Weekly Zag Briefing

The annual “Gonzaga is overrated” murmurs appear to be resurfacing again this week for some unknown reason. While such trollish and/or remarkably uneducated comments simply bemuse me at this point, it is kind of amazing that take continues to be sent out into the world in the year 2020. In any event, here’s what else is on tap this week:

• Brian Hamilton of The Athletic continues his tour of Gonzaga’s roster with a strong feature on Filip Petrusev’s back story and his basketball journey that landed him in Spokane, a place he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to be when he made his first visit.
• ESPN’s college basketball writers discuss which of the four programs currently on the 1-line is most likely to lose that spot before Selection Sunday. Between the four writers, two of them picked Gonzaga due to the two remaining games it has against BYU and Saint Mary’s and the inevitable match against one of them in the WCC Final. Guess the WCC isn’t so soft...
• While the Zags may have been the popular pick amongst ESPN’s writers to drop from the 1-line, they were the popular pick amongst The Athletic’s staff to win the national title this year in their revised poll.
• Sean Farnham pegged Petrusev as his early pick to be the Wooden Award winner. That would be quite the achievement for the sophomore.
• Seth Davis and his anonymous coaches break down a host of teams that are expected to play in the tournament, and his unnamed source identifies Gonzaga’s guard play, and specifically the lack of dynamic scoring, as its biggest weakness.
• Killian Tillie hopped on The Jim Rome Show last week to discuss the program’s goal of winning the national championship.