point of the last 24 years. Let alone when we entered their conference. We beat them the year before in the NCAA to go to our first sweet 16 since (checks notes) 1981. Gonzaga meanwhile had been 5 times since 1999, and has since made it every year since 2015, including two final 4's and national championship games. Gonzaga jumped from great to elite since 2011, and right before we joined the conference we had a few years of being pretty darn good.

It is disappointing that we never came close to a conference championship, and that we never won the tournament (although while our chances are still slim, this year might be our best shot, so I won't count us out quite yet). But no reasonable person expected us to come in and dominate the conference from the word go.