Gonzaga has always been a referendum on the state of the school baseball. If the 'Zags play well, we theorize in regards to the blurring distinctions between mid-majors and their power-conference brethren. We applaud the sport's meritocratic virtues, taking pot shots at its pigskinned version as we go.AIn sum, we talk. When Gonzaga flails, weAbegrudginglyAentertain the idea that experienced basketball visibility is confined to the well-endowed few. We remember that a small Jesuit college in Spokane can not possibly recruit the grade of athletesAnecessaryAto get a national championship.AIn quantity, we sulk. The Bulldogs' 76-70 reduction to Wichita State on Saturday was a moment for the latter, the most recent memory that Gonzaga, for all its regular-season success, isn't really the juggernaut we had thought it might be. Alongside the 'Zags remarkably hard opening-round conquer Southern, the Wichita State reduction presented Gonzaga as an undeserving No. 1 seed and laid bare the possibility that future mid-majors may suffer for the Bulldogs' sins. It is, of course, never that easy. Each system has its own strengths and weaknesses. Each team has its merits. Once the next Little College X finishes its 30-win normal time, the NCAA Selection Committee will need to decide anAappropriateAseed predicated on theAminutiaeAof that specific group swimming. Honestly, I really do not think Gonzaga dropping in the Round of 32 will carry much weight in those discussions. Additionally, it stands to say that current mid-major No. 1 vegetables have actually fared pretty much in the NCAA tournament. Memphis made the national title game in 2008 and the Elite Eight in each one of the two months prior. Saint Joe's got inside a jump shot of the Final Four in 2004. UMass rode Marcus Camby entirely to a 1996 national-semifinal series with grand Kentucky. The trickier problem with Gonzaga is attempting to determine how this damage may possibly impact the program's long-term growth. Have the Bulldogs plateaued? Can they create anything a lot better than aAperenniallyAcompetitive group? Can they dominate? E. Joe's and UMass were one-player wonders. Memphis and Cincinnati (another new mid-major No. 1) were tradition-rich programs with considerable recruiting reach. Gregory Shamus/Getty Photographs Gonzaga is categorically different, the unusual basketballAoutsider able to keep its head coach and sustain its success over multiple recruiting rounds. That the Bulldogs have done it within an time of shameless power-conference consolidationa'without replacing leaguesa'is much more remarkable. But again that needling question resurfaces: Can Mark Few's plan go further? Exactly the same could be asked of VCU and Butler, both of whom also lost on Saturday. Together with Gonzaga, those three schools form the vanguard of college basketball's outsider rebirth. Together, they will help establish the relationship between power-conference basketball and mid-major basketball over the next decade. Butler, for example, is off to the brand new Big East next year. For Brad Stevens' college, the allure of big-conference TELEVISION money was worth whateverAupheavalAthe move might cause. VCU's luck, on one other hand, is almost truly associated with the whims of Shaka Smart, the Rams' superstar instructor. An identical diagnosis pertains to New Mexico's Steve Alford and San Diego State's Charlie Fisher. And actually, the more I reflect on the future of mid-major basketball, the more I get back to the instructors. School baseball will always have its Cinderellasa'the school that lands an underrated talent or the team that heats up in late March. What distinguishes VCU, Butler and (more than anything else) Gonzaga, is that all comes with an established young coach who appears unswayed by the prospect of promotion. Few, Stevens and Smart, at the very least on the face, appear to genuinely believe that they can achieve what they want where they're. Maybe they will. Maybe they'll perhaps not. Perhaps they will reject the idea and proceed to some higher ground. On Saturday, a higher-ground transfer is inevitable you can not help but feel. Next event might easily tell a different story.
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