Weekly Zag Briefing

The good times keep rolling, and Gonzaga has an opportunity to avenge its *just okay* win over Saint Mary’s a few weeks ago when the Gaels come to town this week. That’s the type of motivation you have to manufacture when you’re undefeated and have no actual losses to avenge. In the meantime, there’s content to catch up on:

• I’m sure at this point you have all seen it, but jussstttttt in case you haven’t Sports Illustrated’s Greg Bishop did the world a great service by penning a fantastic feature on Gonzaga which gets the front page cover treatment. Make sure to give it a read, and if you already have, maybe read it again. It’s a fantastic piece. Never take what Gonzaga has going for granted.
• A favorite topic for CBB writers this season has been finding a third team to place on the level of Gonzaga and Baylor. Nick Selbe of SI takes a crack this week, ranking the teams from 1-14 who can prevent a Gonzaga-Baylor national championship game. Selbe’s most likely culprit? The Alabama Crimson Tide, which surprisingly has programs other than football.
• A hot topic of discussion has been whether Gonzaga should opt out of the WCC Tournament. Deseret News examines whether BYU could opt out as well, which would be an interesting choice...
• Gonzaga’s scoring output and stellar field goal percentage this season highlights Bleacher Report’s list of mind-boggling college basketball stats.
• After Baylor’s win over Texas, Eamonn Brennan moved the Bears into the top spot of his power rankings for The Athletic, where he also left Gonzaga. I guess it’s appropriate to have both teams sharing the top spot considering their respective accomplishments, even though it’s a bit unorthodox.
• Not Gonzaga-specific, but if you’re unfamiliar with the NCAA Tournament Committee’s process of putting the bracket together, check out this breakdown from Jerry Palm of CBS Sports of the team sheets used by the Committee to assess the resumes of each team.
• CBS Sports also put together a list of hypothetical nonconference games that would be fun to see before the tournament starts, with Gonzaga’s opponent not the team from the south you would expect. Yes, that’s right, it’s Alabama instead of Baylor thanks to the Crimson Tide’s style of play likely to create an entertaining matchup with the Zags. I would sign on for this (I would also sign on for anything, really).