Gonzaga’s home loss to LMU was a college basketball upset years in the making

The ground shook in the Northwest Thursday night. The landscape rattled.

Earthquake? Nah. No. 6 Gonzaga lost at home to Loyola Marymount 68-67. Though on the college basketball Richter scale, that came in about a 9.2.

The last time the Zags were beaten in their McCarthey Center, nobody ever heard of COVID. That was 2018. The last time they lost to Loyola in Spokane, Mark Few was a first-year assistant and Gonzaga had never played in the NCAA tournament. Mike Krzyzewski was two months away from winning his first national championship at Duke. That was 1991. The last time Loyola upset a top-10 team, John Kennedy had been President of the United States for two months. That was 1961, and against USC in a regional consolation game, back when the NCAA had such things.

There is more to be stunned about. Much more. Maybe more than anything, for future reference, is compelling evidence of just how vulnerable Gonzaga has become in the West Coast Conference that it has ruled with an iron fist for so long.

How shocking was Thursday night? Let us count the ways.

Gonzaga had won 75 games in a row in McCarthey Center, going back to a loss to Saint Mary’s in 2018. Of those 75, 68 had been by double-digits and 48 by at least 20 points.

👀 Longest active home winning streaks now that Gonzaga has fallen

To put that 75 context, the next longest home streak in the nation — and now No. 1 — is Auburn at 28 games. No one else has reached 20. Gonzaga’s run at home was the longest college basketball had seen in 39 years. “The home streak’s over. It was going to end sometime and it ended in a tough, hard-fought battle,” Few said afterward. “I don’t think anybody is going to touch that thing for quite some time if you look across the landscape of college basketball.”

Gonzaga had won 93 games in a row against unranked opponents, and 83 as a ranked team, the second longest streak in the history of the Associated Press poll, which goes back more than seven decades.

Gonzaga had won 116 in a row against every WCC team not named BYU or Saint Mary’s. It had been 3,253 days since the Zags lost to anyone else in the league.

Gonzaga had won 25 consecutive meetings against Loyola Marymount, by an average of 21 points. Only one of the 25 had been decided by single digits. The last time the Lions beat the Zags, Cam Shelton — who hit the game-winning shot Thursday night — was 11 years old.

Few had never lost to Loyola at home, and this is his 24th…