SPOKANE, Wash. — Illinois freshman Keaton Wagler scored 46 points. BYU freshman AJ Dybantsa had 43. Houston freshman Kingston Flemings finished with 42.
Saturday was an incredible day of college basketball — a reminder that I really do think we’re watching the best freshman class in the sport’s history. If you want a full recap, Matt Norlander and I discussed it for 83 minutes on the Eye On College Basketball podcast.
And now I’m stuck at Gonzaga.
A winter storm disrupting much of the country has made it impossible for me to get home to Memphis or back to work in New York. So here I am, stranded in Spokane after serving as the sideline reporter for CBS Sports Network during Gonzaga’s 68-66 win over San Francisco on Saturday — a result that pushed the Zags to 21-1 and up to No. 6 in Sunday morning’s CBS Sports Top 25 And 1.
Which brings me to a story.
As I was sitting inside the McCarthey Athletic Center — The Kennel — on Saturday watching a future Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame coach guide one of the best college basketball programs in the country to another win that will eventually lead to a 27th straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament, I couldn’t help but think about the first time I watched the Zags play. I remember it clearly. I was a senior at the University of Memphis, the sports editor of The Daily Helmsman. Like Saturday, I was sitting courtside — but it was November 1998, inside The Pyramid in downtown Memphis.
The Tigers were hosting Gonzaga.
I’d never heard of Gonzaga.
At the time, the small private school from the Pacific Northwest had made exactly one NCAA Tournament appearance and never won a game in the event. That all I knew. Then Richie Frahm scored 37 points, Gonzaga beat Memphis 88-73 and nobody quite knew what to make of it.
Was Memphis bad? Was Gonzaga great?
Turns out, the answer to both questions was yes. Roughly three months later, Gonzaga won its first NCAA Tournament game. Then another. Then another — advancing all the way to the Elite Eight of the 1999 NCAA Tournament. The rest, as they say, is history.
I told this story to Mark Few late Saturday.
He smiled.
It’s crazy, any way you tell it. But think of it like this: Imagine somebody from the future floated into The Pyramid just before tip-off on Nov. 16, 1998, and said, “You know this Gonzaga program from the West Coast Conference that’s never won a game in the NCAA Tournament? It’s about to make 26 straight appearances in the NCAA Tournament and advance far enough in two of them to play in the national championship game.”
What? How?
It would’ve sounded impossible.
And yet that’s exactly what’s happened over the past 27 seasons, which is a reminder that the streak would already be at 27 straight NCAA Tournament appearances if not for the 2020 event being canceled. It’s absurd. It’s remarkable. It’s one of the greatest stories in college sports history. So it was super-cool to be here Saturday and really fun to tell that story on “The Mark Few Show” after the Zags improved to 9-0 in the WCC.
It’s one of the best stories in college sports history — a basketball power with unlikely roots. Man, I didn’t plan on getting stuck here this weekend. Getting stuck is never ideal. But, yeah, it was awesome to see the Zags up close again on Saturday, just like it was the first time, even if, the first time, back in 1998, none of us really had any idea what we were watching — or a clue about the greatness coming next.
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Isaac Trotter
