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[QUOTE="jncuse, post: 2048856, member: 1969"]
Not always a favourite team here.  I tend to like them because they have had a decent Canadian element for some time (not this year however).    They do tend to fail more than other mid-majors come tournament time.

With Villanova, Kentucky, Florida St, and Kansas losing this week, Gonzaga will move up to the #1 spot.
I am sure many have differing views on them.

The obvious question is how good are they?

They have beaten a number of fairly good teams on neutral court - Florida, Iowa St, and Arizona.    They have also throttled St. Mary's at home.   This isn't quite the same as when Wichita St went undefeated and all they had to show for it was a win over St Louis.   At the same time there are many 10-25 type's there, but no top 10 wins either.   They are #1 in the KenPom ratings, which doesn't mean to me they are the best (I look at KP more for the range a team may be in), but means they are at least one of the 10 best teams in the country.

What I am more interested in is how they got there.  They were not a great team last year, they lost Sabonis and Wiltjer, the core of the team, and now they have greatly improved.

It's interesting to note that the biggest apparent reason for their improvement is 3 transfers amongst their top 6 players, including 1 grad transfer, from P5 schools (Washington, Cal, Missouri).   Typically with that many transfers one would think it would take some time.   But the transition for them, compared to us for example, has been very smooth.

When I saw them around #10 to start the season I thought they were overrated and I did not undertand it.  But whether they have proved to be worthy of #1 or a #1 seed, they have proved to be a worthy top 10 team.   And given the number of key transfers that is really surprising to me.
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