Zags Getting The Last Laugh But Fitz Insists Gu Didn’t Need Ncaa Berth To Vindicate Methods

On the fringe of the campus rally Tuesday afternoon stood Jim McPhee - a Zag of not-so-old on hand to toast the new Zags and the very un-Zaglike phenomenon of Gonzaga University in the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

He had, after all, been there in another un-Zaglike time - the 8-20 season of five short years ago.

“You’re as much a part of this as anybody,” Bulldogs assistant coach Mark Few told him.

“Yeah,” McPhee cracked. “I’m the zero in the 180-degree turn.”

Zag humor. It comes with an edge so sharp that sometimes it’s safer to fall on your own sword.

It comes from the top, like everything else.

It comes from Dan Fitzgerald.

And with the hardest part over - the 80-67 victory over Portland in Monday night’s West Coast Conference title game - the driving force behind all things athletic at Gonzaga savored it all: the congratulations, the ironies, the laughs.

He saluted the rowdy men jamming the fire escape of Desmet Hall for “probably having broken the Lenten fast last night.”

He roared at the hand-painted sign declaring, “Bring on Oklahoma: Kelvin, You Have to Face the Zags Sooner or Later” - the reference to former Washington State coach Kelvin Sampson and his petty allergy to scheduling GU.

He didn’t hear McPhee’s best line, but chances are he’ll borrow it.

“Now you can write about something other than GPAs,” McPhee joked to a reporter, “or the ‘altar boy profile of the week.”’

The joke was always thinking Gonzaga cared more about good behavior than about good results, when in fact it cared about both.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever completely believed you could do it here,” Fitzgerald said, “but I guess I believe now.”

What made him believe was a team that at one point appeared to be his most fragile but turned out to be his most resilient. A team that caught one and all by surprise by winning 11 of its first 12 games, then lost six straight once conference play began.

So what did he say when GU was 0-6?

“That I was glad I’m the athletic director,” Fitzgerald said.

A lot went into the crystalization of the 1995 Bulldogs. They began minus four starters that won the ‘94 WCC race by four games, but got no further than the tournament semis. They were picked to finish anywhere from sixth to last by the usual suspect experts. They had the burden of a homecourt winning streak that eventually reached 34 games before being snapped. They had the swoon.

But when the Bulldogs gathered themselves and won seven of their last eight heading into the WCC tournament, they had what last year’s round-robin champs didn’t have - good timing.

“There may have been more pressure on this team than any team I’ve ever coached,” Fitzgerald said. “Losing the streak really hurt these kids. I didn’t make a big deal of it - it was a media deal - but the pressure grew on them, especially when they tanked it a little.

“What they didn’t do is cave in.”

Fitzgerald wondered in October how much of his own personality would ever be reflected in this team. He found out in March.

“We played my way in the sense of battling back, getting off the mat and hanging in there,” he acknowledged. “That’s what I’ve learned from guys I’ve played for and worked for, and that’s what we’ve tried to teach. One victory on ESPN doesn’t validate that, because we were legitimate before.”

But they’d never made it to the NCAAs and nothing makes a program as legitimate as that.

In fact, just nine other schools - William & Mary, Army, Kent State to name a few - have deeper Division I roots but no NCAA apperances.

“You don’t know how many times in recruiting I’ve had to explain that,” said Few. “I’m always saying, ‘We won 20 games and were 78th in the ratings and lost all these close games - but, no, we didn’t make it in.”’

Now the real test comes. The bracket won’t be out until Sunday and only a handful of berths have been filled, giving Media Nation a head start on discovering the little school with the name even its WCC brethren can’t pronounce.

“It’s not going to change us - I’m not going to let it,” Fitzgerald said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to enjoy it.

“The most gratifying thing has been the reaction of guys who played here before this bunch, and how happy they are. They’re not envious, they’re genuinely fired up. And a lot of those are guys who didn’t have the perfect experience here. That’s what validates what you do.

“Really, what we’ve just done is not that big of a deal.”

He laughed. The biggest laugh of all.

“Like hell it isn’t,” he said.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review