Note to mid-majors everywhere: Look to Gonzaga for guidance

Gonzaga won its sixth consecutive outright league title late Monday.

It was easy work.

Mark Few has been pursued by bigger schools, but Gonzaga has been committed to the coach. (AP)

The Zags pounded Santa Clara by an 88-54 margin, just ran and dunked and high-fived their way to a lopsided win like they were playing Texas Tech or something. It was an impressive performance on many levels. And as I sat there and watched I couldn't help but wonder how many other schools could be Gonzaga if they just tried to be Gonzaga.

That's the key, you know?

Gonzaga is great because it tries to be great.

It doesn't rely on tradition (the school's first NCAA Tournament appearance was less than 15 years ago) or a strong league affiliation (the West Coast Conference ranks 14th at CollegeRPI.com, just below the Colonial and ahead of the Sun Belt) or a natural recruiting base that makes luring players to campus simple (nobody has ever labeled the Washington-Idaho border as a breeding ground for elite prospects).

Truth is, none of that stuff exists. So there is no obvious reason for this private university to be a basketball power, which means that practically any four-year university that wants to be a basketball power can be a basketball power if it follows the Gonzaga blueprint and gets a little lucky.

So what's the Gonzaga blueprint?

Simplified, it's a four-step process that looks like this:

• Find the right coach.
• Make a strong financial commitment to that coach.
• Build first-class facilities.
• Increase the program's budget across the board.

Do all that stuff and it'll be difficult to not be successful.

Gonzaga is the perfect example.

Dan Fitzgerald established a foundation and led the school to its first NCAA Tournament in 1995 before turning over the program in 1997 to Dan Monson, who had a good two-year run (one NIT/one NCAA Tournament with a combined record of 52-17) before turning the program over to Mark Few in 1999.

That's when school officials had a decision to make. They could either choose to front a good West Coast Conference program that simply loses its coach whenever its coach has some success. Or they could choose to invest both emotionally and financially and try to sustain the program with little regard to what their league brethren were doing (or not doing) and planned (or didn't plan) to do.

Obviously, they chose the latter.

And so there were seniors Abdullahi Kuso and David Pendergraph late Monday, checking out in the final minutes of a blowout to a standing ovation after finishing the final home game of two careers that have known nothing but league titles and NCAA Tournament appearances. It's not an accident. The reason their careers have been filled with nearly unmatched success is because a conscious decision was made long ago that Gonzaga was not going to just be a good mid-major program happy to compete for WCC titles every other year or so.

That wasn't the goal.

The goal was to become a power, to make it reasonable for a guy like Few to reject great offers from bigger programs in better leagues because he is in a place where he is provided with practically everything he needs to run a consistent Top 25 program. Tulsa didn't have that same goal, which is why it never had any hope or retaining Nolan Richardson or Tubby Smith or Bill Self. Winthrop didn't have that same goal, which is why it lost Gregg Marshall to Wichita State after seven NCAA Tournaments in nine seasons, and we'll just have to wait and see whether that program ever recovers.

Meantime, Gonzaga will keep on keeping on.

And other non-BCS-affiliated schools would be wise to take note.

Because what's happening at Gonzaga could happen at Tulsa or Winthrop or anywhere, really.

All it would take is the correct hire, the proper commitment and a little luck here and there.