Men's Basketball WCC Columnist Jeff Faraudo

Home Sweet Home

Exactly five years ago today, the Gonzaga men’s basketball team lost a game at the McCarthey Center.

The Zags haven’t lost on their home floor in 1,826 days since.

The nation’s sixth-ranked team will be back in The Kennel Thursday along with 6,000 close friends when LMU visits for a 6 p.m. tipoff.

Since a 74-71 loss to a red-hot Saint Mary’s team back on Jan. 18, 2018, Gonzaga has won 75 consecutive home games. The Zags’ 115-75 victory over Portland on Saturday tied them with Long Beach State (1968-74) for the eighth-longest home win streak in history.

After the run reached 72 games with an 85-75 win over Montana on Dec. 20 — the longest since the expansion of the NCAA Tournament in 1985 — star senior Drew Timme marveled at what coach Mark Few has assembled.

"That's crazy. Obviously that's something that no one can really say they've ever done," Timme said. "It's a testament to coach and how he's ran the ship and he's always consistent.”

Thursday’s visitor, LMU (13-7,3-3), has enjoyed a strong start to its season, but the Lions have lost to the Zags (16-3, 5-0) in 25 straight consecutive matchups, the past 21 by double-digit margins.

So yes, ending the Zags’ streak will be a serious uphill climb.

North Carolina, one of the sport’s traditional blue bloods, paid the Kennel a visit on Dec. 18, 2019, and after losing 94-81, since-retired UNC coach Roy Williams began his news conference by saying, “It’s a great college basketball atmosphere. The crowd was fantastic.”

There’s no question that visitors must not only survive an elite opponent but cope with a fierce crowd. “The student section with everybody on top of us, they were loud the whole game,” UNC guard Anthony Harris said that night. “Just adjusting to that environment was really difficult.”

The all-time record among men’s Division I teams is 129 straight home victories by Kentucky (1943-55). St. Bonaventure (1948-61) won 99 in a row, UCLA (1970-76) 98, Cincinnati (1957-64) 84, Arizona (1945-51) and Marquette (1967-73) 81 each, and Lamar (1978-84) won 80 straight.

Beyond that magnificent seven, no other program ever has put together a home win streak to match what the Zags have done. Their streak lives, and at 75 in a row it seems like an appropriate time to dissect this amazing achievement:

— MOST-RECENT DEFEAT: Saint Mary’s arrived in Spokane five years ago tonight with a 17-2 record and a 12-game win streak. Center Jock Landale, now playing for the Phoenix Suns, put up 26 points and 12 rebounds in the Gaels’ 74-71 win over the 13th-ranked Zags. “You have to have experienced guys and big guys to win here,” Gaels coach Randy Bennett said, "and our guys handled the atmosphere.”

— WIN NO. 1 IN THE STREAK: Nine days after the Saint Mary’s loss, the Zags started a new streak by beating USF, 82-73. Five Gonzaga players scored in double digits, led by Johnathan Williams and Killian Tillie with 16 points apiece.

— SMALLEST MARGIN OF VICTORY: The top-ranked Zags held off cross-state rival Washington, 81-79, on Dec. 18, 2018, when Josh Perkins fed Rui Hachimura, who made a turn-around jump shot with 0.6 seconds left to win it. Hachimura finished with 26 points as the unbeaten Zags won their 10th straight in the streak.

— BIGGEST MARGIN OF VICTORY: The answer to this until last month was Gonzaga’s 101-40 win over Denver on Dec. 21, 2018. But on Dec. 28 of this season, the Zags scored a 78-point win over Eastern Washington. Seven players scored double figures and the Zags shot 71 percent in the 120-42 triumph. That also equaled the most points Gonzaga has scored in a game during the streak.

— FEWEST POINTS BY AN OPPONENT: 36, by Pacific on Jan. 10, 2019. The Tigers had 22 turnovers and were held to 27-percent shooting in the 67-36 loss.

— WINS OVER TOP-25 VISITORS: The streak includes three wins over Top-25 teams — 94-81 over No. 23 North Carolina on Dec. 18, 2019, 86-74, over No. 5 Texas on Nov. 13, 2021, and 74-58 over No. 22 Saint Mary’s on Feb. 12, 2022.

— 100-POINT GAMES: 18

— WINS BY 30 POINTS OR MORE: 38

— WINS BY FEWER THAN 10 POINTS: 7

— MOST POINTS BY A GONZAGA PLAYER: 37 by Timme, who shot 15-for-19 in the Zags’ 86-74 win over No. 5 Texas on Nov. 13, 2021.

— MOST POINTS BY A VISITING PLAYER: 31 by guard Antoine Davis of Detroit Mercy on Dec. 30, 2019. A sophomore that season, Davis is now a fifth-year senior whose impressive career total of 3,232 points is No. 3 all-time among Division I players — and just 18 points shy of taking over at No. 2. Pete Maravich, the late LSU star, holds the NCAA career record of 3,667 points, achieved in three seasons through 1970.

— MOST 20-POINT GAMES BY A GONZAGA PLAYER: 17 by Timme, who has included four games of at least 30 points among those. Next is Corey Kispert with 12 games of 20 points or more, followed by Rui Hachimura with 9, Filip Petrusev with 7 and Zach Norvell Jr. with 6.

FROM SEOUL TO SPOKANE: The Gonzaga men made a mid-season addition to their roster with the signing of Jun Seok Yeo, a 6-foot-8 forward from Seoul, South Korea. Yeo will train with the Zags this season before beginning to play on game days as a sophomore in 2023-24.

Yeo spent time at the NBA Global Academy in Australia, and has exceled on South Korea’s national teams, including at the 2021 FIBA U-19 World Cup, where he averaged a tournament-leading 25.4 points and was second with 10.6 rebounds per game. He scored 21 points against a U.S. team that featured former Gonzaga star and first-round NBA draft pick Chet Holmgren.

WCC TEAMS IN THE RANKINGS: The Saint Mary’s men (16-4, 5-0) made their first appearance of the season in the Top-25 coaches poll at No. 24 this week. The Gaels are just outside the AP rankings at 27th. Gonzaga (16-3, 5-0) climbed two spots to No. 6 in both polls. The Gonzaga women (17-2, 7-0), on the heels of knocking off Portland in a battle of WCC unbeatens, moved up four spots to a season-best 16th in the AP poll.

In the NCAA’s NET computer rankings the Saint Mary’s men reside at No. 9, one spot above Gonzaga. Other WCC men’s teams in the top-100 are Santa Clara at 80, BYU at 88 and LMU at 99. The Gonzaga women are No. 36 in the NET rankings, followed by Portland at 87.