SPOKANE, Wash. — The 2025-26 college basketball season is still over six months away, and the NCAA Tournament is well over 10 months away, but that doesn’t mean it’s too early to look at March Madness projections (right?).
Even if it does feel way-too-early, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi just dropped his first 2026 NCAA Tournament bracketology, so let’s take a look at where he has the Gonzaga Bulldogs going dancing next year.
But first, let’s set the stage.
Right now, with the window for players to enter the transfer portal closed, we know Gonzaga brings back a pair of starters in Graham Ike and Braden Huff for next season. As for the other three starting roles, head coach Mark Few could turn to Steele Venters, who missed the past two seasons with injuries, Breaden Smith, who redshirted last season, and Jalen Warley, who transferred in from Virginia before last season but wasn’t eligible to play. Few will also have great options off the bench in center Ismaila Diagne and forward Emmanuel Innocenti — but the offseason is still young, and Few is expected to bring in more talent from the portal, as Gonzaga is one of the few high-major schools yet to land a transfer player.
Now for the projections.
Lunardi has the 2025-26 Zags going to the NCAA Tournament as a No. 6 seed with an automatic qualifying bid, meaning he projects Gonzaga to win the West Coast Conference tournament for the second straight year.
In this prediction, Gonzaga would match up with No. 11 seed VCU in the first round of the Greenville region, with a potential second-round meeting against the winner of No. 3 Tennessee and No. 14 McNeese.
Gonzaga is the only team Lunardi has making the tournament from the WCC, while he has 13 teams from the SEC, 12 from the Big Ten, eight from the Big 12, five from the ACC, and four from the Big East. GU’s WCC rival Saint Mary’s has made it to the NCAA Tournament the past four years but hasn’t made it out of the second round, and is currently projected to miss the tournament in 2026 — but a lot can change by the time November rolls around.
If Gonzaga does make the Big Dance, it would be their 27th straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament, which would still be the second-longest active streak behind Michigan State, which has currently made it 27 straight times — one more appearance than Gonzaga’s active streak.
Gonzaga’s full nonconference schedule won’t be finalized until late September or early November, but single-game announcements could start trickling in over the coming weeks. The Zags 2025-26 WCC schedule will likely become official sometime in August.
