Coming off a disappointing second-round exit in the 2025 March Madness tournament, Gonzaga has responded with an elite 22-1 start through the first three months of the 2025-2026 college basketball season. With veteran big man Graham Ike leading Mark Few's squad, the Bulldogs are having their best season since their 2021 runner-up campaign.
Strength of schedule is always Gonzaga's primary drawback, but it has three Quad 1 wins and four Quad 2 victories through January, according to the NET Rankings. Few's team began conference play with wins over Alabama, Kentucky, Creighton, Arizona State and UCLA.
Most of Gonzaga's key regular season wins come from its non-conference schedule, but an improved WCC field has ever-so-slightly bolstered its resume. The Bulldogs' wins over Santa Clara, Seattle, Washington State and Saint Mary's were classified as Quad 2 victories. They face the Broncos, Cougars and Gaels once more each before the end of the regular season.
After surprisingly finishing in second in the WCC in the last two years, Gonzaga has responded nicely with one of its best regular seasons in basketball program history.
From a pure results standpoint, there is not much to dislike about this iteration of Gonzaga. Its lone loss, a 101-61 beatdown from Michigan in November, is a dark mark on an otherwise perfect season, but the positives have more than outweighed the negatives in 2025-2026.
Gonzaga is on track to end the regular season with a 30-1 record, which will likely result in a No. 2 seed in the 2026 March Madness tournament. They will have success, but not enough to claim their first National Championship.
Gonzaga beats teams fundamentally on both ends
There is nothing flashy about Gonzaga's play style that will convince the casual fan to stay up and watch one of its late-night games. The Bulldogs do not have a projected lottery pick on their 2025-2026 roster, but in typical Mark Few fashion, they consistently beat teams with the basics.
Gonzaga's offense runs through Graham Ike, who leads the team with 18.7 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game in his fifth college basketball season. Ike has been one of the best big men in the country, just as most expected of him when he announced his return in the 2025 offseason.
Ike spearheads a deep rotation, which features 10 players averaging at least 12 minutes per game. Forward Braden Huff complements his efforts with 17.8 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game while shooting 66.2 percent from the floor.
With Ike and Huff leading the charge, Gonzaga's game is unsurprisingly focused on attacking the rim. The Bulldogs only made 6.9 three-pointers per game, 265th in Division I.
Gonzaga beats teams with the fundamentals, but nothing about its game is dynamic. The Bulldogs lead the country in field goals, but they rank just 265th in three-pointers made.
The defensive numbers are solid, but they are certainly buoyed by Gonzaga's competition. While Mark Few's aggressive defense averages 9.0 steals per game, its swarming attack style creates many open three-point attempts that the Bulldogs' WCC foes have not been able to capitalize on. Better teams that await in March Madness will turn those opportunities into easy points.
Gonzaga has been impressive in 2025-2026, but this is not the kind of roster capable of competing with the best teams in the country on a consistent basis.
Graham Ike is not a go-to scorer late in games
Graham Ike has been the heart and soul of this Gonzaga basketball team, but he can also be where its big-game issues derive from. For as talented and gritty as he is, Ike has physical limitations that show up in the box score against teams with the personnel to match his size and physicality inside.
Against WCC competition, Ike looks like an animal who plays significantly bigger than his 6-foot-9 frame. However, in five games against Michigan, UCLA, Oregon, Maryland and Alabama — the five biggest teams Gonzaga has faced this season — he has only averaged 15.4 points and 6.6 rebounds while shooting 38 percent from the floor. Ike's one-point, zero-rebound game against the Wolverines in November is a big reason why the Bulldogs are not currently undefeated.
While Ike is Gonzaga's top offensive threat, he is still not the type of player who can take over games down the stretch. Ike can space the floor and attack from the perimeter, but his back-to-basket game is inconsistent at best, and he lacks the ball-handling skills to consistently beat defenders off the bounce. Most of his scoring comes from within the game, whether off pick-and-roll sets or on the offensive glass.
Against high-level competition, Gonzaga does not have an elite scorer whom it can rely on in crunch time. Not many teams have that type of talent on their rosters, but those who do are the ones on the shortlist of National Championship contenders.
Gonzaga is a cohesive, well-coached team, but it lacks the firepower that legitimate March Madness contenders need. If they played in a better conference, the Bulldogs would likely be a five or six-loss team at the end of January instead of flirting with the best record in college basketball.
