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Sielski: Martelli among select few to appreciate Gonzaga's run

Phil Martelli gets this kind of phone call every few years, whenever a college basketball team closes in on an unbeaten regular season, people probing his mind for his thoughts about Wichita State in 2014 or Kentucky in 2015, asking him to relieve that en

Phil Martelli gets this kind of phone call every few years, whenever a college basketball team closes in on an unbeaten regular season, people probing his mind for his thoughts about Wichita State in 2014 or Kentucky in 2015, asking him to relive that enchanted 2003-04 ride at St. Joseph's. But this time, it's a little different. This time, it's Gonzaga - a small Jesuit school, just like St. Joe's. This time the coach is Mark Few, whom Martelli counts as a friend. This time, even while coaching the Hawks through a hard season riddled with injuries to their best players, Martelli is keeping a close eye on the Bulldogs' charge after history.

On Feb. 11, for instance, on a late Saturday night hours after the Hawks had lost at home to Massachusetts, Martelli flipped on his television and scanned the channels before finding the Gonzaga-St. Mary's game. He watched the Bulldogs win, 74-64. It was their 26th victory this season without a loss - they're up to 28-0, with two regular-season games left - and as usual the familiar feelings and memories from '03-04 came rushing back to Martelli: the 27-0 start and the run to the regional finals of the NCAA tournament; the never-ending line of media requesting one-on-one interviews and pointing cameras at him and his players; his lingering doubts, among those with an all-or-nothing mindset, that St. Joe's achievement then and Gonzaga's now will never receive their rightful appreciation.

"It's sad to say, but it's almost like, 'Yeah, they're undefeated, but they've never made the Final Four,' " Martelli said in a recent phone interview. "We're now boiled down to judging a season on whether you win four games to go to the Final Four? It's become jaded in that way."

That cynicism helps explain why Gonzaga's so-far-perfect season hasn't captured the public's fascination the way St. Joe's did, why the Bulldogs' incandescent point guard, Nigel Williams-Goss, hasn't yet posed for Sports Illustrated cover art, but Jameer Nelson did. Gonzaga was the nation's No. 1-ranked team in 2013 and has won at least one game in each of the last eight NCAA tournaments, which means it was never going to be the underdog story that the Hawks were. But the Bulldogs also have never reached a Final Four, and over the 13 years since Nelson, Delonte West, and their teammates captivated the country, college basketball's TV ratings and attendance have been in steady decline. The NCAA tournament has become more than just the primary standard by which an elite program is judged. It has become, for many, the exclusive reason for interest in the sport.

In that environment, with its pedigree, Gonzaga - a school of 7,500 undergrads tucked away in the northwest corner of the United States, a mid-major program in the West Coast Conference - won't command much attention until at least mid-March. And if the Bulldogs don't advance to the Final Four, their season will be considered a failure. Relatively speaking, Gonzaga's excellence would remain in the shadows, its fallibility open for millions more to see. It's a shame, but it's the truth.

"Being Gonzaga is a blessing and a curse," Martelli said. "Everyone knows the brand that is Gonzaga, but at the same time, everyone just says, 'Well, it's Gonzaga. It's this league.' That's such nonsense. Just look at college basketball. Every night you look at a score and say, 'Wow, I can't believe that happened.' "

Two weeks ago, Martelli traded text messages with Few, who told him that, when Gonzaga got to No. 1 in 2013, he viewed it as a milepost for where his program was at the time. Now, he wanted to concentrate on improving his team. "That was eye-opening and appealing to me," Martelli said, in part because, as the victories piled up and the St. Joe's traveling circus gained more and more followers in 2004, the Hawks began to tire. They opened their doors and their arms to everyone. "And I would do it again," Martelli said. But by the time they met Xavier in Dayton in their first game of the Atlantic 10 tournament, they had lost an edge. Xavier beat them by 20.

"Every place was sold out. Articles on top of articles," Martelli said. "Now we're 27-0, and this is the next game. Well, it shouldn't have been treated like the next game. This was the league playoffs, and there wasn't a monster crowd. So that part of it I could have managed better. That's why being No. 1 before will help Mark Few. They're not chasing undefeated. They're chasing another league championship, and then the Final Four. They're clear on what they're chasing."

They go for 29-0 on Thursday night at San Diego, against a team that they beat by 36 points last month - another late game that few on this coast of the country will fight off sleep to see. But there will be one coach who won't miss it, who will watch with a full appreciation for what his friend's team already has accomplished, no matter what might happen amid the madness of March.

msielski@phillynews.com

@MikeSielski