The Islanders’ final exodus from Nassau Coliseum could have come during all those years when they ranked last in the NHL in attendance. It could have come with the dreaded move to Brooklyn. It could have come when the building was closed indefinitely last June or when the arena was limited to 10 percent COVID-related capacity this spring.

But more than four hours before 13,000 or so fans filed in Wednesday for Game 6 of the Stanley Cup semifinals — the Islanders’ most important home game in 37 years — an enthusiastic car horn screamed, “Let’s go Islanders!” sparking a chain reaction in the parking lot. Various genres of music mingled. Flags proudly flew. Beer disappeared. Burgers were flipped. Shirtless men stood beside freshly dry-cleaned jerseys. A roller hockey game took place beside a busted fence and overgrown weeds. Car trunks provided the best seats before the game began.

The sprawling concrete­ was Long Island’s most beautiful backyard.

“It’s a community,” said longtime tailgater Ed Strype. “It’s something we’ve grown up with, something that connects you with the people.”

They paved a parking lot and put up paradise.

Madison Square Garden held a monopoly. It was the Metropolitan area’s only venue for A-list acts and sports’ biggest stars. The most populous suburban county in the United States wanted more.

When the Air Force closed its Mitchel Field base in 1961, Nassau County acquired much of the land. Funds for a sparkling new arena were approved in 1964. The Coliseum was to be part of a massive complex, featuring a concert hall, library, theater, fine arts gallery and museum.

“He was very proud when they got the project,” said architect Bruce David Becket, whose father, Welton, and his firm designed the Coliseum after previously designed the Capitol Records building and UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. “He was very excited.”

The grand plans were scrapped when Ralph G. Caso replaced Eugene Nickerson as Nassau County Executive, leaving the vast lot with nothing but the $32 million, publicly funded Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

“You might say it belongs to the people,” Caso said then. “It’s theirs.”

The people had plenty of parking, but no mass transit to Uniondale. It had a single concourse, mirroring traffic on the neighboring Meadowbrook Parkway. It had unmatched sightlines, unobstructed views and affordable tickets.

What eventually was mocked as a “mausoleum” was considered state of the art, boasting the first-ever arena scoreboard with instant replay technology.

“I don’t want television viewers to have something we don’t,” Caso said.

The Coliseum became big league before construction was completed. In November 1971, New York was awarded a second NHL franchise, upsetting the upstart World Hockey Association’s New York Raiders, who had hoped to move into the Coliseum. The ABA’s New York Nets moved 4 miles from the Island Garden in West Hempstead, putting both of owner Roy Boe’s teams under the same low roof.

“I remember hearing we were gonna have teams,” said Baldwin native and longtime Islanders organist Paul Cartier. “How cool would that be?”

The scoreboard wasn’t installed. Sections of seats hadn’t been nailed down. Water leaked near the home locker room. Yet the Coliseum was open for business.

The soft launch came on Feb. 11, 1972, with nearly 8,000 people — of roughly 15,000 capacity — watching the Nets defeat the Pittsburgh Condors.

“Even with half the seats done, it was a major improvement over the Island Garden,” former Nets guard Bill Melchionni said. “It was a legitimate first-class arena.”

And it had legitimate first-class superstars. Future Hall of Famer Rick Barry led the Nets to the 1972 ABA Finals. Then came The Doctor.

With Roosevelt native Julius Erving playing for the Nets, the Coliseum was the only place to consistently see the greatest icon of the rarely televised league. Erving, whose high-flying moves redefined basketball, captured three league MVPs and led the Nets to championships in 1974 and 1976. Five months after fans stormed the Coliseum floor to celebrate a second title, Boe sold Dr. J to the 76ers — the Nets, following the NBA-ABA merger, owed $8 million total to the Knicks and the league — and took the team to New Jersey in 1977.

“I always regret the fact that Long Island never got to see that team play in the NBA with Doc,” Melchionni said. “When the leagues merged, the Knicks were on the decline, and if we had continued to have the success we had in the NBA, I think the situation would have dramatically changed. You would’ve had all these kids on Long Island drawn to the Nets. You see the Islanders now, the building’s packed, the Long Island people support them and I think the same thing would’ve happened if the Nets stayed there. We could’ve built a similar foundation.

“If Julius had stayed on Long Island, if Roy Boe had the financial resources, you’d probably still have the Nets there.”

NHL commissioner Clarence Campbell — along with 12,221 others — watched the Islanders’ home debut on Oct. 7, 1972, and declared the Coliseum “a magnificent place to watch hockey.” That depended on which team you were watching.

In their inaugural season, the Islanders tied the league-record for fewest wins (12). The next year, they finished last in the East Division again. Home games against the Rangers felt no different than being in Manhattan.

“The first couple years we really got booed in our own building,” said Islanders legend Bob Nystrom, who signed his first contract in the Coliseum parking lot. “It was ’75 when things turned around, when we beat the Rangers [in the playoffs]. That was when it really came into existence as the home of the Islanders.”

Fort Neverlose was born. Its run as the world capital of hockey began with the Game 6 matinee of the 1980 Stanley Cup Final, which ended on Nystrom’s overtime goal. The Islanders clinched three of their four straight championships at home — en route to 19 straight playoff series wins — and made Hempstead Turnpike an annual parade route. The Coliseum ceiling became defined by its numerous blue, orange and white banners, still seizing fans’ attention before they reached their seats.

“The fans really took us in,” Nystrom said. “[Coach] Al Arbour said to us, ‘These guys pay your salary, so get out and get involved,’ and we really took that to heart. We were such a part of the community. It was absolutely incredible.”

The Islanders haven’t been back to the Stanley Cup Final since 1984. From 1993 to 2015, they didn’t win a playoff series. When they finally advanced, they were playing in Brooklyn. When they won a first-round series two years ago, the second round was shifted to Barclays Center because the NHL didn’t consider the reduced-capacity Coliseum to be an “NHL major league facility.” When they reached their first Eastern Conference finals since 1993 last year, they were playing in an empty arena in a Canadian bubble.

It made every moment of this year’s last, unlikely run much more meaningful. The fans remembered how great it had once been. They remembered how terrible it had been.

“It’s the same sound,” said Strype, who attended two Cup-winning games. “It’s been a rebirth.”

Billy Joel had to wait his turn. The Long Island demigod with his name in the rafters didn’t headline his first hometown show until 1977. Every star wanted to play suburbia.

Paul McCartney and Frank Sinatra took the stage. So did Johnny Cash, David Bowie and Led Zeppelin, whose 1972 shows offered tickets ranging from $4.50 to $6.50.

“This is a great place and this is where the kids live,” Zeppelin manager Peter Grant said then. “Shame there aren’t places like this in England.”

Elvis Presley played to sellout crowds, but he missed his scheduled show on Aug. 22, 1977, having died six days earlier. Nearly 5,000 Elvis fans gathered in the parking lot on the date printed on the ticket (which became a collector’s item), holding a four-hour memorial service. The Grateful Dead received a tie-dyed banner in the rafters for playing the most shows in the Coliseum — 41 before Jerry Garcia’s death — despite a years-long hiatus stemming from the band’s issue with police harassment of fans in the parking lot. In 1988, a rap ban was enacted at the arena after stabbings and gang-related activity at multiple shows resulted in numerous injuries and one death. In 1987, camped-out fans smashed doors and windows in the middle of the night, seeking Bon Jovi tickets.

It was a favorite of live albums and TV specials, one of only two American venues to host Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” tour. It was home to Hicksville’s “Piano Man.”

“When Billy Joel played there when I was 8, my dad ended up getting scalped tickets,” said Debbie Gibson, a Merrick native, who remains the youngest artist to write, produce and perform a No. 1 single. “It’s so funny, me being an artist now, ‘Oh my god, that’s sacrilegious,’ but when dad comes home with 11th row for Billy Joel at the Coliseum he’s a hero. I saw the Beach Boys there, Billy, many times, skating shows. It was not wasted on me how amazing it was to have it right in my backyard.”

It hosted a Richard Nixon reelection rally in 1972. It hosted the 1983 NHL All-Star Game and WrestleMania 2 in 1986. It welcomed Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus every year until hosting the final show of the 146-year run in 2017.

The Coliseum was home to all.

“There’s a romance for a lot of artists playing the Garden, but I learned through touring that the suburbs are where you find so many of the die-hard fans,” said Gibson, who just released her first album of original music (“The Body Remembers”) in 20 years. “There’s not a snobbery that goes along with the suburbs. It’s down home. I always felt that down home vibe in playing the Coliseum. I felt like I was amongst my people.”

The Coliseum was too small. Rivals were building better homes. It was time to leave. It was 1991.

“We can’t be left behind,” Islanders owner John Pickett said then.

The crumbling, dirty, cramped eyesore was a hurdle to every free-agent signing. It lacked modern amenities. It was cited as “uninhabitable” in 1998 by the Islanders, who threatened to play home games across the northeast before being ordered back by a judge. It was the second-oldest NHL arena in use. It made Kansas City a legitimate threat to steal the team. It made a basketball-centric arena in Brooklyn with melting ice look like the best option after owner Charles Wang’s $3.4 billion Lighthouse Project was rejected and funds for a new Coliseum were defeated in a 2011 referendum. It was a “depressing place to play,” Sharks forward Owen Nolan once said.

“They called it a dump,” Cartier said. “But it was our dump.”

Only after the Islanders left did the building receive a $180 million renovation, a modest touch-up, which enabled the team to return in between marriages to Brooklyn and Belmont Park (UBS Arena). In the Islanders’ absence, the Coliseum will house the Long Island Nets and New York Riptide (lacrosse), following the failed footsteps of the New York Arrows and Express (soccer), New York Saints and Titans (lacrosse) and New York Sets/Apples (tennis).

The building’s memories are framed in the concourse, jammed after the Game 6 season-saving overtime win and playing a once-familiar tune: “We want the Cup.” Hundreds surrounded co-owner Jon Ledecky in a spontaneous mosh pit. This, after countless beers smashed and stained the ice, after some of the loudest noises in Coliseum existence soared through the air.

“It was quiet for so long,” Cartier said. “People hadn’t heard something like this in years. It gives you goose bumps.”

There was no rush to exit. Tomorrow couldn’t be better.

“Listen, it’s a remarkable place and it’s quite a history,” Nystrom said. “I hate to see it go, but time moves on.”

What better way to say goodbye?

This story originally appeared on: NyPost - Author:Howie Kussoy

Gonzaga couldn’t afford to do business as usual. In 1998, Gonzaga couldn’t afford much. The small school in Spokane, Wash., was getting smaller, suffering a 33 percent decline in undergraduate enrollment that decade. Deficits rose sharply, resulting in unavoidable layoffs. 

“We hit a crisis financially,” said longtime athletic director Mike Roth. “The decision was made to open the books of the whole university and find out where we can slash and survive. Athletically, we were who we were at the time, and a huge target.”

Basketball didn’t define the school then. Until 1994, Gonzaga never reached the NCAA Tournament or NIT. Only one alum (John Stockton) had ever scored in the NBA. The team’s home sellout streak was years away.

So, multiple university officials offered a simple solution to save seven figures: Exit Division I athletics.

“Our comptroller said, ‘Why aren’t we Division III? What are we getting out of being Division I? We’re spending all this money,’” Roth said. “I said, ‘The difference is if we’re Division III and we do something special, it’s barely local news. If we do something really special with Division I, especially with men’s basketball, that’s national news. And you can’t put a price tag on that.’

“And somehow it happened.”

Somehow, Gonzaga hasn’t missed the NCAA Tournament since that Clinton-era conversation. Somehow, Mark Few, a head coach with no previous experience, has spent two decades compiling the best winning percentage in the history of the sport. Somehow, it’s not surprising a one-and-done phenom such as point guard Jalen Suggs considers Gonzaga the best NBA training ground.

Somehow, an isolated and ignored mid-major morphed into the most unlikely juggernaut in American sports. Somehow, Gonzaga (26-0) is again the No. 1 team in the nation, six wins from completing the first undefeated men’s season since 1976. Somehow, Gonzaga is the NCAA Tournament favorite for the first time, attempting to become the first team outside a power conference to win the national title since 1990. 

Somehow, this happened.

“We continue to remind our staffs on a regular basis how special this is because some of us were here when nobody knew Gonzaga existed and the NCAA Tournament was a pipe dream,” Roth said. “We weren’t even a regional place. We were barely a Spokane place. I get contacted a lot by different institutions and have had other [athletic directors] fly in to meet with me and say, ‘We want to do what you’re doing’…Because of our uniqueness that we’re not in a power six conference, it’s never been done. There’s times where I wonder if it can be replicated at other places.

“The majority of our fans — and the nation — only know Gonzaga since 1999, but the history part of it is what makes it special. We weren’t bequeathed anything. No one gave us anything. To me, it’s the great American story.”

The location seemed ideal.

A new general store brought a flood of settlers to Spokane Falls in 1878, and three years later, the triple-digit population of the newly incorporated city was certain to skyrocket with the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad. It would require just $936 and some imagination to acquire 320 acres of land along the Spokane River, enabling a new university to serve the surrounding Jesuit missions in Idaho, Montana and eastern Washington.

There, the Gonzaga campus sat on the quiet side of the Cascade mountains, still in need of introductions with the locals a century later.  

“We were an isolated community, and when we’d go to Seattle and the other side of the state to recruit a kid, they’d say, ‘I thought that was a high school,’ because the Gonzaga Prep football team was so good,” said former Gonzaga basketball coach Jay Hillock (1981-85). “I’d be like someone shot in the heart with an arrow. I’d say, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’”

It was a stepping stone, a coaching résumé enhancer. It was the kind of program that would offer Few — a 26-year-old high school assistant in his native Oregon — a graduate assistant job in 1989. Then-Gonzaga assistant Dan Monson made the recommendation, having seen Few’s dedication at Monson’s father’s basketball camp — and after hours.

“We went really hard there, working the camp until 9 at night and then go to the bars until 2 or 3 in the morning. Sometimes we’d then go golf when it turned light at 4:30, then go back to camp at eight and act like it’s just another day,” Monson said. “It was a badge of honor how little sleep you could get and how hard you could work at that camp.”

Initially, Few declined Gonzaga’s offer. A $5,000 annual salary — “Mark will still tell you it was $500,” Monson said — wasn’t enough. Other candidates agreed.

Monson circled back to Few, closing the deal by offering a rent-free room in his apartment.

“Mark and Marcy even lived with me the first year they were married to save up money,” Monson said. “It was a unique building of a program. We spent 24/7 together. Even once we got there, it was like camp again. We’d make recruiting calls until five or six, and then go out to dinner and play tennis together and start the next day. We’d get tired of each other, but not enough to not keep doing it.”

It wasn’t always fun. Few’s first three years as an assistant produced a series of losing records, including the program’s worst season in four decades (1989-90), when the Zags went 8-20 and ranked 230th in the nation in attendance (1,960 fans per game).

“Four of those were non-DI [wins]. How about that?” said Few, now 58. “We basically won four Division I games.”

Though Few now believes he has the best job in the country, his former boss, Dan Fitzgerald, considered it the worst job in the West Coast Conference.

“He’d say, ‘If we can get to .500, then we’d more than done our job,’” Few said. “Dan and I grimaced whenever we heard that.”

But facts are an intimidating foe.

“Other places all had better players and better weather, and besides Saint Mary’s, everyone had better facilities,” Monson said. “We’d go out on the road for two, three weeks at a time to recruit and have to sleep on floors and borrow people’s cars.

“[Fitzgerald] felt we were wasting our time if any Pac-10 team had called a recruit. Mark and Fitz really butted heads about that. He would be so spiteful that he wouldn’t recruit a kid unless the Pac-10 was recruiting them. His mindset was contagious that way. Mark was headstrong and he had the ability to convince kids that they were crazy to go anywhere else, especially Pac-10 schools where they were gonna sit on the bench. He would doom and gloom them into submission or you could come here and be a featured player.”

Now, the Bulldogs behave like the elite, enjoying the luxury and convenience of private charter flights. In the less fortunate times, the team just hoped to reach the runway on time. They just hoped to be important enough for the school’s maintenance staff to remember them.

“We’d take the bus up the hill out of town to get to the airport and sometimes it’d break down,” Hillock said. “After Christmas, the heat wouldn’t be on because they forgot about us, so the guys would practice in hoodies and long sleeves.”

Now, Gonzaga reaps millions from Nike. For so long, the school relied on hand-me-downs.

“I wore No. 13 because they only had 13 and 15 available. I got used sweatpants that were No. 2,” said former guard Matt Santangelo (1996-2000). “You had to literally have holes in your sneakers before you could get a new pair. I got more gear doing radio for Gonzaga than I ever did as a player.”

The school’s first NCAA Tournament appearance came in 1995. In Monson’s second season as head coach in 1999 — when Gonzaga paid a local network to broadcast its games — the Bulldogs returned as a 10-seed.

“We didn’t know what to do. It was such a big deal,” Santangelo said. “We were just happy to be there.”

Opening in Seattle, Gonzaga took down a Minnesota team decimated by academic suspensions, then toppled No. 2 Stanford. Less than a year after Gonzaga had debated the merits of Division I athletics, Casey Calvary’s tip-in with 4.4 seconds left against Florida sent the school to the Elite Eight.

“Spokane is going nuts, the nation is going nuts and I get a call from our comptroller,” Roth said. “He says, ‘Mike, I get it now.’ ”

After a last-minute loss to eventual champion UConn ended Gonzaga’s Final Four hopes, a bidding war began. Monson spurned offers from Washington State and San Diego State. Twice, he turned down Minnesota.

Monson agreed to a significant raise and extension at Gonzaga, paying $105,000 per year. Then, Minnesota morphed into a Corleone, offering $490,000 per season for seven years.

“I never regretted taking it. I was getting married in two weeks. You think, you’re 37 years old, starting a family, and it’s gonna take [10] years at Gonzaga to make what I would at Minnesota in two,” said Monson. “You look at the situation, you look at the league and no one sustained a run.”

It’s the mid-major’s plight. Loyola-Marymount hasn’t danced since Bo Kimble honored Hank Gathers. George Mason has won one NCAA Tournament game since its 2006 Final Four run. Florida Gulf Coast hasn’t won a tournament game since Dunk City was born. The same for Davidson, since America met Steph Curry.

Gonzaga was no different. When Few was promoted to the head position at $75,000 per season, university President Robert Spitzer — fretting over Monson’s departure — didn’t even know the difference between the team’s assistant coaches.

“I said, ‘Father, slow down, it’s done. Mark Few is our next head coach.’ He goes, ‘Oh, OK, good. Which one is he?” Roth recalled. “When we made the decision to make Mark the next head coach, there were people who were like, ‘What? What’s going on?’ Mark had never coached a game in his life as a head coach. Was there risk there? Oh for sure. There was huge risk.”

Few took over, and the newly famous school welcomed its largest freshman class ever. The dorms were fully occupied, so the university had to rent rooms for students at the nearby Kavanaugh Rivers Inn. After Few led the Zags to back-to-back Sweet 16 appearances in his first two seasons, the Flutie effect — coined after the Heisman Trophy winner’s celebrity sparked similar popularity at Boston College — was in full effect.

Since 1999, Gonzaga’s budget, endowment and annual applications have grown over 300 percent. Enrollment has nearly doubled. The team has sold out every game in the McCarthey Athletic Center, opened in 2004. A sparkling $24 million practice facility was added in 2018.

And Gonzaga wasn’t sure it belonged in Division I.

“They saved the school, when it was teetering on bankruptcy,” Hillock said. “Those Seattle and Portland kids thought they were too good to come east. Now, they’re turning people away.”

Dan Dickau was drawn by the ’99 run, transferring from Pac-10 mainstay Washington to become Gonzaga’s first-ever First Team All-American in 2002. Four years later, Adam Morrison was a national phenomenon, leading the land in scoring.

The program built through player development, through assistant Tommy Lloyd’s international recruiting prowess, through the overlooked and underappreciated. By 2013, Gonzaga was the No. 1 team in the country for the first time, turning Cinderella into her stepmother during a tight first-round game against Southern in Salt Lake City — “We’re in John Stockton’s arena and the whole place turned against us, booing them, saying they’re overrated, because they really wanted to see the 16-1 upset,” Santangelo said — and unceremonious second-round exit. 

In Few’s 18^th season, the Bulldogs finally reached the Final Four, holding a 37-1 record and a lead with less than two minutes left in the 2017 national title game, before losing to North Carolina.

Gonzaga was the WCC’s first national title game participant since Bill Russell led San Francisco to a national championship in 1956.

“Right, wrong or indifferent, it probably legitimized us in some kids’ eyes,” said Few, the first AP Coach of the Year from the conference in 40 years. “Where before, we needed that final notch in our belt.”

Gonzaga is the only team to reach the Sweet 16 of the past five NCAA Tournaments. It is tied for the nation’s longest streak with at least one tournament win in 11 straight seasons. Its 22-year NCAA Tournament streak has only ever been topped by Kansas, Duke, North Carolina and Michigan State.

“We haven’t even peaked yet. That’s where you scratch your head. We’re first-generation wealth and still trying to figure out how we got rich,” Santangelo said.  “You can’t call them a mid-major. They’re definitely not Cinderella anymore. They had to create their own category.”

They had to keep the most indispensable coach in the country, whose salary could at least triple elsewhere. They had to stumble into a leader who enjoys a relatively low profile with his wife and four children, who finds bliss in the natural wonders of the Inland Northwest, who has sped past countless eye-catching exit signs because he believed he could make as much noise on the quiet side of the Cascades.

“I’d hate to add up all the schools over the years that have offered him more money and everything else because they have more resources,” Roth said. “When it comes down to these other schools chasing him, it hasn’t stopped. There’ve been really blue blood schools that have come knocking, telling Mark, ‘Name your price. Literally. Our benefactors will pay it.’ One was going to build him a trout stream, seriously, because everyone knows Mark loves to fish.

“We’re the longest-tenured AD-basketball coach combo in the country and one of the reasons that’s the case is because we share the same vision. We believe we can do this at Gonzaga. I don’t have to go to a Big Ten school or Pac-12 school. Mark doesn’t have to go to the SEC or the ACC to do what we do at Gonzaga. It goes back to fit and Mark fits here. He’s gonna stay until he’s done, which is my guess.”

Few could have left for Arizona or UCLA or Oregon, where he earned a degree and his parents lived 10 minutes away. But the son of a Presbyterian minister knew he couldn’t best perfection.

“I take credit for that because he saw how Minnesota didn’t work out and that was such a struggle,” said Monson, the head coach at Long Beach State since 2007. “Gonzaga did such a great job of giving him whatever he needed to succeed — a new arena to training to private plane for travel — and then it became, why should he leave? When I left, they knew it was gonna keep happening unless they did something. I think if I would’ve stayed there, I’m not sure they would have recognized that.”

Opposing administrators still come to Spokane, asking for Gonzaga’s secret. Borrowing Hendrix’s guitar won’t help you capture his sound.

“It is the anomaly of all anomalies,” Hillock said of Few’s success. “I don’t think Coach K could’ve done it. I don’t think Roy Williams could’ve done it. First of all, they wouldn’t have stayed.”

Pre-COVID, former players were a constant presence at Gonzaga. Dozens live near campus. Morrison and Dickau work in broadcasting. Richie Frahm and Derek Raivio work in real estate. Blake Stepp and Cavalry work in sales. Several more are regulars at Stockton’s invite-only, shirts-and-skins pickup games.

“There’s probably 40 to 50 guys who didn’t grow up in Spokane, but have made it their home,” Santangelo said. “We have a tremendous network.”

During the school’s Final Four appearance in 2017, Few invited numerous former players and coaches to a team film session, featuring guest speaker Kobe Bryant. Instead of closing with the standard highlights of current players to get amped up the night before a game, clips were inserted of the campus legends who enabled the unimaginable.

“Our guys got into it and were hooting and hollering for these old, grainy clips,” Few said. “Then the former group lined up in this giant ballroom, and player by player, I sent my guys through that. They high-fived and shook hands and they treated those guys like kings. It was probably the most powerful moment in my whole career.”

Because of them, Przemek Karnowski grew up in Poland, looking at Gonzaga like a traditional power.

“They put the work in when Gonzaga wasn’t a Top 25 team,” said Karnowski, the starting center on the ’17 team. “We just carried their legacy.”

Monson begins laughing, as he recounts the evening. Then, he begins crying.

“Mark said, ‘This was built brick by brick. This was a product of 20 years of people,’” Monson said. “We walked in and they gave us a standing ovation. That’s why that program is where it is. Nobody forgets where they came from. The culture is the same as when I was there. They’re so thankful and appreciative of everything they’ve got. … The freshmen still put the bags on the plane for everyone and wait and help the airplane staff. It’s still a mom-and-pop store in a lot of ways that’s kept it where it is. They’ve turned into Microsoft, but the culture isn’t that way.”

The pandemic prevented a 31-2 juggernaut from ever knowing whether it would have captured Gonzaga’s first national title. But the country’s best team got better, bringing back potential lottery pick Corey Kispert, plus future NBA draftees Joel Ayayi and Drew Timme. It welcomed Suggs — the highest-rated recruit (No. 6 in the nation) in Gonzaga history — Florida transfer Andrew Nembhard and top-100 recruits Dominick Harris and Julian Strawther.

Gonzaga’s recruiting pitch has never been simpler. The program is the favorite to land Suggs’ former Minnehaha (Minn.) Academy teammate, Chet Holmgren, the nation’s top-rated 2021 recruit. When Suggs signed up to be Gonzaga’s second-ever one-and-done player (Zach Collins, 2017), the Bulldogs were the No. 1 team in the country.

“It was OK to go to Gonzaga now,” Few said. “It was cool to go to Gonzaga.”

It wasn’t cool when Stockton was selected 16^th overall in 1984, when Jazz fans booed the anonymous player from the frequently mispronounced school. It wasn’t cool when Morrison was hysterically crying on the floor after a Sweet 16 meltdown or when 16 years passed between Elite Eight appearances.

But it’s easy to be chic after a trip to the Final Four. It’s easy to be admired when no other team has touched the No. 1 ranking this season, when no team scores more (92.1 points per game) or shoots better (55.1 field-goal percentage). 

The Zags have won 51 straight home games. They’ve won a record 23 straight games by double-digits, topping Bill Walton and John Wooden’s 1971-72 undefeated UCLA title winner to set the longest streak in at least 60 years.

“Hands down, this year is the greatest team that coach Few’s ever had,” Santangelo said. “This team is so much fun. They share the ball, they play fast, they defend, they have weapons everywhere. They make it look so easy. We are all head over heels in love with this group.

“We will legit be disappointed if we don’t win a national championship at Gonzaga University. Saying that sentence out loud doesn’t make sense.”

Gonzaga is the fifth team since Bobby Knight’s ’76 Hoosiers to enter the NCAA Tournament unbeaten, but it nearly arrived in Indianapolis as just another 1-seed. 

BYU led Gonzaga by 14 in Tuesday’s West Coast Conference title game. The Orleans Arena in Las Vegas was empty, but the sound of keyboards across the country produced a familiar tune, labeling the kings of the mid-major conference overrated again.

Gonzaga responded with poise and power and precision. The team returned to its locker room with greater appreciation of the opportunity ahead. The season can end this week — or outlive them all.

“We finally acknowledged this is a big deal,” Few said. “It puts us in some incredible company.”

Before reaching the summit, mountain climbers must pass through the death zone. Countless become casualties with triumph so close. It’s hard to enjoy the view with survival and success at stake.

It’s easier when you remember starting the ascent in secondhand sweatpants.

“The work, the total value of the entire process, to be able to be here 30 years ago, rather than bouncing around — there were a lot of opportunities, some offers that I looked at harder than other things — it’s so cool to see it go from ground zero all the way up to where it is,” Few said. “There’s definitely some satisfaction with that, but also the grounding of it for me. That’s where the “national championship or bust,” I don’t buy into that.”

Every season, it grows a little louder on the quiet side of the Cascades. Gonzaga has just one more introduction to make. 

“Obviously [a national title is] important. Mark’s a competitor. But the best thing about him is his perspective,” Monson said. “He’s gonna be OK if they don’t. It’s not gonna ruin his summer. He’s still gonna go fishing. He’s still gonna take his kids skiing to Hayden Lake. He’s chosen his lifestyle over his career many, many times. But that perspective, that confidence, is why I think he’s gonna get it. I think they’re gonna go undefeated and win it all.”

This story originally appeared on: NyPost - Author:Howie Kussoy