SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Gonzaga is fresh. The Bulldogs cruised to a stress-free victory in the first round of the NCAA Tournament that ended with the starters watching garbage time from the bench.
Kansas is fragile. The Jayhawks were missing their top scorer and had to fight to the finish for a first-round win with a depleted roster.
It comes as no surprise that the No. 5 Zags head into Saturday's second-round matchup of power programs as a 4 1/2-point favorite despite being one notch below No. 4 Kansas on the seeding line.
It also comes as no surprise that neither Zags coach Mark Few nor his counterpart from Kansas, Bill Self, are buying into any of the above assumptions.
“We've won the exact same amount of games in a row as Gonzaga has,” Self said. “So I'll just spin it like that.”
This is only the third meeting between these programs, whose coaches, strangely enough, share the same birthday: Dec. 27, 1962.
It is the sort of matchup hoops fans might have expected at the Midwest Regional next week, or even at the Final Four in Phoenix come April. That it's coming on the first weekend in Salt Lake City is a product of two teams that have been on shaky footing at times this season and were rated that way by the selection committee.
“You lose a game, the sky is falling,” Few said of the attitude at places like his, or at Kansas. “We lost more than one. So (both teams have) had to power through that.”
Yes, the Zags were considered a bubble team as late as January, as they struggled to adjust to the loss of four of their top five scorers from last season, including Drew Timme and Julian Strawther.
Asked when he saw the lightbulb go on, Few said it was more of a gradual climb.
“Putting Ben (Gregg) in the starting lineup, playing the three bigs together, it took us a while to adjust to that," Few said of a lineup change he made on Jan. 18. "Once we did, we kind of ran with it.”
Gonzaga is 15-2 since then, its only two losses coming to WCC rival Saint Mary's. A win Saturday would place the program in the Sweet 16 for the ninth straight time.
Meanwhile, Kansas was the AP preseason No. 1, with a roster stocked with Kevin McCullar Jr. and second-team All-American center Hunter Dickinson, who transferred to Lawrence from Michigan for this season.
Missing, though, has been a consistent outside shooter. When injuries to McCullar and Dickinson kicked in last month, the Jayhawks lost four of five. They took a 22-point lead in their tournament opener against Samford, only to wear down and barely hang on.
“We saw the ball go in the basket,” said Self, whose team shot 60%. “And if you looked at when we haven’t played well, we didn’t see the ball go in the basket. So I’m going to say ‘Yeah, I think last night was really good for us.’”
One other factor: The game starts at 1:15 p.m. local time. Kansas didn't walk out of the arena until after midnight Friday.