Staying west? A No. 1 overall seed? What did we learn about Gonzaga after the NCAA’s top 16 reveal
As soon as the NFL season comes to a close, the next major event on the sports calendar is the 2020 NCAA Tournament.
This past Saturday, the NCAA revealed their “Top 16 teams” much like College Football does with its playoff rankings. However, instead of a week-by-week approach to it, this is the only time we’ll see the NCAA’s “seed and regional projections” until Selection Sunday on March 15.
What we know from the reveal is that Gonzaga is the third overall seed in the rankings and placed in the west region as the No. 1 Seed. There is a lot more that goes into what we learned on Saturday and what could and will happen going forward a month away from Selection Sunday.
Stay west, young man
Now, more than ever in recent memory of the NCAA Tournament has a regional site been as vital as the 2020 west regional in Los Angeles, CA is. Right behind Gonzaga is the San Diego State Aztecs who are undefeated but Gonzaga has better “Quad 1” wins which sends the Southern California-based school out to New York City for the east regional.
What this means for the Zags is that as long as they stay the course during the final third of the season, their path to the 2020 Final Four in Atlanta looks like this…
Spokane, WA (1st and 2nd Round)
Los Angeles, CA (Sweet 16 and Elite Eight)
If you’re Gonzaga, you’ll take that every single day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Big 12, big problems
Being No. 3 in the top 16 means you’ve got a chance to move up and claim a top overall seed. The only thing stopping them is the stranglehold that both Baylor and Kansas from the Big 12 have on the top two spots.
Gonzaga has just three games against quality opponents while Baylor and Kansas each have seven, one of those matches up the top two overall seeds on Feb. 22. The opportunities for the Bulldogs to pass the Bears and Jayhawks isn’t impossible, but they’ll need help from the other Big 12 schools that have failed to hold a candle to both Baylor and Kansas.
West Coast rematch in Los Angeles looming?
When you take a look at the projection top four seeds in the west region, it reads out like this.
Gonzaga
West Virginia
Villanova
Oregon
This means, if the seeds hold for the first week of the NCAAs, we could get a rematch of a Battle 4 Atlantis semifinal showdown between the two schools. In the first matchup, the Ducks and Bulldog went down to the wire, Gonzaga winning 73-72. I would not mind seeing a rematch, especially with the winner of the game being 40 mins away from a spot in the Final Four.
This story was originally published February 10, 2020 at 2:27 PM with the headline "Staying west? A No. 1 overall seed? What did we learn about Gonzaga after the NCAA’s top 16 reveal."
