Zags’ breakthrough a long time coming
GLENDALE, Ariz. — For those who follow college basketball, the idea that Gonzaga is playing North Carolina for the national title doesn’t seem all that strange. St. Mary’s fans, for example, are not at all surprised.
But the reaction for much of the rest of the nation is — Gonzaga? Really?
That a Jesuit school with 7,800 students based in Spokane, Wash., is going against a blue blood with five national titles — represented by names like Dean Smith, Michael Jordan, James Worthy and Roy Williams — in Monday night’s NCAA final is testament to a coach with a stubborn streak, an administration that bought in to basketball and the modern-day realities of a sport that allows for little guys to reach the biggest stage.
“I know you have to believe,” Gonzaga athletic director Mike Roth said. “The biggest drawback some other schools have is that someone in that hierarchy says, ‘We can’t do that,’ or ‘We can never be like ...’ Well, if that’s the case, then you probably can’t.”
In the mid-1990s, Gonzaga was a nothing program, an afterthought in the WCC with a dandy of mascot, the Bulldog, that wore a sailor’s cap.
Changing the mascot was part of the equation. Dan Monson, a longtime assistant coach, got the top job and put some other pieces in place. He nabbed a group that included the scrappy forward with the awesome name, Casey Calvary. Gonzaga made the tournament in 1999 and pulled off upsets over Minnesota, Stanford and Florida on the way to the Elite Eight.
That marked the first in a remarkable string of 19 trips to the NCAA Tournament, the last 18 of which have come since Monson left for Minnesota and the current head coach, Mark Few, took the helm.
“When we first started coaching, our boss, Dan Fitzgerald, would always say, ‘Don’t waste the school’s money on (recruiting) a Pac-10 player. We’re not going to beat those schools,’ ” Monson said. “To Mark, that was motivation. It would make him recruit the kid harder.”
A 6,000-seat arena opened in 2004, and at around the same time, Gonzaga became the first WCC school to charter flights to all its road games.
Even Williams, who led Kansas to four Final Fours before taking the Tar Heels to five, is impressed.
“It’s easier to get here coaching at the places I’ve been coaching,” he said. “I don’t pat myself on the back too much about that.”