Gonzaga was the top team in its league for years. Will a Pac-12 move force a change in tactics?

Gonzaga's move to the Pac-12 seems like a given.

The Zags, with their 25 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, have been a high-major program in a mid-major league and the dominant member of the West Coast Conference. Now they'll be a high-profile program in… something else.

The new Pac-12 — in which San Diego State, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and Utah State have joined the rebuilding efforts of Oregon State and Washington State — is not at the level of the top five conferences in college basketball, but it will be much closer to this stage than any other. Let's call it medium major plusPlus in quality. Gonzaga is helping to narrow the gap to the top. When it became apparent that the Big 12's interest in the Bulldogs was just a joke, the Pac-12 seemed to be Gonzaga's best option.

The move makes financial sense. New Pac-12 members receive a 50 percent share of the NCAA Tournament unit money they bring in through their postseason progress, a payout system that rewards teams that are consistently good. Gonzaga actually has a higher percentage of NCAA Tournament appearances in the WCC, but joining a league that likely has a more lucrative media rights deal and is surrounded by leaguemates that have consistently performed better than their WCC counterparts is likely to make that happen Program gets more money away.

The impact on competition is less clear. In short, Gonzaga should indeed be tested during its conference season in the Pac-12, and there can be reasonable debate as to whether that is a positive or negative.

The Zags' dominance has drawn critics who say their easy conference is inflating their record and overvaluing them heading into March. The Counterpoint: Why fix something that isn't broken?

Gonzaga has won or shared the WCC regular season title in 23 of the last 26 years. It has won the WCC conference tournament in 20 of the last 25 years. No school in college basketball owned its league like the Zags. The resources and resources of everyone else in the WCC are nowhere near Gonzaga's.

While other major teams are fighting for their survival in conference play, just trying to win games and make the NCAA Tournament or win the league, Gonzaga isn't under that level of stress. Most years, head coach Mark Few knew he would win the league and make the tournament. And because Gonzaga is so much better than everyone else in the WCC, it can simply focus on its own development during conference play. Few are able to play a deeper rotation, keeping his substitutes busy and boosting their confidence, which also has the long-term benefit of helping with retention and speeding up the development process.

More importantly, Few can focus on his team's weaknesses and try to improve them instead of pouring resources into scouting and conference race survival mode. Last year, for example, he tinkered with his lineup in mid-January and brought in a third frontline player, Ben Gregg, and it worked brilliantly. Gonzaga's confidence was faltering after a 9-4 start. With Gregg in the lineup, the Zags started the NCAA Tournament hot and eventually made it to the Sweet 16.

The narrative that Gonzaga is suffering in the postseason because it plays in such a weak league turns out to be ridiculous just by looking at the results. Gonzaga has reached the Sweet 16 in nine consecutive tournaments – since the field expanded to 64 players in 1985, only North Carolina and Duke have made such a run. This stretch includes two appearances in the national title game. In 17 of the last 24 NCAA Tournaments, Gonzaga has either played to or exceeded its seeding. Gonzaga has the seventh-most NCAA Tournament wins in college basketball (43) since 2000.

Yes, Gonzaga has yet to win a national title. But this is more about the randomness of a one-off tournament. Gonzaga was the better team in the 2017 national title game, and if a few decisions are made in that game against North Carolina, they will likely have won their national title.

To get quantifiable evidence that the Zags actually benefit from playing in a weaker league, let's take a look at some data. Gonzaga is coming off the best decade in program history and has been arguably the best team in college basketball for the last 10 years. The following table shows where Barttorvik.com ranked Gonzaga at the bottom of its non-conference schedule each year (NC Rank), and then where Gonzaga ranked during the conference schedule, from the start of conference play to the end of conference tournaments (CS -rank). . These are all adjusted efficiency rankings so the quality of the opponent is factored into the equation.

Gonzaga performed better eight out of 10 times during the conference portion of its schedule. And when you break down this adjusted efficiency ranking by the Zags' offensive and defensive efficiency ratings, it seems to point to Gonzaga's ability to identify areas for improvement and turn a weakness into a strength.

Now let's look at the program that has come closest to Gonzaga in terms of consistency this decade: Kansas. The Jayhawks have also reached the NCAA Tournament every year this century, have the most tournament wins since 2000 (59) and dominated their conference, albeit a much more difficult one.

The narrative around Bill Self-coached Teams is that they always improve over the Christmas holidays. Kansas won or shared the Big 12 title seven times in those 10 years, but Self's team regressed in six of 10 seasons.

And when the Jayhawks had a weakness on one end of the court, the numbers suggest Self had a harder time fixing it during the conference season.

Gonzaga won't suddenly follow in Kansas' footsteps in the Pac-12. The Bulldogs will still be the class of their new league, and the gap to No. 2 will be greater than what Kansas has had in the Big 12 in the past. But if the newly rebuilt Pac-12's programs were ranked by talent level, at least one team will be just one level below Gonzaga (San Diego State) and others will be just a few levels away, unlike the current situation in the WCC, where Gonzaga sits on a mountain and the others are at sea level.

Of course, Gonzaga's biggest advantage is the quality of the team Few puts together each year. Where the program goes in the next decade will depend much more on the performance of Few's hand-picked successor, assistant Brian Michaelson, and the Zags' success in talent acquisition. It's still too early to adequately evaluate the departure of former future head coach Tommy Lloyd, who was Gonzaga's top international recruiter before leaving to become Arizona's head coach in 2021, but it's worth noting that Gonzaga has yet to sign an impactful player Since then abroad.

However, as Gonzaga's brand has become more attractive, it has recruited at a higher level in the U.S. and attracted five-star prospects like Jalen Suggs and Chet Holmgren. Gonzaga has also done very well in the transfer portal. And the WCC has never compromised its ability to recruit anywhere. Few could still imagine that Gonzaga would have a high-profile non-conference appearance and play in March.

The WCC tournament also gave Gonzaga the opportunity to play games on its terms. From 2003 to 2013, the conference's top two seeds received a bye to the semifinals of the WCC tournament. After five years in which Gonzaga again had to play at least three games to win the WCC tournament, the league implemented a double-bye that once again allowed its top two seeds a place in the semifinals. This led to the Zags being one of the country's most rested competitors entering the NCAA Tournament. Depending on the final size of the basketball league, they may not get such an easy path in the Pac-12.

Although Gonzaga's departure from the WCC often felt inevitable, the school remained loyal longer than many expected while others seized every opportunity in the popularity contest to realign the conference. As the Zags adjust to a new league, any advantages their old league offered may become more apparent than ever before.

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