GO ZAGS

[Hawktawk]

22 years ago I began following a little upstart cinderella team in march madness , little jesuit school with an enrollment of 5k in spokaloo WA. They got to the elite 8 and led powerhouse Connecticut by 4 in the final minute before falling to the eventual national champions. I said hmm that was fun and they went on my must watch list from then on.

Who could have ever known the brilliance of Mark Few would bring the team to the brink of title in 2017 and begin landing some of the best players in the world. This year's team is the best and deepest Zags team ever and has a serious chance to go wire to wire as the #1 ranked team in the nation. They landed Jalen Suggs as the #6 overall player in the country, an incredible explosive athlete with offers to play both basketball and as a QB for many top ten D 1 powerhouses and he came to spokane .It will be one year an he will be a lottery pick in the NBA.
They have 3 Wooden watch candidates on the floor at the same time and score nearly 100 points a game with great defense and unselfish offense. When Jay Bilas is drooling over your team during the broadcast you have definitely arrived.If you have not been following this team and you like roundball I recommend you start.

Just thought OT could use a little counterbalance to the gloom and doom.

[c_hawkbob]

Been a Zags fan since the Jazz picked John Stockton from their in the NBA draft!

[Hawktawk]

Yes he was the original. There's quite a few zags in the show now with more to come. When you get the one and dones that when you know the recruiting is big time.

[RiverDog]

Been a Zags fan since the Jazz picked John Stockton from their in the NBA draft!

I have you beat on that account. When I was going to college at Eastern in the mid 70's, we used to go to Zag basketball games in Kennedy Pavilion, which resembled a high school gym. They were coached by a very flamboyant character named Adrian Buoncristiani, or ABC:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Bu ... 0c.%201940)%20is%20a%20former,University%20in%20Spokane,%20Washington,%20from%201972%20to%201978.

Games were never boring when ABC was coaching. He was good for a technical each game. Gonzaga was a member of the Big Sky Conference back then, the only non football school.

One of the more memorable moments was one of the more tragic that I've ever witnessed. A referee, one that had refereed games in which I had participated in during high school, collapsed during the game of a heart attack and was dead on arrival.

[Hawktawk]

Omg! That’s awful .

Yes mark few had to stay with another assistant coach when he came to the program . The facilities were a dump and wages were low. I believe he still coaches for less than he could make at historically powerhouse schools .

[RiverDog]

Omg! That’s awful.

Yeah, I came home and asked my roommate, several years older and from the same home town/high school, if he knew who Orv Marcum was and he responded enthusiastically and said "You mean Captain Hook!", making a motion that Marcum used to use when calling a foul, and I said "He just died of a heart attack", and his face went blank and turned white as a ghost. You may know his son as he used to run the West Richland golf course and another dump of a course called Buckskin.

Yes mark few had to stay with another assistant coach when he came to the program . The facilities were a dump and wages were low. I believe he still coaches for less than he could make at historically powerhouse schools .

Without doing a Google, I think it was Dan Fitzgerald that Few replaced. And yes, Few could have easily made more money at another school. Oregon made a run at him a few years back.

Spokane is all in on the Zags as they have one of the best traveling fan bases in CBK.

[Hawktawk]

Is this the year ? 40 minutes (at least ) from immortality as one of the greatest college teams ever . But it’s a worthy opponent . Baylor is tough.

[RiverDog]

Is this the year ? 40 minutes (at least ) from immortality as one of the greatest college teams ever . But it’s a worthy opponent . Baylor is tough.

There are some contests where I feel very confident of an outcome, but I wouldn't want to wager a nickel on either team. I don't even want to go so far as to say that it's going to be a close game as I feel that either team could blow the other one out by 20 points.

[Hawktawk]

Fair enough . I surely don’t feel confident . It’s why they play the games right ?

[RiverDog]

After the semi final game, the championship was a real dud, unless you're a Baylor fan. Anticlimactic is an understatement. The Zags got behind early and were never able to string together a deep enough run to make up the difference. Baylor kept hitting treys and crashed the offensive boards.

Oh, well. Maybe I can rekindle my interest in baseball this summer, otherwise it's going to be a long wait until football season begins. Even the NFL draft looks to be a dud, with no #1 pick and just 3 selections overall.

[c_hawkbob]

I'm having a good time following the Jazz!, between them and the Zags I'm watching quite a bit of roundball this year.