With Few's 600th win, the BCS snobs are out

[CDC84]

College basketball analysts who have posted about Few's 600th win are getting inundated by BCS snobs. That 90% of GU's sked is filled with terrible teams. That the WCC sucks (do they understand just how many D-1 conferences exist?).

If you look at college basketball and its history there have been plenty of teams whose good coaches chose to stay where they are instead of doing what Dan Monson did: move on up to a big school. Bob McKillop is as great of a head coach as any coach in college ball, but he hasn't been able to replicate the success after Curry left Davidson. It's not his fault. He just doesn't want to coach at a high end BCS program. If winning 600 were that easy, if winning more games than any program in college basketball over the past 10 years were so easy, some other non-BCS coach would've have done it. Plain and simple.

The one thing that some of the snobs are saying is that Few is starting to recruit elite players because he knows you have to do that if you want to beat the blue bloods like Duke, Kansas and Michigan State. They are at least acknowledging that the talent is there. That it just isn't an easy sked and Few's coaching. It's also hard to argue against the fact that GU has made 5 straight sweet 16's or better. The argument that GU gets too high of a seed or always gets an easy draw only goes so far. They've had too much success. Only 2 other programs have achieved this is the expanded bracket era. You cannot fake that.

But there's all these little things.....when Few took the program over, GU was still in the position where they needed to win the WCC tourney to get in the dance. It's not like GU was that much better than other WCC programs. When they started to improve their schedule, almost all of their toughest non-league games were on the road or on semi-neutral courts. No home and homes. And my favorite: if a BCS team loses a lot of its talent and is headed for a down season, the schedulers have the ability to play 11 low major games at home and maybe a couple of tough games....one at home and one on a neutral floor. They can use their non-league sked to help build the team's confidence so that when they get into league play, the team has improved and knows what winning is like. They can use their league's "toughness" so that they can get away with 13 losses and still make the dance because they beat Duke, Florida State, UNC, etc, at home and went on a bit of a run in the league tourney. Gonzaga cannot afford to do this. If Few doesn't schedule tough, they are not getting in the dance. This was especially the case in the 1st half of Few's head coaching career. It didn't matter if he lost a player to the NBA and a bunch of seniors. It was baptism by fire. In essence, Few has to play an INVERTED schedule, and that is very tough. The BCS snobs never spend any time to contemplate this and what an advantage it is for the BCS teams. Believe me, there have been seasons where Few would have loved to have played lots of guarantee games because he knew his team was going to go thru a lot of growing pains. But he simply cannot do this. I am shocked that BCS snobs don't even acknowledge this advantage that they have and how playing a very tough schedule full of road/neutral games early on in the season can ruin a young team's confidence.

The truth is that the BCS snobs will always be there, even if Few hangs multiple banners at K2. But it is important to acknowledge how foolish these snobs are when the program or Few achieves something that is really great and special. If it were so easy, another non-BCS coach would have done it.

[katman50]

Good post, CDC. Too true.

[billyberu]

The thing is even winning a Natty won't shut those idiots up. Makes it easy to ignore them when you consider their inarticulate rage comes from a place of deep insecurity.

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[katman50]

We are so blessed to have Few and his assistants, etc. The evolution of the Zags has been unreal.

[ZagsGoZags]

To reinforce your point, if you compare the number of coaches with high wins, high major to mid major
you could almost conclude it is easier to do it in Power Conferences than mid-major.

[MDABE80]

To be expected I guess. Refutable for sure but we all have better things to do. In life you do the best with what you’ve got. Mark has done that and has had balance in his life. Others don’t matter. He’s done it his own terms. That is to be respected.

[zagamatic]

Power conference teams do play some tough games outside of their respective conferences, but they also play a lot of cupcakes. But, until recently, the difference between them and the Zags was that the Zags almost exclusively had to play those tougher games as either true road games or neutral sites with the exception of regional rivals or other up and coming teams. Blue bloods have gotten either home and home or neutral sites. So, in that respect, the Zags have had a harder time winning the tougher games until recently. (Last 10-12 years) And to think that there aren't easy games in conference for the Blue Bloods is just silly. For example, Wazzu is hardly considered a basketball Blue Blood, but that doesn't stop a team like UCLA from making the argument that they should be in the tournament based on their conference record.

[FloridaZagFan]

What I Love about Few is he doesn't give a sh-t what anyone else thinks. He went against the norm and didn't take a power 5 job, he said why can't we do it in Spokane? He has always believed in himself and the program!

[23dpg]

I stopped trying to reason with internet geniuses years ago.

Fun fact. Mark Few has the highest winning percentage of any active coach. ( second in history). He could lose his next 47 games and still have the highest active winning percentage. Chew on that!

[CDC84]

I have learned to be less upset by it. The more Few and Gonzaga's achievements accumulate, the less I pay attention to the snobs. I think 3 things have caused me to be less upset by the snobs: 1) making the title game and almost beating North Carolina who most folks picked to win it all 2) After all the criticism about GU "choking" in March (the snobs never point out how Fewie has won almost every first round game and has never suffered a Duke/Mercer like upset), they have now made five straight sweet 16's or better in 5 straight tournaments. Only 2 other programs have done this in the expanded bracket era. There is really very little the snobs can do to lash out at the Zags regarding this. Yes, a team sometimes gets a nice draw, but 5 straight sweet 16's or better??? Nobody achieves such a thing thru getting 5 straight easy draws. Moreover, they never acknowledge the countless times that BCS teams have won it all despite getting a good draw. A team should never have to apologize for this sort of thing. 3) The fact that Gonzaga is now landing players that most BCS teams can only dream of getting. Jalen Suggs didn't choose Gonzaga due to some weird thing like his dad being on the coaching staff.

[RenoZag]

I have learned to be less upset by it. The more Few and Gonzaga's achievements accumulate, the less I pay attention to the snobs. I think 3 things have caused me to be less upset by the snobs: 1) making the title game and almost beating North Carolina who most folks picked to win it all 2) After all the criticism about GU "choking" in March (the snobs never point out how Fewie has won almost every first round game and has never suffered a Duke/Mercer like upset), they have now made five straight sweet 16's or better in 5 straight tournaments. Only 2 other programs have done this in the expanded bracket era. There is really very little the snobs can do to lash out at the Zags regarding this. Yes, a team sometimes gets a nice draw, but 5 straight sweet 16's or better??? Nobody achieves such a thing thru getting 5 straight easy draws. Moreover, they never acknowledge the countless times that BCS teams have won it all despite getting a good draw. A team should never have to apologize for this sort of thing. 3) The fact that Gonzaga is now landing players that most BCS teams can only dream of getting. Jalen Suggs didn't choose Gonzaga due to some weird thing like his dad being on the coaching staff.

BCS types who hate on the Zags over on twitter have been pounding the same drum for years. It will never change. Whenever Goodman, Katz, Rothstein, DeCourcy, have something good to say about the Zags in general the crazies fire up their keyboards. They're like a carton of milk left out overnight on the kitchen counter: no need to give it a whiff, just toss it out.