Steve Christilaw: Gonzaga basketball success easy to take for granted

We are so spoiled.

Not “past-the-pull-date” spoiled. Nothing like that.

But we are so spoiled by college basketball.

We’ve had it so good for so long that we collectively cannot remember when we didn’t have it so good.

In a game built around ups and downs so frequent you can set your watch by them, that’s an eternity.

We are over-the-moon accustomed to nothing but the best.

Think of it in these terms: Gonzaga University’s string of consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances (20) is longer than the Seattle Mariners string of not reaching the major league baseball playoffs (17), and that’s the longest streak in professional sports.

We don’t get all tingly at the thought of making the NCAA Tournament, and we have forgotten when that was a pie-in-the-sky goal that we might, someday, achieve. Now we spend our time worrying about how high our Gonzaga Bulldogs will be seeded. We speculate about which region we’ll be given that high seed into – and that’s the only reason we don’t buy airline tickets six months early to get a better fare.

Jaded? Oh, yes. We are jaded.

Not that I’m complaining. I, wearing my Final Four T-shirt from last year, revel in it as much as the next person.

But stop and think about it for a sec.

Saturday afternoon we actually had to decide whether to stick with the Gonzaga women all the way to the bitter end of their first-round loss to Stanford, or switch away to catch the opening tip of the men’s second-round game with Ohio State.

Dang. The decisions are tough in this town.

Look at it this way: There are players on the GU men’s team that were yet to be born the last time the Bulldogs did not make it to the Big Dance. There are GU students who skipped classes, piled into cars and drove to Los Angeles for the Sweet 16 who believe that Casey Calvary is the route for a religious retreat, Quentin Hall is a dorm somewhere on campus and Matt Santangelo is Gonzaga’s patron saint of basketball.

Not to make myself feel old, but in my lifetime we have gone from “Gonzaga has a basketball team?” to “Hey, the only difference between us and Duke is that you can actually spell our coach’s last name.”

Twenty straight NCAA Tournaments doesn’t get old. It won’t get old when the streak gets to 21 or 22 straight, either.

It doesn’t get old to hear other schools referred to as “the next Gonzaga.” So long as they pronounce the name correctly.

We envy no school in Division I, and there can be a tendency to look at schools getting giddy at the prospect of a trip to the Big Dance as “quaint.”

This year the Ramblers from Loyola-Chicago are the darlings of the NCAA for their thrilling ride to the Sweet 16. Here, we look at that with a mixture of “good for you, little guy!” and “Been there, done that.”

There are so many great similarities between Gonzaga and Loyola Chicago – aside from being Jesuit schools – that we really should pay more attention.

At Gonzaga, we revere the memory of Father Tony Lehmann, the beloved team chaplain. Loyola Chicago has Sister Jean Dolores-Schmidt, who is known for sneaking a scouting report into her pregame prayer as well as praying that the referees will call a good game for her Ramblers.

We lost Father Tony to cancer at age 73. Sister Jean is 98 and still going strong.

When you’re a high seed, you sometimes miss the subtle things about the Big Dance. Like the fact that Catholic schools are extremely well represented: No. 1-seeds Villanova and Xavier, Seton Hall, Creighton, St. Bonaventure, Providence and Iona in addition to our Zags and Loyola Chicago. No wonder Catholic Digest has a college basketball writer.

And we got a bit sidetracked after Virginia became the first No. 1 seed to lose a first-round matchup because we all remember Tony Bennett from his days at Washington State and, well, there’s that Cougar curse thing.

My side job on the college sports desk at Associated Press served me well for that situation, if for no other reason than I knew that UMBC is the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

That’s a trend in college sports – schools ask to be addressed by their initials. You have to stay on your toes to tell the difference between UTM (University of Tennessee-Martin) and UTSA (University of Texas-San Antonio). Or UTRGV (University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley). You can blame UCLA and UNLV for this SCTICS (Somewhat Confusing Trend in College Sports).

The UMBC Golden Retrievers didn’t even win their conference this season – finishing second in the America East to the Catamounts of Vermont. But they do come from a hotbed of college basketball – home to the State University of New York at Albany Great Danes, the State University of New York at Stony Brook Seawolves and the State University of New York at Binghamton Bearcats. Oh, and UMass. Not that UMass. The other UMass. The one in Lowell, Massachusetts. The River Hawks.

We’re above all that. We’re a basketball power that could very well be out shopping for a new and better conference because it will help improve our RPI in a place where even the people in the checkout line of the supermarket, people who watch, maybe, one college basketball game a year, know what RPI is.

It’s good to have such a long, distinguished history with the NCAA Tournament – just a year removed from playing for the national championship.

But I worry about the depression that will settle in on this community when the streak comes to an end, and it will come to an end.

Maybe not in my lifetime.

But, you know, someday.

After we win a national championship. Or two.