Yeah it's great, but...

In a couple of months, the Gonzaga University men's basketball media guide will be released. Inside, there will undoubtedly be a section about "Zags in the NBA," which will feature the words " alumni have included two NBA champions and a Hall-of-Famer."

66 percent of that sentence is strange for me.

Don't get me wrong. I am estatic that Ronny Turiaf has now won a championship ring with the Miami Heat. It was wonderful to see a Zag reach the mountaintop and take the floor for an NBA championship team, especially considering everying Ronny has gone through in his career. I was even happy to see Adam Morrison in street clothes - but on the roster! - for two NBA-champion Los Angeles Laker teams. But there's something ... off, about those accomplishments. Something doesn't seem right. As good as it is to see alumni accomplish success, the way it was done leaves me feeling strange.

It keeps taking me back to the same question: why has it been so hard for Gonzaga Bulldogs to become star players in the NBA?

To date, John Stockton remains the only successful Zag to play in the association. He's a Hall-of-Fame point guard. Member of the 1992 Dream Team. All-time leader is assists and steals. Two Finals appearances. No ring.

In the 30 years since Stockton graduated from GU, and number of other star players have stepped foot in the Martin Center and McCarthey Center. Some have been serviceable role-players. Some helped put Gonzaga in the national spotlight. And a few were considered the best players in the country.

But none have achieved greatness at the next level. Adam Morrison's fall from grace is well-known. Dan Dickau had flashes of promise but ended up with a journeyman career. Ronny Turiaf was felled by his heart condition early in his career and never developed into a star.

As fans, all we want is to see them successful as pros. We want them to win. We want them to show the world how their skills helped put a tiny Jesuit college in the middle of nowhere on the national radar.

It's great to see them win, but we'd always hoped for something ... more.

There isn't really an answer. It is the system they played in at Gonzaga? It it the lack of experience with a power conference? Or it is all just the dumb luck of the draw? Do conferences like the WCC just have the once-in-a-generation player come along (Stockton, Steve Nash)? There's been plenty of examples of NBA players succeeding and failing in all of these circumstances.

Either way, it's something Zag fans are still getting used to.

Congratulations to Ronny. Here's hoping he paves the way for a Zag to someday lead a team to an NBA title.

'True Zag Fans' have it backward

Gonzaga has always done a great job with public relations. But this time they have outdone themselves.

On Thursday, the Bulldogs lost their third straight conference game, a 73-71 loss at home to St. Mary's. The Zags are slowly slipping down the WCC ladder, and a loss at home is normally a surefire disappointment. But you wouldn't know it based on the reaction.

"Mark Few knows how to coach!"

"Gonzaga played as good of a game as possible."

"I really like this team."

"Few can coach at any level! He's amazing!"

"We are constantly at the top of the WCC, what is there to complain about?"

This isn't an isolated incident. It happens game-in and game-out. And I finally realized:

The Zags have reverse support.

At least it seems that way. Gonzaga is the only Division-I team I know that sees more optimistic support for coaches and players when they lose than when they win.

After wins, fan commentary and chatter will be about topics ranging from player rotation problems, to strategy, to matchups. But after losses, it's all cheers praising how lucky Gonzaga fans are to have a coach like Mark Few and a team that has seen so much success in the past 10 years.

It's the perfect situation for the program. They can either win games, or use their past wins as a built-in insulation for criticism following losses.

Unfortunately, it's also bred a flock of Zag fans who have become so mindlessly devoted to the team that they forget about the importance of criticism. And it has reached the point where any sign of disappointment from a fan will result in their commitment being questioned.

If you're not with us, you're against us.

After Thursday's loss to St. Mary's, several Zag fans took to the Internet to vent their frustration with the result, and with the choices made by the Gonzaga coaching staff. Those that dared to express dissatisfaction were met with sharp words about whether they "truly" supported the Zags.

"I'm disappointed. Once a Zag, always a Zag."

"Here come the bandwagoners."

"We have the best coaching staff in America."

"We're finding out who the true Zag fans are tonight."

It's that last type of statement that is the most intriguing. The mindset from some is that the Zags' loss will weed out those who support the team and those who are on the bandwagon. Whoever criticizes the team or the coach after the loss, or whoever doubts the postseason resume of the Zags, or whoever says the outlook is bleak, will be exposed as a fraud, not a "true Zag fan"

And that's completely backward.

Since 1999, when the Dan Monson-coached Zags burst on to the scene with an improbable trip to the Elite Eight, Bulldog fans have suffered an inferiority complex, but it only developed through good intentions.

Gonzaga is a small, private Jesuit university tucked away in the Inland Northwest. Its basketball team doesn't belong to a major conference, and doesn't get the major recruits. National pundits and analysts never give teams like that credit, and never say they have a shot at greatness. Even after the Elite Eight run and the subsequent success over the next few years with Dan Dickau and co., Gonzaga was simply viewed as a Cinderella squad that would eventually flame out.

Zag fans took that personally. The small community of supporters rallied around their team, stuck with them, and proudly voiced their love of the team. It didn't matter what those critics in the media said, these were our Zags, and we know how great the really are.

But then the years passed, and the Zags became stuck on a plateau. Win a big game or two during the regular season, win the conference, lose early in the tournament. Year after year after year, since 1999. That's when a small minority of fans started to question why the program couldn't get over the hump to elite status.

But many Zag fans, still so accustomed to protecting their team, jumped all over that. They had seen their small team reach success despite overwhelming odds and plenty of doubters. So the instinct to defend the Zag honor kicked in, even if the people they were defending it from were their fellow fans.

They point to where the program was in the '80s and '90s, and the success it has now achieved. They point to Mark Few's winning percentage. They point to the numerous WCC titles and NCAA Tournament appearances. And all along, they cry "you should be thankful a small school like this can reach these heights! If you are a true fan, you would appreciate what you have!"
Here's the thing about "true Zag fans." They are appreciative of what they have. That's why they want the team to do better, and not be stuck in a 10-year plateau.

Gonzaga has a rabid fan base; some of the most knowledgeable fans in the country. But even the most knowledgeable fans know that criticism is important.

At its very essence, sports is entertainment. And if something is no longer entertaining, or has grown stale, then its OK to wish for changes. It just means you are passionate about it, and want it to reach its highest potential.

But blind, fanatical devotion to that entertainment is not OK, especially when it turns into lashing out against those who disagree with the status quo.

Admitting the Zags won't reach the Sweet 16 this year doesn't make you less of a fan. Commenting that the coaching staff has inadequacies doesn't make you less of a fan.

And at the same time, burying your head in the sand and never acknowledging that things are going wrong doesn't make you a better fan.

It's time for the "true Zag fans" to understand that.

Meet Your Longshot NBA Draft Prospect: Matt Bouldin

Matt Bouldin was the unlikely superstar during the latter half of his career at Gonzaga.

During his time as a Zag, there were teammates who scored more, who were faster, who were more emotional, who were better ballhandlers, passers and shooters. Bouldin was not spectacular in any one area. But he was solid in every area.

And as it turned out, that made him the perfect type of player for Mark Few's system of college basketball. When Bouldin's senior season rolled around in 2009 and the more one-dimensional stars had left the Kennel, it allowed Bouldin to take the reigns and utilize his multiple talents as the star.

In the world of Gonzaga basketball, Bouldin was just about as perfect of a player as you could ask for.

Unfortunately, that may end up being his undoing in the NBA Draft.

Bouldin may end up becoming a victim of the same system that made him look great in college. Playing in the WCC, you need a player who has good court awareness, who can control the tempo of the game with the ball in his hands. Teams in the conference aren't overly athletic, but they make up for it with scrapiness and good decision-making. A player like Bouldin can see the openings in systems like that and use his skills to take advantage. He never had to overpower, outshoot, or run past a team on his own; only wait for the openings and operate with a surgeon's precision.

But the NBA is about raw athleticism, which makes up for any lapses and closes those openings quickly. Someone like Steve Nash can take advantage of situations because he is an excellent passer with incredible court vision. Someone like Brandon Roy isn't overly athletic, but he can control the tempo of a game simply because he is a great scorer.

Believe it or not, in the NBA, having one or two great skills can be more effective than having 3 or 4 good skills.

Bouldin is hoping to be the exception to that rule.

For more perspective on the Gonzaga guard's outlook, I've turned to former Gonzaga Bulletin colleague Ben Pearson, who now writes a blog called The Left Coast Bias:

The NBA Draft is all about raw players with potential rather than proven players with experience. In other words, Matt Bouldin gets the short end of the stick at a critical time in his career. After a successful four-year career at Gonzaga, there is a very good chance Bouldin will not hear his name called on June 24th.

There is not a college coach in the country that wouldn’t have wanted Mr. Bouldin on his team. He has a high basketball IQ, good work ethic, and is an unselfish player. He took the traditional path by staying in college all four years with his role increasing each year. He answered by raising his scoring average each season, but that’s not always enough in the eyes on NBA GMs.

Bouldin is an all-around player, but in a way that is his problem. He is skilled in so many areas, but he doesn’t do any one thing great. There are many players who exploit their one superior skill and end up having lengthy NBA careers because of it. Bouldin will need to carve out his niche to last.

Bouldin’s biggest asset to a NBA team would be his vision. He has the size to see over most point guards and has a great feel for the game, always knowing where his teammates are on the floor. Bouldin would play the point in the NBA, a position he never played at GU, but I don’t think the transition would be very difficult for him. He has always possessed the ball handling and passing skills of a point guard, but with Jeremy Pargo playing alongside him for three years, it never made sense to have the offense run through him.

There are people out there who claim that Bouldin can’t play against athletic teams. I was skeptical myself as well. I remember the Duke game in December in which he had more turnovers (5) than points (4) and I can’t forget that he ended his college career going 3-13 against Syracuse. I went back and did some research comparing his performance against BCS schools to how he did against small conference schools.

In 40 career games against BCS schools:
12.38 points, 43 FG %, 4.42 Rebounds, 3.25 assists 2.55 TOs

In 93 career games against non-BCS schools:
12.77 points, 48 FG %, 3.86 rebounds, 3.38 assists, 1.92 TOs

Those differences aren’t that alarming, but a five percent dip in field goal percentage is somewhat significant given the amount of games. Also his assist-turnover ratio is discouraging, especially since he would be handling the ball even more as a point in the NBA.

What doesn’t show up on the stat sheet is his defensive performance against these BCS schools. While Bouldin has some speed off the dribble, his lack of agility and lateral quickness is what will probably end up keeping him out of the draft. With Gonzaga match-up zone, Bouldin’s sub par one-on-one defense never was really exploited. But could you imagine Bouldin trying to stay in front of Derrick Rose or Rajon Rondo?

I think Bouldin could be a solid backup point guard in the right system. For example, I think he would be a great fit in Phil Jackson’s triangle offense (Jordan Farmar is a free agent). That being said, there are too many teams that would not have room on their roster for a player like Bouldin. His lack of athleticism, paired with the fact that he has never exclusively played the point, don’t bode well for him.

My thanks to Ben for helping me out. Go check out The Left Coast Bias, where Ben is doing some NBA Draft Previews of his own.

For Bouldin, it may have been the system at Gonzaga making him look like a superstar, but that's what you want for your team and star player - a perfect fit. While on the surface, Bouldin may not look like the ideal NBA player, under the right coach and the right system, he might just end up finding a place in the league after all.


For last season's installments of Meet Your Longshot NBA Draft Prospect, click here.

Starting anew with Gonzaga and the Tourney

When I watched my first NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament as a student at Gonzaga, I was in a freshman dorm, with hundreds of other freshman watching and rooting for the same outcome.

My friends Brian, Jake, Spencer, David and I gathered in Jake's room, catching the action on a 12-inch TV that was perched on a bed. We sat on the floor and on chairs, huddled around the TV while Papa John's pizza and "cheese sneets" fill the air with the aroma of greasy, flex dollars-purchased goodness.

It was through that experience that I first truly felt like a college basketball fan.

Sure, I would always follow the games and fill out a bracket, but this was the first time that I felt invested in it. Those Zags on TV were our Zags - we were bonded to them through our months of support, our Bulldog-emblazoned paraphernalia, our rickety dorm hall rattling with excitement with each big play.

It was our team, my team. We were connected.

That experience was in 2006, and over the next four years I and every other Gonzaga fan felt that connection.

Fast forward to 2010. I'm coming up on one year removed from being a student at Gonzaga. The Zags, of course, are in the tournament once again. Only this year, things feel different.

It's not that I'm supporting the team any less, it's just ... different. As an alumnus, all of the sudden my perspective on the Zags run through the NCAA tournament feels slightly off.

I'm not quite sure how to adjust.

For four years, college basketball fans are right there in the middle of the frenzy. We watch the games on TV with friends and pizza. We pack the arena, screaming our heads off for 40 minutes. We track our teams progress, predict the games' outcomes, try not to miss a single second of the excitement. After all, we were students fans, that's what we're supposed to do.

But as a student fan at Gonzaga, I really noticed two types of alumni that stood out because of how strange they seemed.

The first was the older generation who filled the rest of the seats not populated by the student section. They were quiet, they would clap occasionally, but more often than not they were seat-fillers wearing school colors. It seemed like they didn't really care one way or the other, and if they did, they rarely showed it.

But by contrast, the other type of the alumni was on the opposite end of the spectrum. This type would graduate, then show up at the student section the next year, acting like nothing had changed. They would be wearing a Kennel Club t-shirt, be slightly intoxicated, while screaming at the referees and chanting "Defense Bulldogs Defense!" While the older generation struck me as sad at how much they changed, this group was pathetic at how much they refused to change.

I didn't want to be either one of those types of alumni. And yet, here I am, hours away from Gonzaga tipping off their 2010 tourney run, struggling over the type of identity I want to take on.

Right now it's a struggle to find that middle ground. I want to cheer enough to tell myself I haven't turned my back on my alma mater, but I also don't want to feel like the guy who is still wishes he was a college student, nearly a year after the fact. I don't want to sit on my hands with a ho-hum attitude, but I don't want to punch a wall after a heartbreaking loss.

It's an adjustment many of us 2009 graduates are facing right now.

Some people will choose one path or the other.

But for others, I suspect that middle ground will be found at some point. And that moment will come after Gonzaga tips off tonight.

It's hard to no longer be fully a part of something after dedicating your heart and soul to it for so many years, and we all wish that things would always stay the same. But at some point, everyone realizes a way to cope.

It's like the end of a long relationship. You had great times, but at some point, circumstances force you to part ways. For a while you reminisce about how good things were, and struggle with the prospect of a life outside of the relationship. But down the road, you bump into that person, and you see that each of you are doing well on your own, and that encounter finally gives you the closure to move on in your next chapter. You have the good memories to indulge you, but you realize you don't need it the way you did when you were younger.

Tonight, Zags fans get to bump into Gonzaga, and we'll realize what parts are important to let go, and what parts are important to hang on to.

Morrison: "Suck it, Stockton."

Adam Morrison.

Sure, you may have been the biggest bust of the 2006 NBA draft. And OK, you may not have seen any playing time in two months. But look at it this way: you got paid millions of dollars to sit courtside and give awkward high-fives to your teammates as they won an NBA championship without you.

Which, somehow, makes you the most successful former Gonzaga Bulldog, ever.

Somewhere in Uzbekistan, Richie Frahm is banging his head against a door.

The Changing of the Guard

Note - This column will appear in the 2009 edition of Gonzaga Spires.

At 5-foot-11, freshman guard Demetri “Meech” Goodson wasn’t exactly the biggest player to ever grace the basketball court for the Bulldogs. There were certainly larger players with larger-than-life personalities. But for a generation of Zag fans, it was the image of Goodson saving the day that will forever stay with them when they think of Gonzaga’s run through the 2009 NCAA Tournament.

With the Zags tied with Western Kentucky in the second round with only seven seconds left, Goodson received the inbounds pass, took it the length of the court, and put in a running jumper, giving the Bulldogs the win and sending them to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2006.

It was oddly fitting: Here was a 2009 team that featured two seniors – Jeremy Pargo and Josh Heytvelt – who were on the last Zag team to reach the Sweet 16 in 2006, and yet, the moment and the glory went to a young freshman. Those seniors received a shot at redemption for the 2006 heartbreaker, but it took the efforts of someone who wasn’t there to suffer that misfortune.

Goodson’s shot made a statement: A new chapter in Gonzaga basketball had begun.

The Zags entered the 2009 NCAA Tournament as a 4-seed, and were on a roll after cruising through the West Coast Conference season. This Zag team had been hailed as one of the most talented in school history, and expectations were high as the team traveled to Portland for the first two rounds.

But it wasn’t Gonzaga’s talent that would define their Tournament run. For all the accolades, highlights, and awards, it turned out none of it mattered. As it turned out, what would define this tournament was something that belonged to the Zags of old, the immeasurable quality of teams that never had the talent of this 2009 squad.

Heart.

Almost before anyone could blink in the first round, Gonzaga found itself trailing to 13-seed Akron at halftime 38-35. Suddenly, it was obvious that talent alone would not carry the Bulldogs to victory.

Pargo wore a look of anger, frustration, and focus as his team came out for the second half. He was the senior leader, and he was determined to not let another opportunity slip away. The Zags fought back, cheered on by the thousands of Zag fans who made the trip down. In the waning moments of the second half, Pargo threw down a vicious slam, turning the tide and pushing the Bulldogs to a 77-64 win.

As a senior, it was perhaps Pargo’s final defining moment as a Bulldog, because in a poetic changing of the guard, it was a freshman who would capture glory two nights later in the second round.

Against Western Kentucky, Gonzaga trailed again at the half, but found the strength to make another comeback. They retook the lead late in the second half, but WKU refused to go quietly and staged a comeback of their own, scoring nine straight points to tie the game with only seven seconds left.

“Meech” raced up the floor as the clock ticked away. Pargo was screaming for the ball, but the freshman refused to let rank be pulled. That moment belonged to Goodson. He nailed the runner and sent the Zags into a pandemonium.

But that moment proved to be the final happy moment for the Zags in the 2009 Tournament.

They traveled to Memphis for the Sweet 16, facing possibly the best team in the country: North Carolina. There were no glorious moments in that game, only two heavyweights trading punches back and forth. In the end, though, the Tar Heels proved just how elite they were, building a big lead over the Zags and never letting up.

After all the emotion of their first two games, the Zags just didn’t have another comeback in them.

The locker room after the game was a mixture of frustration and sadness. Seniors like Heytvelt and Pargo knew they would never play another game in a Bulldog uniform; their careers were book ended by disappointing finishes in the Sweet 16.

But the loss overshadowed another successful run in the Tournament – one filled with heart and determination. Those have always been the defining characteristics of Gonzaga basketball. The Zag legacy was carried on by a team that refused to quit.

So when a freshman who had never known those past teams took the ball coast to coast and scored an unlikely game winner, it became perfectly clear:

The torch had been passed.