Chapter 8 Hardship and Toil

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The victory against the Anteaters was a great start to the 1983-1984 season for Gan Guoyang and the Gonzaga Bulldogs.

Beelman and Dan FitzGerald realized that this could be the year they shocked America.

There are over 400 Division 1 colleges in the country, and only 48 teams make it to the NCAA national tournament each year, a ratio of one-tenth.

Gonzaga University introduced basketball in 1907-1908, joined the NCAA in 1944, initially in an independent league before moving to the Big Sky Conference, and then to the West Coast Conference in the 1979-1980 season. The prestige of the league declined over time, and the team's performance became worse and worse, like the proverbial second-rate King's failing year after year.

In the 1960s, they had won regular-season conference titles, but later they were always in the middle or lower tiers, not even qualifying for the NIT.