Gonzaga narrowly lands on No. 3 seed line during NCAA committee’s bracket preview

Gonzaga will learn all the important details in three weeks’ time – seed, site, region, opponent – but Saturday’s early NCAA Tournament bracket reveal gave the Zags a sense of how they’re viewed by selection committee members less than a month before Selection Sunday.

Consistent with where many bracketologists have placed Mark Few’s team in recent days and weeks, Gonzaga was pegged as a No. 3 seed in the West Region by the NCAA Selection Committee, which revealed its top 16 teams during a bracket preview program that aired Saturday morning on CBS.

The Zags, who are 26-2 overall, 14-1 in West Coast Conference play and ranked No. 11 in the Associated Press Top 25 with three regular-season games remaining, were the 12th overall seed listed on Saturday.

They were joined in the West Region by a familiar face and also a familiar foe. Arizona, led by former GU assistant Tommy Lloyd, was tabbed as the No. 1 seed out West, and Purdue, which owns three wins over the Zags since 2022 including a victory in the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16, made the cut as a No. 2 seed in the same region. Fourth-seeded Michigan State rounded out the West.

Michigan, which routed Gonzaga by 40 points in November at the Players Era Festival, was named the top overall seed. The other No. 1 seeds were Duke, Arizona and Iowa State. There could be some shifting or maneuvering among the No. 1 seeds after Saturday’s nonconference, neutral-site matchup between the Wolverines and Blue Devils.

In order, the two seeds were UConn, Houston, Illinois and Purdue, followed by three seeds Florida, Kansas, Nebraska and Gonzaga, and four seeds Texas Tech, Michigan State, Vanderbilt and Virginia.

Committee members initially had the Zags slotted as a No. 4 seed, but reversed course after Texas Tech, originally projected as a No. 3, announced All-American forward JT Toppin would miss the remainder of the season with an ACL injury suffered in Tuesday’s loss at Arizona State.

“The interesting thing with Gonzaga is when we adjourned on Wednesday, Gonzaga was actually on the four line,” Selection Committee chair and Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill told NCAA digital reporter Andy Katz after Saturday’s reveal. “So as we worked through some issues with Texas Tech and tried to figure out how that injury to (JT) Toppin really kind of impacted our thinking with them, when we scrubbed and we got back in on Thursday morning, Gonzaga moves up to the three line and Texas Tech fell back to the four.

From Gonzaga’s standpoint, a No. 3 seed was widely considered a positive outcome for a team that suffered a resume-damaging Quad 3 loss at Portland earlier this month and is preparing to enter the WCC Tournament without second-leading scorer Braden Huff, who’s been sidelined since mid-January with a left knee injury.

The Zags haven’t ruled Huff out for the season, but the junior forward appeared on a CBS graphic of “injured star players” near the end of the bracket show and Gill indicated the committee would factor in availability as it pertains to where certain teams are seeded.

“The context matters, so we’re really trying to have a nuanced evaluation of wins and losses, so player availability is really important,” Gill said on CBS. “Your two best scorers aren’t in the game, that’s going to impact it versus the teams that beat team with those players available.”

The two teams that narrowly missed out on inclusion in the top 16 were Alabama and Arkansas. Gonzaga’s best win this season, and one that should carry weight into Selection Sunday, is still a 95-85 victory over the Crimson Tide on Nov. 24 against the Players Era Festival.

The Zags don’t own any victories over the top 16 seeds revealed on Saturday, but they’re 6-1 in Quad 1 games and have six total wins against teams projected to make the NCAA Tournament field by ESPN’s Joe Lunardi – a group that includes WCC opponents Saint Mary’s and Santa Clara, along with nonconference opponents Alabama, Kentucky and UCLA.