Gonzaga has been one of the country’s best teams from start to present, so it’s perhaps unfair to say the Bulldogs are lucky to be here. But – and that’s the critical word – there was an incident in the second-round game against Northwestern.

A lead that was 18 points large at halftime and then four points bigger in the second half was down to just five points when this happened.

There’s a lot of momentum and a lot of the unknown associated with that, and though we can’t say for sure what would have happened, we can agree things may have turned out differently. And Chris Collins isn’t even the one to pity, really.

Poor Zach Collins, he was asked questions about this afterward. Tough, tough spot. Though I’ve never been in a situation like that, I’ve seen a few games, and I can tell you the participants hardly ever know what the spectators in the arena or at home know.

He was ushered out of the celebratory locker room, and though I’ve never been in a situation like that, either, I’m also sure the Bulldogs weren’t thinking, “Wow, we sure are lucky to be here!” He and some teammates were whisked away to the postgame news conference, and Collins was admittedly and understandably clueless.

Q. On the call right before the technical foul, what was your perspective on that and what do you think happened?

ZACH COLLINS: I don’t know what — I don’t know if my hand was possibly like in the rim. I don’t know what happened. But I think I blocked a shot and they thought it was a foul or something. But I don’t know. We weren’t really worried about what their coaches — I can’t honestly remember what he was talking about.

So here’s Gonzaga, maybe scarred by the No. 9 seed, maybe shaken by a close call. But Collins, who leads the team with 58 blocked shots, is neither. What was he going to do? Let someone dunk on him?

“I didn’t know why he got the technical at all,” he said Wednesday. “I know people think I was lying, but I was serious. I had no idea. We’d just come out of the locker room, and we didn’t even talk about it.”

The play was shown on the video board above the floor after it happened, but Collins said he never looked.

“We were in the huddle talking about the game,” he said. “When I finally saw it later on, I was like, ‘Oh, crap. I guess that makes me look a little weird.’ But it wasn’t like, ‘All right, I’m going to put my hand through the rim so it doesn’t go in.’ I didn’t know I was under the rim. I just went up to block the shot.”