Getty Gonzaga still has a good chance to be a No. 1 seed in March Madness.
Gonzaga lost to St. Mary’s in the West Coast Conference championship game but will still make it to March Madness. Gonzaga is in no danger of missing the NCAA tournament but are at risk for losing the No. 1 seed.
Prior to the loss, CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm called Gonzaga and Virginia both locks to be a No. 1 seed regardless of what happened in their conference tournaments. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi also believes Gonzaga is still a No. 1 seed.
“Gotta get back to work. Final thought: Don’t overreact to a single loss by clearly one of the country’s four best teams. If Zags had lost this game a month ago, the conversation wouldn’t exist,” Lunardi tweeted.
Lunardi has Gonzaga as the No. 1 seed in the West in his latest projected bracket. Lunardi projects the Zags would open up against either No. 16 Prairie View A&M or St. Francis in Salt Lake City.
Palm’s projections also have Gonzaga as the No. 1 seed in the West.
Gonzaga Had Solid Non-Conference Schedule With Wins Over Duke & Washington
Gonzaga’s case for a No. 1 seed is helped by their strong non-conference schedule. The Zags have wins over Duke, Arizona, Illinois, Washington and Texas A&M. Gonzaga also lost to North Carolina and Tennessee. Palm detailed why he still has Gonzaga as a No. 1 seed.
It will be interesting to see what the selection committee does with Gonzaga now. I am keeping them in place as the No. 2 overall seed, but that is more likely to change now.
The Zags are always an interesting case for the committee anyway because their schedule is not like their competitors in the power conferences. Still, the committee has rewarded this team for its dominance in the past, and the loss tonight aside, Gonzaga has dominated the WCC this season. They are also still the only team to beat Duke when the Blue Devils were at full strength.
Gonzaga forward Corey Kispert discussed their recent loss with The Spokesman-Review.
“They just bullied us around a little bit,” Kispert noted to The Spokesman-Review. “We got bullied on the glass. That’s one of our weakness, a chink in our armor: rebounding…Coach Few came in here, and the first words out of his mouth were, ‘We’ve got to find a way to make this a positive for us. Learn and correct the things that make us beatable. And correct it fast – we don’t have much time.'”