999 NCAA tournament, the 'Zags have had their name in the bracket every year on Selection Sunday. In about one generation, Gonzaga has gone from barely known to pronounceable by every basketball fan.
But its rise was one that bucked the trend of gargantuan athletic departments powered by huge TV deals and sweet football cash. Even after George Mason, Wichita State, and Loyola made Final Fours as schools without football programs, they didn't become mainstays in the top 25 or produce myriad NBA talent. And they certainly didn't have the cache to effectively name their own schedule and play the blue-bloods and moneyed programs every November and December like Gonzaga.
Against all odds, Gonzaga has been able to stay in its West Coast Conference home of mostly Catholic schools in Pacific coast states. Until now.
Next year, the Bulldogs leave the WCC for the reformulated Pac-12. It makes all the sense in the world for what's now been a top 10 program for a decade. With San Diego State, Colorado State, Utah State, and Boise State all joining the conference from the Mountain West, I'll probably have to stop joking about how Gonzaga gets two months worth of mostly games against the JV every year in WCC play.
Yet, it still feels like the last door to shut on the previous era of college basketball. Even the cultural holdouts of the sport have to join the wild and woolly modern era of college sports sometime.
By the time the end of the regular season comes to an end, I hope there's healthy attention given to the Sisyphean task Gonzaga has accomplished over the last quarter-century without leaving for another league. Heck, even comparable basketball schools like Butler and Creighton hitched their wagon to a power conference more than a decade ago.
I'll also be the first to admit that the title of this article sounds a bit dramatic. There isn't much evidence that Gonzaga is going anywhere as a Final Four contender and top program. This season, there's even a chance the 'Zags win their elusive first national championship. Per KenPom, they have a top-10 offense and defense nationally, but a month or more without forward Braden Huff looms large.
However, I do think this is a "last hurrah" of teams that can turn into national contenders from a smaller, regional conference. It simply won't be possible in the college basketball landscape moving forward.
I don't hate the transfer portal like some, but a trend has played out in recent years where mid-major or small-conference standouts get scooped up by teams in the bigger-money leagues. I can't blame the players, of course, as it's effectively a job promotion along with a huge exposure boost for a potential pro career. That talent drain unquestionably hurts solid mid-major programs, and roster strategies like 2024-25 Drake picking off Division II talent are likely to be exceptions to the rule.
Major-conference coaches, too, are well within their rights to recruit talent already accomplished in college, and it's foolish to expect that every power program can be like Purdue and Michigan State and contend on the backs of their own high school recruits.
Additionally, teams outside of the traditional football power conferences, Big East, and Mountain West simply aren't getting the bites at the NCAA tournament apple that they once did. Last year, only St. Mary's got selected outside of those leagues without winning the conference tournament. In 2015, that number of at-large bids was 5.
When about three-quarters of Division I conferences have little or no shot at an at-large bid, fewer programs in those leagues can stack up NCAA bids and prestige over multiple years.
There's no doubt in my mind that the standard of play in major-conference basketball has improved over the last several years. NIL and the transfer portal have been great for the entertainment value of watching two top 50-ish teams play on a weeknight or Saturday afternoon. But the trade-off with that is that long-term program building outside of the top several leagues is all but a dead practice. Either the players will move on, the coach will secure the bag at seemingly greener pastures, or the school itself will upgrade to a richer league.
As Gonzaga finishes out its time in the WCC with another strong season well up the rankings, they should be recognized as perhaps the last major basketball program that outgrew its zip code, but resisted college sports' manifest destiny.
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