ANAHEIM, Calif. -- As Texas Tech made its way through the Honda Center corridor Thursday after holding Michigan to 44 points -- the lowest-ever tally for the Wolverines in the NCAA tournament -- Meek Mill's "Dreams and Nightmares" thumped so loudly in the team's locker room that the doors rattled.
The Philly rapper's ode to overcoming the odds -- "I used to pray for times like this/To rhyme like this/So I had to grind like this" -- could be the theme for a program that's reached the Elite Eight for the second consecutive season under third-year coach Chris Beard.
Now, Texas Tech, which plays the best defense in America, will face Gonzaga, the best offense in the country, in a Saturday battle that could send the Red Raiders to the first Final Four in the history of the program.
"Yeah, I'm already kinda shaking, thinking about how good Gonzaga is, but I didn't know they were the best team offensively," Beard told ESPN after the game. "I've got great respect for their coach and their program, as does everybody in our locker room. We'll have to guard at a high level because that's who we are. I've always thought when you get to this tournament you've gotta be who you are. That's obviously who we are, and we gotta figure out a way to score some points, too."
It's easy to forget about the West Regional.
Zion Williamson is not in Anaheim. North Carolina and Kentucky are elsewhere, too. Tennessee and Purdue staged one of the best games of the year on Thursday. They played in Louisville, where Virginia also held off a game Oregon team. The bulk of the sexy, pre-Final Four storylines include teams that did not make the trip to the Honda Center, a 3.5-mile drive from Disneyland. Yet Saturday's meeting between Gonzaga and Texas Tech will be a stat freak's dream. Gonzaga, the nation's most efficient offensive team, and Texas Tech, the country's most efficient defense -- all attributes equally supported by ESPN Analytics, Synergy Sports and KenPom alike -- will compete in the most intriguing battle of the weekend.
"We haven't watched any film on them yet," projected lottery pick Jarrett Culver said. "We was just focused on Michigan, but, we know [Gonzaga is] a great team, one of the best teams in the country, so we're gonna have to play one of our best games to compete with them."
