G&T Grip on Sports: This GU team is no Cinderella

Saturday: There was something magical about Gonzaga’s run to the Elite Eight in 1999. A scrappy bunch of Bulldogs did the unexpected, shocking the nation with crashing dunks and deadly daggers from the outside.

That was so 20th Century.

This year’s Zags are in the same spot, but the road, and road map, has been so different.

It was that 1999 run that thrust Gonzaga into the nation’s consciousness, mainly due to the Little Engine That Could Syndrome. Who would have thought a small Jesuit school from Spokane, Washington could pull itself up the NCAA hill, just missing the Final Four summit by a shot or two?

That perception stuck around for a few years but recently, over the past 10 or so years, has morphed from underdog to underachiever, as early round NCAA exit was followed by early round NCAA exit.

That was then. Friday night the Zags played like the bullies they have become, muscling UCLA out of the tournament with a tough-it-out 74-62 win in Houston. This wasn’t the Matt Santangelo, Richie Frahm Zags. This was the Przemek Karnowski Zags, all 7-foot-1 and 288 pounds. The biggest kid in cavernous NRG Stadium.

Close on his heels was Domantas Sabonis, another foreign import who banged away down low until the Bruins finally caved. And out front, senior guard Kevin Pangos, a first-weekend NCAA loser in each of his first three seasons, guided the pack to the Elite Eight, even if he couldn’t find the bottom of the net from the outside.

Friday’s game showed once again how many ways Gonzaga has to beat you, a must for any team hoping to be in the national championship conversation in late March. And that’s where, for the first time in 17 years, Gonzaga finds itself today.

Oh, sure, Kentucky is still Snow White, towering over the rest of the competition. But among the seven other contenders, Gonzaga is not dwarfed. It has as good a chance as any, with enough offense to win a shootout and enough defense to grind it out if need be.

The next test is the toughest thus far, the blue-blooded boys from Duke, college basketball royalty for a lot longer than anyone left not from the Bluegrass State. But Gonzaga has the pieces to compete, to deal with Duke’s size, quickness and talent. And they think they can. That’s just as important.

Wednesday: The sports year is an eternal circle, isn’t it?

When one sport dies down, another rises up to take its place. Baseball finishes its Fall Classic and football is in full swing. Football bowls everyone over then basketball jumps in. Basketball starts to slow and baseball travels south for the spring. Over and over again.

For decades the rhythm was simple, three sports that covered the entire year. But season creep began long ago and now the overlap is long and tedious. And football, the 800-pound gorilla, sits wherever it wants – as exhibited by spring football beginning this week in the Palouse.

Yes, it is practice, and only practice. But it is football and football is the No. 1 sport in America these days. Oh, sure, football in these parts is nothing like some areas of the country. The WSU spring game in late April won’t draw 80,000 folks to Joe Albi as such events will across the South.

But for diehard college football fans – and there are quite a few of those in the Northwest – spring football is the beginning of the fall season, a first glint of optimism to hold onto for the summer.

There are always questions that have to be answered each spring, position battles that need to be won. This year in Pullman, there are more than usual it seems, what with the turnover on the defensive staff and the graduation of the most prolific passing quarterback in school history. Will Luke Falk grab the quarterback job with both hands and never let it go? Will Alex Grinch’s first Cougar defense have a different look than its predecessor’s?

Which player will surprise everyone with his physical transformation? Those and other questions begin to be answered this week.