Barber: Gonzaga proves its worth in 83-59 win against Xavier

SAN JOSE

Sophomore guard Josh Perkins sat in a corner space in the unadorned Gonzaga locker room at SAP Center, a snippet of net dangling from his snap-back cap like a hair extension. Except this piece of nylon was more like a season extension.

A few feet above Perkins’ head was the 2017 NCAA West Region trophy, which his Bulldogs had just claimed with a thorough 83-59 dismantling of Xavier, a result that gave the Zags bragging rights among non-football-playing Jesuit schools.

“Oh, man. Unreal,” Perkins said when asked how it felt to sit in the shadow that trophy. “If I could do a backflip right now, I would.”

Gymnastics weren’t necessary. The Bulldogs had already shown their emotion on the court.

With just under a minute left in the game, point guard Nigel Williams-Goss walked to a solitary point on the court and seemed to gather his feelings before they erupted. Later, as the final buzzer approached, Gonzaga coach Mark Few walked down his bench and hugged each player individually.

“I’ve never seen Coach that happy,” said another guard, backup Silas Melson. “And I’m sure he’s never seen us that happy.”

No Gonzaga player or coach had ever had so much to be happy about.

In Few’s 18th season as head coach, after 18 consecutive tournament appearances and 16 West Coast Conference regular-season titles and seven Sweet 16 appearances, the Zags are finally going to the Final Four.

They’ll play in Phoenix next Saturday, against the winner of today’s Florida-South Carolina game.

After the victory against Xavier, Jordan Mathews -he also plays guard, and I swear Gonzaga isn’t made up entirely of backcourt players - downplayed the meaning of the accomplishment.

“It’s not validation now they’ve made a Final Four,” said the transfer from Cal. “Look at all the past great teams with Matt Bouldin, Adam Morrison, Matt Santangelo and (Jeremy) Pargo, just great guys, great players on fantastic teams. The Final Four doesn’t validate or discredit a season. It’s not an end-all-be-all.”

Mathews could have tossed in Ronny Turiaf, Dan Dickau, Kelly Olynyk and a few other heroes for good measure. But with all due respect, the young man was wrong. As much as any college hoops program in memory, Gonzaga desperately needed this win. For vindication. For legitimacy. For pure relief.

Few has built an oasis of basketball up in Spokane. In 1990, his first year as a graduate assistant coach, the Bulldogs finished 8-20. In 1997, three years before he was promoted from assistant to head coach, they went 15-12 and didn’t play in the postseason.

Since Few began calling the shots, though, Gonzaga has become a small-conference dynasty and a perennial tournament hopeful.

Only two teams have won first-round games each of the past nine seasons - the Bulldogs and mighty Kansas. This is the second time Gonzaga has earned a No. 1 seed. Few is the third-fastest coach to 500 wins, behind only the legendary Adolph Rupp and Jerry Tarkanian.

And yet despite all the vigorous scrubbing and soaking over those 18 seasons, Few couldn’t remove the stain. His team had never reached the Final Four.

Three times the Zags had made it to the Round of 8 in previous years. They lost every time.

And if Mathews could ignore the criticism, others in his locker room couldn’t.

“Oh, come on, you know we noticed it,” Williams-Goss said. “… The critics all year, I never heard a 1 seed being as disrespected as we were in the tournament, from numerous outlets. People saying we weren’t good, and we hadn’t played anyone, this and that. Now to be going to the Final Four, it’s like, what can they say now?”

Perkins called it “the noise.” Melson heard the haters, too.

“Forget about them,” he said. “That’s what we say. I mean, they’re gonna be there forever: ‘Gonzaga plays nobody. Their schedule’s bad, you’re in the WCC.’ We’re not hearing none of that.”

Athletes will do anything for motivation, including the fabrication of disrespect where none truly exists. But these Bulldogs weren’t creating the doubt. It was real.

Despite hauling a 32-1 record into March Madness, despite locking up that No. 1 seed with a strong defense and a versatile scoring attack, no one seemed the take Gonzaga seriously as a team to beat, even in the West Region.

Before the tournament started, ESPN had 25 basketball mavens fill out brackets. Just seven had the Zags advancing past the regionals; 15 picked Arizona to answer the call. CBS Sports enlisted six bracketeers; two picked Gonzaga, the other four Arizona. The Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy picked Arizona. So did SB Nation’s Ricky O’Donnell. And the Zags didn’t win the popular vote, either. In ESPN’s Tournament Challenge bracket contest, 37.8 percent of entrants had Arizona going to the Final Four, compared to 34.6 percent for Gonzaga.

Yes, Arizona had a talented team. But make no mistake, the picks were influenced - determined, even - by Gonzaga’s track record. Until they made a Final Four appearance, the Zags would always be the fun little team from who-knows-where, ready to take on the big boys and lose with pluck and spirit.

All of that changes now. It’s not that the Bulldogs aren’t gunning for more wins in Phoenix. But the pressure is off. Few and his team have proved, finally, that they belong among the NCAA elite.

“The résumé speaks for itself,” Melson said at one point in the postgame bustle.

When questioned on his assertion, though, he admitted that the document had remained silent on one key point. “I mean, I could say our résumé speaks for itself a lot, but if there’s no Final Four here, people might look at me crazy,” Melson acknowledged. “We finally got one.”

They sure did. And nothing would speak more loudly or adamantly than another couple wins in this March tournament.

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post. His blog “110 Percent” is found at http://110percent.blogs.pressdemocrat.com.