THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Zags barely had to break a sweat

And now there are five games left to win.

Gonzaga’s quest to become an undefeated NCAA champion moves ahead to Monday, and a date with No. 8 seed Oklahoma of the Big 12.

No one really expected the Saturday night opener to be much of a test, and it wasn’t.

Seven minutes into it, the Zags trailed Norfolk State 11-10.

With seven minutes left in the game, the TV crew had almost completely lost interest, and the debate concerned who ordered the wings for their pregame meal.

Mark Few was flooding the floor with reserves by then, the lead was creeping up near 50, and a YMCA game had broken out.

The eventual 98-55 final score was a pretty fair representation of the two teams.

And the funny thing?

The nation didn’t get to see some of Gonzaga’s biggest guns firing.

THE SLOW start was predictable.

The Zags hadn’t played in 11 days and it showed.

“It took us a while to get our legs under us,” Corey Kispert observed.

Once they did, the Zags took apart Norfolk State with a blizzard of terrific passes, racking up 16 assists on their first 19 field goals.

They unleashed a 33-12 avalanche leading into halftime and the matter was settled.

But, seriously, some of the stars — legit All-Americans — settled for harmony roles in this one.

Jalen Suggs looked as though his adrenaline meter was set too high for his first NCAA tournament show, and he got into foul trouble almost instantly.

Other than converting a showtime dunk when Joel Ayayi set him up with a pass off the backboard, Suggs was mostly a passenger Saturday night — but he’ll need to be back on center stage if the Zags are to keep on advancing in this show.

It was actually a good sign that things kept rolling on schedule, even without much contribution from Suggs.

He’ll be doing Suggs things soon enough.

Drew Timme wasn’t a dominant force, either, facing constant double-teams.

There was a blessing in that, however, as Anton Watson came on to play in the paint, and he and Timme put on a clinic with some high-low passing that led to easy buckets.

Watson has settled into a few key roles now, and it’s obvious he’s going to have a hand in things if Gonzaga gets to the Final Four.

IT WAS impossible to draw any conclusions about the Zags’ ultimate fate in this tournament from a thumping of Norfolk State.

The task gets harder on Monday, and hopefully, in games well beyond that.

In fact, this opening rout kind of made you forget what lies ahead — and what the Zags are trying to accomplish.

The goal is to finish 32-0, as national champions who have gone undefeated in the toughest manner possible.

Only seven teams have won this tournament to conclude unbeaten seasons, and none have done it since the field was expanded to 64 teams.

The last winner with an unblemished record was Indiana in 1976 — when there were only 32 teams in the tournament.

Before that, it was just 16 for decades.

On Saturday, there was just no hint of the pressure to come.

The Zags got to run around, break a sweat and loosen some muscles.

Now we get some drama.

A feature writer named Alex Kirshner did an extensive look at these Zags for Slate, and Kirshner made two amazing observations.

FIRST, THIS…

“For a truly exceptional college basketball team, the line between ‘one of the best of all time’ and ‘niche bar trivia answer’ is exceedingly thin.”

So, so accurate.

But Kirshner also managed to find the true bottom line in Gonzaga’s shot at running the table.

“The Zags, clearly the best team of the 2020–21 season, are about to become one of two things,” he wrote.

“Yet another example of a so-called mid-major failing to prove itself on the biggest stage, or…

“The greatest men’s college basketball team that’s ever played.”

So…

Five games from immortality.

Deep breaths, everyone.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “Moments, Memories and Madness,” his reminiscences from several decades as a sports journalist, runs each Sunday.

Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball which will be published each Thursday during the NCAA tournament.