No. 5 ranking doesn’t mean Bulldogs aren’t vulnerable

Gonzaga coach Mark Few is quick to admit his Bulldogs are not a typical top-5 men’s basketball team.

The Zags, 17-3 overall and 7-0 in the West Coast Conference, have shown a sometimes-disturbing propensity to play to level of their competition. They have struggled to put away even the weakest of teams in their own league, and they continue to be challenged defensively, especially on the front line, where – for the first time in several years – they lack a long, athletic shot blocker and basket protector.

Still, the Bulldogs have managed to string together eight straight wins and move, this week, into the No. 5 spot – behind Connecticut, Duke, Memphis and Villanova – in both the Associated Press and USA Today/ESPN polls.

“It probably confuses a lot of people,” Few said of his team’s lofty rankings. “We’ve shown flashes of playing pretty good basketball, but we’ve shown other flashes of not.

“And the reason we win games is not typical of a top-5 team. We’re winning on execution and heart and guts and playing smart. Right now, we’re just not a physically imposing team, so that’s why you’re seeing a lot of close game. When we let down with our effort, or we let down with our intelligence, it creates an even playing field.”

The Zags’ rankings are their highest since March of 2004 when they were No. 3 in the AP’s final poll, conducted prior to the start of postseason play, and No. 2 in the USA Today/ESPN’s last regular-season poll.

The Bulldogs went on to lose to Nevada in the second round of the NCAA Tournament that year and dropped to No. 12 in the USA Today/ESPN’s end-of-the-season poll.

GU, after finishing the first half of WCC play unbeaten, entertains Santa Clara at 8 p.m. Saturday in the McCarthey Athletic Center, and Few is hoping his team can find a way to avoid some of the “lulls” that have plagued it in recent weeks.

“If we’re not ready to play, and we can’t come out and show a great effort or show great intelligence for long stretches of time, then we put ourselves in position to get beat,” he said. “We’re just not a physically imposing basketball team, like a UConn or a Texas. So when that lets down – and we’ve had stretches where it has let down – we can be vulnerable, and that’s where I think people maybe get a misnomer about us being a fifth-ranked team.”

Few, however, remains confident his team can play with anybody in the country.

“There’s no doubt in my mind, because we’ve shown that,” he said. “But night in and night out, if were not playing at our highest level, we’re susceptible to getting beat – which is pretty much true of everyone out there, with the exception of a handful of teams.”