When the bracket came out one of the first things that jumped out was all the potential rematches for Gonzaga, with Xavier, UNC, Ohio State, San Diego State and South Dakota State all in the West Region.
One of those matchups is coming Saturday.
Gonzaga takes on a Buckeyes squad they beat by 27 Thanksgiving week in the PK80 Invitational in Portland. Johnathan Williams and Josh Perkins combined for 41 points. Meanwhile GU's zone defense contributed to a rough shooting night for Ohio State.
"You can't judge a team on their first five games, I mean obviously they got a lot better," Gonzaga guard Silas Melson said.
After a slow start Ohio State hit its stride, going on to win 17 of 19 games during one stretch of the regular season, helping them finish second in the Big Ten.
"That was one of our biggest tests early on, and that really taught us a lesson," Ohio State forward Jae'Sean Tate said. "The whole PK80 tournament really taught us a lesson, and it's why we were so successful in the Big Ten."
Ohio State improved from that meeting under first year head coach Chris Holtman. Gonzaga doesn't expect to see the same performance Saturday that they saw early in the season. But as Melson points out, the pieces haven't changed.
"It's not like they turned into LeBron or anything. They're the same dudes, so we're coming in with not the same gameplan, but pretty dang close."
That gameplan helped neutralize Keita Bates-Diop, who went on to become Big Ten Player of the Year. Gonzaga held him to seven points in their first meeting. Bates-Diop averages over 19 on the season, and put up 24 in their tournament opening win over South Dakota State.
"He's a tough matchup, he can post up guards," Gonzaga guard Josh Perkins said. "But he's also quick enough to get past the big guys. So he's a matchup problem for us. But we've got some guys like that on our team like Tilllie, (Johnathan Williams) and Rui. So we'll see tomorrow, it should be fun to watch."
"He's a great player. He's going to make some shots." Gonzaga forward Johnathan Williams said. "As long as we make the shots tough for him, that's the plan, to make life hard on him."
The success GU had in their matchup won't have any bearing on Saturday's meeting, bAut it's certainly on the minds of both teams.
"It's something we're going to feed off of, the familiar feeling of beating them," Perkins said. "But they're going to be hungry with that revenge factor. We have to put it behind us."
"As soon as we saw them on our side we wanted it," Ohio State guard Kam Williams said. "So just happy that we got the win yesterday and put in this position."