The Gonzaga men wrapped up the team's WCC season on Saturday and it was a conference season not soon to be forgotten.
The Zags went a perfect 16-0, which as much as it seems like the Zags go undefeated every year in conference play, they don’t. In fact the last time they did that was the 2012-2013 season, but that’s only really scratching the surface of what Gonzaga accomplished this year in conference.
Since we have a week until the Zags play next, this felt like a good opportunity to really put Gonzaga’s run through the West Coast Conference in perspective.
First, we’re just going to start with some general stats.
Gonzaga won games by an average of 27 points in conference play. We’ll get to why that’s so impressive in just a second, Their lowest margin of victory was 12 points, their highest? 59 points. That means that not only did Gonzaga run the table in conference, they ran it by winning by double digits in every game.
Speaking of double digits, four players (Rui Hachimura, Brandon Clarke, Zach Norvell, and Josh Perkins) averaged double figures in scoring in conference play this season. No other team in conference play had more than two players averaging double digits, much less four.
Gonzaga also led the conference during conference play in field goal percentage, field goal percentage defense, rebounding margin, blocked shots, assists, steals, turnover margin, and assist to turnover ratio.
By the way, no surprise that Gonzaga led the conference in field goal percentage. They lead the nation in field goal percentage at 53.4%. Three percentage points higher than any other team.
So I just hit you with a ton of facts that show that Gonzaga was very, very good in conference play, but it doesn’t illustrate how historic their run was.
To illustrate that, we have to check in with KenPom, who wrote an article a few weeks ago for the Athletic that did a good job of summing up how special Gonzaga has been through the WCC season.
According to KenPom, in the last 20 years, the best average margin of victory in conference play across all Division I conferences was 26.2 points by *drumroll* the Gonzaga Bulldogs in the 2016-2017 season. Like I said earlier, the Zags ended up beating opponents in the WCC by an average of 27 points, so they bested their own mark.
What's even more impressive is that according to KenPom, this is Gonzaga’s second-toughest WCC schedule in the past 20 years. So essentially, the Zags are besting their own mark against much tougher competition than what the 2016-2017 team faced. To sum it up, what Gonzaga is doing is unprecedented.