Who's the 'next Gonzaga?' There may never be another one

Mike Roth’s phone buzzes every spring.

Administrators from small-conference schools often call Gonzaga’s longtime athletic director to pepper him with questions or arrange a meeting in person. They all want to understand how a tiny Jesuit school from Eastern Washington built a basketball program that rocketed to national prominence two decades ago and sustained that success ever since.

“It’s been going on since the early part of our run,” Roth told Yahoo Sports. “Every year, athletic directors and university presidents fly to Spokane and meet with me to try to get a better sense of the secret sauce. What is it that they can do to replicate what we’re doing?”

The parade of imitators that…