The next two weeks are make or break for the Gonzaga Bulldogs, beginning first with a road match against the Washington State Cougars.
The Zags are riding a four-game win streak and opening it all at Washington State might be what Gonzaga needs. The Cougars introduction to WCC play has been rather rough, losing six of their last seven games (the WCC schedulers did not help them much, as five of their last seven games have been on the road).
For a Gonzaga team that needs to ensure a place in the NCAA Tournament, all wins are important at this point on. Here is a bit of what I will be looking for.
A good test for the defense
After the Gonzaga defense bottomed out following the loss to Santa Clara, it has slowly chipped its way back into respectable territory. This isn’t a defense that is going to strike fear in the hearts of evil doers, but all it needs to be is good enough.
WSU’s offense on a whole is not good, but they can shoot the living daylights out of the ball. The Cougars 2P% of 58.2 ranks No. 9 in the country–and that’ll be what we need to watch for since Gonzaga’s interior defense has been a bit suspect all year.
Much of this has been the Emmanuel Innocenti effect. Per Evan Miya’s site, Three of the top four defensive-rated lineups feature Innocenti, and Innocenti has been logging meaningful minutes since the loss to Santa Clara.
Force turnovers and then capitalize on them
One of the reasons that WSU’s offense is rather average is because their incredibly high eFG% (No. 12 in the country), they turn the ball over 20.7 percent of the time each possession, good for No. 342 in the country.
Last go around, the Cougars turned the ball over 16 times, translating to 20 points for Gonzaga. The Zags, for their part, minimized the overall benefit here by sloppily turning the ball over 13 times themselves, posting their third-highest TO% of the season.
Since WSU is not actually a good team at forcing TOs, if Gonzaga tightens up the screws on ball security, this should help make sure a close game in a hostile arena is not closer. The Zags have not come to town since 2014 since unceremoniously dumping WSU from the schedule. I would not expect a warm welcome on the palouse.
Do not look past this game
The big one for the Zags is obviously senior night against Saint Mary’s on Saturday. Then you have the chance of taking one from the Dons at Chase Center and avenging the loss to Santa Clara to close out the season. In terms of meaningfulness, tomorrow’s game is bottom of the four.
That means Gonzaga needs to be focused and avoid the trap game. The WCC regular season title is most likely out of the picture considering Saint Mary’s other three opponents are Portland at home, LMU away, and Oregon State at home.
Currently, the Zags are just a half game ahead of San Francisco for second place, who finish out the season at Oregon State and at home against Pacific. They are 1.5 games ahead of Santa Clara who finish out with LMU at home, WSU road, and Pacific road. In short, Gonzaga has the most difficult schedule out of all the top WCC teams to close out the season.
That second-place finish is huge, because it is the difference between playing in the quarterfinals of the WCC Tournament vs. starting in the semifinals.
Prediction
Gonzaga 90, Washington State 75.
For the month of January, Barttorvik.com had Gonzaga with the third-best offense but a defense ranked No. 124. The results showcased it as well. Gonzaga’s defense was largely in shambles and the squad was dropping games left and right. Things have changed for Gonzaga in February. The offense hasn’t been steamrolling the statistics, but the defense is much improved.
That aspect is why I don’t really think it’ll be close. Washington State just turns the ball over too often to compensate for their shooting prowess. Crazier things have happened, but too much needs to go right for the Cougars to pull off the upset.
The Cougars average nearly 15 TOs per game. They win if they clamp that down mightily, shoot the lights out, and Gonzaga fails to hit a shot from three. Again, POSSIBLE. However, considering that the Cougars only have single-digit TO games THREE times this season, that seems unlikely.