The Gonzaga Bulldogs hit the road for the first time this season as they travel to face the Arizona State Sun Devils on Friday evening.
Both teams are currently “undefeated” and the Zags are riding high. They hit No. 2 in KenPom the morning after their obliteration of the Creighton Bluejays.
Arizona State, meanwhile, has not been tested at all quite yet. They own wins over Southern Utah and Utah Tech, but the contest against Gonzaga will be their first opponent with a KenPom ranking over 225.
TV Schedule
Time: 8:00 p.m.
TV: ESPN2
Online: Livestream here
Meet the Arizona State Sun Devils
Record: 2-0, KenPom: 80
There is roster churn and then there is the roster churn head coach Bobby Hurley dealt with this offseason. The Sun Devils return just one player from last year’s squad. To make up for it, Hurley hit the international recruiting trail HARD, grabbing seven international players. He filled the rest in with one high school recruit and a couple of other names Gonzaga players might recognize.
First up is senior point guard Moe Odum, who Gonzaga fans should recognize from his two years at Pacific and last season at Pepperdine. Odum. Odum was arguably one of the best mid major point guards last season, and Gonzaga fans should remember him dropping 24 points and dishing out eight assists in a too-close-for-comfort 89-82 loss in Malibu last December.
He is joined in the backcourt by NAIA transfer Anthony Johnson, who averaged 23.6 ppg last season, good for the fourth-highest mark in NAIA land. He is another prolific scorer but it will be interesting to see how that ability translates to the higher level. He dropped 17 points in a season opener but just seven points against Utah Tech.
Winger Bryce Ford returns back to his homeland of Arizona after two years at Toledo. He took a solid leap in production rom his freshman to sophomore seasons, and Hurley has to be hoping for more of the same. So far, through two games, he is hitting 50 percent from three.
They’ve been anchored down low by 7’1 Senegalese freshman Massamba Diop, who through two games has done quite nicely–totaling 32 points. He has height, but he hasn’t bodied up against the likes of Graham Ike yet.
The four factors
| Gonzaga O | Gonzaga D | ASU O | ASU D | |
| eFG% | 55.5 (83) | 38.5 (11) | 54.9 (99) | 43.6 (57) |
| TO% | 12.8 (34) | 23.2 (38) | 15.3 (90) | 22.3 (51) |
| OR% | 40.7 (35) | 23.4 (45) | 30.6 (188) | 31.0 (181) |
| FTA/FGA | 20.6 (346) | 39.8 (219) | 28.8 (281) | 24.0 (46) |
What to watch out for
How do the Zags respond in the road environment?
ASU is a perfectly capable team. No one will say they are a great team, yet, at least. But on the road, there should be plenty of Gonzaga fans and more than enough anti-Gonzaga fans in attendance.
With the nature of how the game has evolved into high-profile MTE and neutral site games, getting the true road game in the non-conference just doesn’t happen too often. This is a bit of a trap game in that regard–we are all riding high off that Creighton win. The Zags need to stay focused to take care of it on the road.
Let Graham Ike eat.
Ike had himself a night against Creighton, finishing with 20 points off 8-of-10 shooting. Granted, he hit as many threes as he did twos, and somehow did not make it to the free throw lone at all (that does happen more often than one would think), but the Gonzaga super senior was a show of force and a reminder that he is one of the best big men in the country.
Ike gives up a few inches to the ASU front court. Alongside Diop, the Sun Devils have thrown San Diego 6’11 transfer Santiago Trouet into the mix. Both are going to have their hands full trying to contain Ike..
Watch the off-ball movement.
With offenses so (rightly) focused on trying to keep Ike and Huff from making their easy buckets, the Zags have the added benefit of having two Joel Ayayi-lite players in Jalen Warley and Tyon Grant-Foster, who are making their presence known through experience and smart off-ball movement.
Warley and Grant-Foster are the two leading offensive rebounders on the squad–a great two-fold conundrum for opponents. First, those offensive boards generally lead to easy buckets, and two, if you are spending your defensive effort trying to keep Ike off the post, now you are being asked to also track the guy sliding around the baseline on the weakside, or the guy darting in from the perimeter to crash the boards. It is a tough ask on the defense.
Warley and Grant-Foster need to continue this pressure, because at the moment, it makes up for the fact that the Zags are not a good three-point shooting team. So far this season, Gonzaga is shooting just 31 percent from long range. If you drop Ike’s 4-for-4 night on Saturday (because in no way should we ever expect that again), that mark goes down to 26.9 percent.
Until Gonzaga is more consistently hitting three-pointers to keep the defense honest, they need to be crafty to make sure that opponents don’t just pack it in the post to shield Ike and Huff from position.