Until Saturday, it had been so long since a men's college basketball team from the Pacific Northwest advanced to the Final Four that the last time it happened, the cordless telephone and AstroTurf hadn't been invented.

That 54-year drought ended over the weekend, and emphatically so.

Gonzaga (36-1) became the first team from the region to make the Final Four since Oregon State in 1963 on Saturday with its victory against Xavier, to win the West Region. The implications of the win went broader than just our corner of the country. The last team from west of the Central Time Zone to make the Final Four had been UCLA in 2008.

And as a bonus, the Bulldogs' Northwest ties go beyond its Spokane campus. Head coach Mark Few grew up in Creswell, graduated from Oregon and began his coaching career at Creswell and Sheldon high schools.



Then, roughly three hours later Saturday evening, Few's alma mater gave the region an unprecedented second Final Four berth when the Oregon Ducks (33-5) took out top-seeded Kansas to win the Midwest Region.





This is Gonzaga's first Final Four, and Oregon's second, though UO last went in 1939, the longest wait between Final Four appearances in tournament history. But the wins also were historic for the Northwest as a whole, too, and ensured that Saturday -- which also featured the Oregon women reaching their first-ever Elite Eight, and the Oregon State women playing in the Sweet 16 -- will undoubtedly be included among the area's most memorable days for college basketball.



The first 78 editions of the NCAA tournament produced six Final Four berths from five Pacific Northwest schools: Oregon in 1939, when it won the national championship; Washington State in 1941; Washington in 1953; Seattle in 1958, led by Elgin Baylor; and Oregon State in 1949 and '63.

But ever since that last Beavers team of Mel Counts, Terry Baker and Steve Pauly made the Final Four? Nothing for the Northwest.



Now, there's the possibility of an all-Northwest final if Gonzaga gets by South Carolina in a national semifinal at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona at 3 p.m. PT, and Oregon beats North Carolina later that evening.

According to Bovada, odds of a national championship for Gonzaga are 9/5, and Oregon 11/2.



-- Andrew Greif

agreif@oregonian.com

@andrewgreif