When Gonzaga and Arizona faced off in the 2003 NCAA Tournament, the Bulldogs were still viewed as Cinderella.
That year, Arizona was a No. 1 seed in the West Region; Gonzaga was thrilled to be a 9.
βIt feels great to know that weβre getting a lot more respect,β Gonzaga guard Blake Stepp said then.
Arizona faced (and beat) the Bulldogs only after Gonzaga was able to defeat a Bob Huggins-coached Cincinnati team in the first round.
Fourteen years later, and Gonzaga still is trying to earn respect. Sure, the Bulldogs nearly went undefeated, finishing with one blemish during the regular season. And OK, the selection committee also granted Gonzaga a No. 1 seed in the West, ahead of the prestigious Arizona program.
But critics still bash Gonzaga. The Bulldogs are rewarded, they say, for playing in the weak West Coast Conference. They fade in March, a chief reason why the team has never made a Final Four.
There have been two Elite Eight runs, in 1999 and 2015; and five Sweet 16s, the most recent coming last year. But nothing more than that.
βYouβre going to hear the noise,β Zags guard Jordan Mathews said. βWhen we were undefeated, everybody always had something to say. Thatβs just the nature of sports. Someone is always going to have something negative to say about you. If we saved the world, someone would complain we didnβt do it fast enough.β
Gonzaga had no trouble with 16-seed South Dakota State in last weekβs first round. The Bulldogs then staved off a late-game comeback from upstart No. 8 Northwestern, winning by six on Saturday.
Their reward: A matchup nightmare against an old foe.
Gonzaga will face a Bob Huggins-coached West Virginia team in Thursdayβs Sweet 16, after the Mountaineers defeated a talented Notre Dame in the second round. The winner will face whoever comes out on top in the Arizona game against No. 11 Xavier.
And the winner of that, well, will earn a trip to the Final Four.
Gonzaga coach Mark Few has never made it that far. Neither has Arizonaβs Sean Miller. Both are considered among the best coaches in college basketball never to have played in a Final Four.
βWeβre (Miller) good friends, so we talk, we text. We root for each other,β Few said. βAnd I have total respect, program-to-program-and staff-to-staff.β
Few says that talk about Gonzagaβs failure to reach the Final Four has been mostly noise.
βI think itβs safe to say you guys talk about the both of us not making a Final Four more than we ever talk about it,β he said.
The early exits are never easy, especially considering the talent that has come through Gonzaga over the years.
The Dan Dickau-led Zags lost in the Sweet 16 in 2001; a year later, they were gone in the first round. Stepp only made it past the second round once. The same goes for Adam Morrison, a Wooden Award winner in 2006.
In 2013, star Kelly Olynyk helped lead the Zags to a No. 1 seed. They proceeded to lose in the second round to No. 9 Wichita State in Salt Lake City. Arizona, meanwhile, advanced to the Sweet 16.
Kevin Pangos closed out his four-year career with an Elite Eight berth in 2015, but a loss to eventual national champion Duke again kept the Zags from the Final Four.
To try and get over the hump, Few has put together a team filled with talented transfers, with a star β center Przemek Karnowski β manning the middle.
Nigel Williams-Goss came from Washington and Mathews from California; Jonathan Williams is a Missouri transfer, and Jeremy Jones comes from Rice.
Williams-Goss has been Gonzagaβs best player, Mathews its best shooter and Williams one of its most consistent players.
βLast year, during my redshirt year, me, Nigel and Jeremy, we was the three guys hanging around when the team would go on road trips,β Williams said. βWe would just be like, man, we just want to win. We want to make it to that Final Four. We want to be the group of guys to finally do it.β
Said freshman center Zach Collins, a projected NBA talent: βThe players that have come before us have done such a good job of making this program what it is. So I think we owe it to them to finally break through and show the country that weβre a force to be reckoned with.β
Arizona was the force when the teams met in 2003, defeating the Bulldogs 96-95 in double-overtime.
As the final buzzer sounded, Arizona forward Luke Walton rebounded the ball, hugged it and collapsed with joy.
Gonzaga went home, continuing a quest for respect thatβs gone on for the better part of two decades.
This year, maybe theyβll get it.
βWe came in, we had guns a blazing, nothing to lose, and especially that first run to the Elite 8 (in 1999),β Few said. βIt was all new to us. And we were excited and giddy and felt like we were playing with house money. And now itβs more a measured, leveled, and we know weβve got a job to do. Weβve got to take care of the job.β
βSomeone is always going to have something negative
to say about you. If we saved the world, someone would complain we didnβt do it fast enough.β Gonzaga guard Jordan Mathews
