Zags Out-Zog 'Press Virginia' in a Sweet Sixteen Classic

You know, after making the Big Dance every damn year for almost two decades, a school has earned the right to be called whateverr the hell it wants to be called.

The fact that Gonzaga's still being snobbed up is inexplicable.

Yes, the noted family that ruled Mantua for four centuries in what's now northern Italy were of the zog persuasion, but Spokane, Washington isn't in northern Italy.

Maybe somone should tell that fact to whichever Mr Lips is narrating this clip, especially in the wake of last night's snot-knocker in San José:

 

It was physically draining just watching that game.

Mountaineer coach -- and alum -- Bob Huggins' defensive system is every opponent's nightmare. Just ask Mark Few.

The diminutive coach of the Zags -- incidentially, that's Bulldogs in Italian -- said afterward that this was the hardest game his team's had to prepare for in years. Like, maybe, 2012, when Gonzaga eliminated West Virginia, 77-54, but at the cost of another severe workout because Huggins' teams just don't quit.

The Mountaineers enjoy deploying their smothering 94-foot defense so much that they seem to merely dick around on offense until someone decides to shoot, preferably Jevon Carter.

And yet, even he gets caught up in the maddening schoolyard habit of pounding a ball into the maples instead of doing what James Naismith decreed would be allowed for all eternity: passing it.

Still works, dudes.

And that goes for Nigel Williams-Goss, too.

In Gonzaga's only loss of the season to date, Brigham Young exposed the Washington Husky transfer as someone who's got a set formula in his body clock. It's one that says he's gotta drive and shoot a given percentage of his possessions, no matter how ill-advised that may be.

Tunnel vision like that from a Mark Few team is shocking, but dude's been clueless ever since the BYU loss.

It got so obvious in the Northwestern game that other Zags were ignoring him during crunch time. The play-by announcer even noted that Williams-Goss was calling for the ball to no avail.

For Gonzaga fans, that and the team's abysmal free-throw performance lately comprise disturbing trends that need to be resolved before they meet Xavier.

The Musketeers proved once again that seeding is only a matter of perspective:

Well, that clip's promising in one respect.

Europeans pronounce Xavier as Zahv-yay. Mr Lips went with the local version.

Worldliness aside, one of these two hoops survivors is going to the Finale Quattro -- or is it Finale à Quatre? -- next week.