With the 86-69 victory over Loyola Marymount on Saturday night, the men’s basketball team Gonzaga completed its first regular season undefeated – and became the first Division I team to enter the undefeated conference tournament since Kentucky in 2015.
Although this season has been full of uncertainties because of COVID-19 – that is, shortened non-conference schedules, multi-week breaks for teams across the country, and more than 1,500 games postponed or canceled – Gonzaga’s dominance and record 24-0 stand out.
While many teams’ non-conference schedules have been cut short due to COVID-19 factors, the Zags have pursued one of the country’s toughest early season lists – and have won big. They won then … No. 6 Kansas by double digits at their season opener and topped 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 break at COVID-19 to win the then no. 3 Iowa by 11.
As a replacement for Baylor, the Zags faced – and stomped on – the then-No. 16 Virginia 98-75, when the Cavaliers earned their most points in more than a decade.
In the process, Gonzaga became the first team in Division I men’s college basketball history to win four AP top-20 teams in their first seven games of the season.
It was the Bulldogs’ fourth consecutive double-digit victory as the best team in the AP vote. Today, that streak has reached 21 consecutive double-digit wins, surpassing the mark maintained by the 1971-72 UCLA team, led by John Wooden and Bill Walton, who went 30-0 on their way to the national championship.
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Jalen Suggs gives the ball to Anton Watson in the transition to a dunk against Loyola Marymount.
Only three teams (regardless of rank) in the past 60 seasons have won 21 consecutive double-digit games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau: 2020-21 Gonzaga, 2018-19 Gonzaga and 2016-17 Gonzaga. The previous two iterations of the Bulldog teams failed to extend the streak to 22.
The typical blow against Gonzaga is that he plays at 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 on a 100-possession basis, ranked the WCC as the ninth best conference in DI this year – across the 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 ended a season with an adjusted efficiency margin of 35 or higher. Gonzaga is on his way to being third, behind the Kentucky 2014-2015 team that lost in the Final Four:
Best-adjusted efficiency margin 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 do this? Gonzaga has attacked opponents in painting throughout the season, averaging 51.2 PPG, the highest average for the past 15 seasons. There have been only five games this season in which a team scored 70 points in the painting against a first division opponent; Gonzaga is responsible for three of the five.
And the dominance of ink was not just against the WCC or weak non-conference enemies. In Gonzaga’s five games against teams from the big conference – Kansas, Auburn, West Virginia, Iowa and Virginia – the Zags scored 264 points, good for 52.8 per game, another point better than the season average. Those 264 points in the painting are the best of any team in any five-game period against the opponent of the big conference in the past 15 seasons. Even against the fiercest competition, this team has been an ink juggernaut.
As a result, Bulldogs are shooting 64.4% in the 2-point range, at the pace of the highest mark in the past 25 seasons, and are shooting 55.3% on the field, in pace to be the highest since 1988-89, Michigan national champion shot 56.6%.
However, do not confuse this with a hardworking team, only able to score at the edge of the midfield. Gonzaga’s ball possession average lasts just 14.2 seconds, the third shortest in the country, and the team scores almost 23 points per game in the transition, also among the top five in the national ranking.
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 the top ten was in 2008-09 in North Carolina. This team, led by Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Tyler Hansbrough, won a championship.
Gonzaga’s combination of efficiency and pace is producing 92.9 PPG. The last national champion to have an average of 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:
Led DI at PPG and won the national title
Gonzaga leads PPG DI this season
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Villanova 2018
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2005 UNC
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1963 Loyola-Chicago
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1960 Ohio State
As is the story every year, Mark Few’s team will be defined by their ability to do a deep race in March – and, if everything goes according to plan, in April.