Yes, Gonzaga has lots of tournament wins. But yes, it’s partly because they have such a high seed almost every year. And that high seed doesn’t go away after the first two tournament games.

As for FAU, they have no reputation of having a good program, so they aren’t going to get the respect that Gonzaga gets when it racks up wins against weak conference opponents.

That’s the thing with Gonzaga. They’ve had some legitimately great teams, so now, years later when they coast through the regular season with only 3 or 4 losses, people assume it’s because it’s just another great Gonzaga team. And then their tournament seeding is high (and sometimes inflated), which makes winning a couple games in the tournament easier than it ought to be.

The irony with Gonzaga on this board is that on the one hand they are everything BYU fans wish BYU could be … the mid-major that breaks through to the big boy table with national respect and accolades. But on the other hand, Gonzaga is everything BYU fans hate about college football … the team that often gets the benefit of generous assumptions based on a reputation built in seasons past.

But Gonzaga is somehow one of us, so people look the other way and even defend it, even going so far as to say they are the best program from the last 5+ seasons. Gonzaga. Not one of the teams that has won a national championship in that span. Not the team (Villanova) that has won 2 of the last 6 national championships. Nope, none of those.

What an interesting dynamic…