ZAGS TO RICHES
How Few’s good men went from Cinderella to superpower on cusp of perfection
“We will legit be disappointed if we don’t win a national championship at Gonzaga University.
Saying that sentence out loud doesn’t make sense.”
— Former Gonzaga guard Matt Santangelo
EVERY option had to be explored. Every suggestion had to be considered. Gonzaga couldn’t afford to do business as usual. In 1998, Gonzaga couldn’t afford much. The small school in Spokane, Wash., was getting smaller.
“We hit a crisis financially,” longtime athletic director Mike Roth said. “The decision was made to open the books of the whole university and find out where we can slash and survive. Athletically, we were who we were at the time, and a huge target.”
Basketball didn’t define the school then. Until 1994, Gonzaga never reached the NCAA Tournament or NIT. Only one alum (John Stockton) had ever scored in the NBA. The team’s home sellout streak was years away.
So, multiple university officials offered a simple solution to save seven figures: exit Division I athletics.
“Our comptroller said, ‘Why aren’t we Division III? What are we getting out of being Division I? We’re spending all this money,’” Roth said. “I said, ‘The difference is if we’re Division III and we do something special, it’s barely local news. If we do something really special with Division I, especially with men’s basketball, that’s national news. And you can’t put a price tag on that.’ “And somehow it happened.” Somehow, Gonzaga hasn’t missed the NCAA Tournament since that Clinton-era conversation. Somehow, Mark Few, a head coach with no previous experience, has spent more than two decades compiling the best winning percentage in the history of the sport. Somehow, it’s not surprising a one-and-done phenom, point guard Jalen Suggs, considers Gonzaga the best NBA training ground.
Somehow, an isolated and ignored mid-major morphed into the most unlikely juggernaut in American sports. Somehow, Gonzaga (26-0) is again the No. 1 team in the nation, six wins from completing the first undefeated men’s season since 1976. Somehow, Gonzaga is the NCAA Tournament favorite for the first time, attempting to become the first team outside a power conference to win the national title since UNLV in 1990. Somehow, this happened. “We continue to remind our staffs on a regular basis how special this is, because some of us were here when nobody knew Gonzaga existed and the NCAA Tournament was a pipe dream,” Roth said. “Because of our uniqueness that we’re not in a power-six conference, it’s never been done. There’s times where