ATHENS — It was business as usual for Gonzaga coach Mark Few on Sunday night when he stepped behind the podium to discuss his Zags NCAA tournament appearance.
Gonzaga’s 26-game NCAA tournament streak is the second-longest active run of its kind in college basketball, and certainly the most impressive in the West Region.
• Michigan State (27)
• Gonzaga (26)
• Purdue (10)
• Houston (7)
• Tennessee (7)
• Kansas (7)
• Baylor (6)
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“It’s always nice to have experience, but it’s going to come down to that 40 minutes of basketball, and who’s making plays and getting stops, and who isn’t,” said Few, whose program went 25-8 and won the West Coast Conference tournament for the 26th time last Tuesday by beating Saint Mary’s.
“Maybe you don’t shoot it good, but you can’t have a bad effort night, you can’t have a bad mental night,” said Few, whose team has the longest active string of Sweet 16 appearances. “You have to be dialed in and have a next play mentality and great attention to detail and go in with a bunch of confidence and then let the chips fall where they may.
“Our teams have always done a good job with that.”
Few, the sixth-winningest active coach in college basketball (716 wins) took note of the job Mike White has done at Georgia (20-12) this season, too, entering into the teams’ 4:35 p.m. game on Thursday in Wichita, Kans.
“Gosh they’ve beaten St. Johns, they’ve beaten Florida …. quite a resume,” Few said. “I think everyone in that league is athletic and bouncy but I think Mike is a really, really solid coach, they’ll run some good stuff and have a very, very good plan on the defensive end of things.”
Few has split his two meetings with White, when the Georgia coach was still at Florida, losing the most recent meeting 111-105 in Portland in 2017, one year after beating White’s Gators in Orlando, 77-72.
“I thought he did a great job at Florida, and for Georgia to scoop him up and get him in their program was quite a coup,” Few said. “We recruited Asa Newell, really, really really hard, just a great player, even better person comes from a great family.”
This year’s edition of Gonzaga basketball appeared to be much better than its No. 8 seed — the Zags are No. 8 in the NET rankings (Georgia is No. 33).
But four losses in West Coast Conference action — the most in Few’s 26-year tenure — led to Gonzaga dropping out of the AP Top 25 in January.
This, despite the fact Few’s team has five players averaging in double figures and leads the nation with an average of 43.1 points per game in the paint.
Few, the classy veteran coach that he is, didn’t make too much noise about the seeding or his teams prospects for the tournament.
“All the teams are the same to me,” Few said. “I would say this, I hope for our fans and people that follow the program that they understand after a year like this, nothing is given, you earn your way into the tournament.
“We’ve done it so many times there’s a sense of entitlement around here, so I hope they appreciate it,” Few said. “There were times this year where it was looking like we might not make the tournament.”
Coach Mike White and Georgia can relate, having endured a pair of four-game losing streak at one point before closing the regular-season with four straight wins.
“Great accomplishment for our program and this team,” White said after leading the Georgia program to its first NCAA tournament appearance in 10 years.
“We’ve got more basketball ahead of us, so it’s a great day ….. We’re fired up and ready to get to work.”
