SALT LAKE CITY – Top-ranked, top-seeded Gonzaga's NCAA basketball tournament run turned out to be a short one.
Wichita State, down eight with 11 minutes, 53 seconds left, put together an astonishingly efficient offensive finish and dropped the Zags 76-70 to march on to the Sweet 16.
Gonzaga goes home after compiling the most wins in school history, finishing 32-3.
The Zags, playing without guard Gary Bell Jr. for most of the second half, led 58-51 as Kevin Pangos was directing and hitting threes. But Wichita State scratched ahead 62-61, hitting three consecutive threes in the middle of scoring on eight straight possessions.
Ron Baker, a redshirt freshman, came up huge in the game for Wichita State. He had a three that ended a 12-0 Gonzaga run in the second half, and his trey from the right wing was a dagger that gave the Missouri Valley Conference runners-up a 67-63 lead.
But the one that Gonzaga fans likely will remember came with 1:24 remaining and the Zags trailing only 67-65. Backup guard Fred Van Vleet, working against David Stockton as the shot clock was dwindling, flicked the ball up from the left wing and it dropped through, giving the Shockers a 70-65 lead, and they hung on from there.
A 12-0 run early in the second half hauled the Zags back from a five-point deficit and gave them a 49-41 lead with 11:53 left. But the Shockers wouldn't go away. They got a key three-pointer from the right corner to break the Gonzaga run, and as the game wound to the final seven minutes, it became a three-point shooting contest.
The Zags were without Bell for the last 17 minutes of the game due to an injury.
