Weekly Zag Briefing

It’s a very snowy day in my neck of the woods, and also in many parts of the country, so it was no surprise that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today and blessed us with six more weeks of winter. Not the news I wanted to hear, but at least there’s other news for us to digest that may be more welcome:

• Gonzaga gets a lot of grief from various corners of the sports world for the conference it plays in and its level of competition. We all know that Gonzaga’s talent and style of play can compete against any team in the country and would help up well regardless of its conference. Since Tommy Lloyd took the Gonzaga way down to Arizona and has turned the Wildcats into Gonzaga 2.0, we now get the chance to see how the Zag blueprint would work in a “power” conference on a regular basis, and turns out it works just fine according to a recent article from 538.
• Let’s check in on the mood at BYU where they need to “re-tool” after being swept on last week’s road trip to California in advance of hosting USF and the Zags this week.
• USD Head Coach Sam Scholl previews their game with Gonzaga on Thursday in a conversation with Dan Dickau. Make sure to check this one out.
• In his recent column, Seth Davis breaks down the teams he has in his elite group, sleepers, and the individual players in the running for various honors. Unsurprisingly, he has the Zags in the elites. What was surprising to me, however, was seeing Saint Mary’s in the group of sleepers. Tommy Lloyd is high in the Coach of the Year discussion, as he should be, while Drew Timme and Chet Holmgren are in the conversation for player of the year and freshman of the year.
• The dream of a four bid WCC may be dying, as BYU, Saint Mary’s, and USF all find themselves on Bubble Watch as we reach the midpoint of conference play.
• Chet Holmgren gets a shoutout for playing his best basketball of the season in recent weeks from Jeff Borzello in his latest assessment for ESPN of the freshman class.