The top-seeded Gonzaga Bulldogs are just the fifth team since 1976 to be in a legitimate position to complete the perfect season. Those other four teams? Well, they didn't finish the job -- simple as that.
But the consensus around college basketball is that Gonzaga (30-0) will be on the winning side of history this April in Indianapolis, and become the eighth Division I men's program to be crowned an undefeated national champion.
And naturally, if the Bulldogs win two more games, reach immortality, and cut down the nets, they'd be included on a short list of teams considered the greatest to ever take the court.
Where Gonzaga would rank among the all-time teams, however, is up for debate, according to CBS Sports college hoops insider Jon Rothstein.
"I think it's going to be subjective to say who the best is because the times and the eras are so different, as times moves along," Rothstein told The Zach Gelb Show on Wednesday. "But if they win two more games and go 32-0 and get into a situation where they can, for all intents and purposes, win a national championship at 32-0... I'm not saying they're going to the best, but they have to be in the conversation."
Gonzaga's road to the Final Four was smooth, and without potholes. In four West region games, the Bulldogs averaged 88 points on offense, with an average margin of victory of 23 points. On top of that, they've won 29 of their 30 games by 10-plus points, and had at least four double-digit scorers in 25 games.
If those numbers aren't impressive enough, Gonzaga also leads the nation in scoring offense (91.6 points), field goal percentage (54.9), and two-point percentage (63.7).
And they've accomplished all of this under the stewardship of head coach Mark Few, who hasn't missed a single NCAA Tournament since he took the Gonzaga job in 1999.
"He's got the unbelievable ability to be a college basketball coach and not act like a vintage college coach in the way that it consumes his life," Rothstein said of Few, who's reached the Final Four for a second time. "He can still plan practice around his kids' activities. He can still plan practice around his assistant coaches' kids' activities. He doesn't allow everything that normally engulfs a college coach to engulf him.
"He's very comfortable leaving his house and going to the movies without taking his cellphone. He has the ability to appreciate other things in life, which, I think, when you look at it, is why he's been able to have the balance he's had and also the success he's had. He's obviously a guy who wants to win a national championship, wants to join an elite club. But he also isn't going to allow himself to be defined by that."
According to ESPN, 51.8-percent of the 16.2 million brackets submitted in its annual tournament challenge selected Gonzaga to reach the Final Four, and 34.3-percent took them to win the national title.
On Saturday night (8:34 p.m. ET tip-off) at Lucas Oil Stadium, Gonzaga will face UCLA, which became the fifth No. 11 seed to ever reach the Final Four and just the second team to go from the First Four to the Final Four.
The entire Final Four conversation between Rothstein and Gelb can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow The Zach Gelb Show on Twitter @ZachGelb and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.