After a scare at Pepperdine, the Zags got back down to business in the friendly confines of the Spokane Arena, dispatching the Portland Pilots easily, 81-50.
The Positives
- Dusty Stromer finished with a season-high 12 points, going 5-of-9 from the floor. Stromer has generally taken a back seat on the offense this season. His per 40 minutes FGA ranks second-to-last on the squad, behind the likes of Joe Few.
However, this squad needs to have more consistent offensive output beyond Ryan Nembhard, Graham Ike, and Khalif Battle. Stromer is hitting 40 percent from long range and 52 percent from two. He has the ability to score, he just is a bit tentative on offense.
Tonight, that wasn’t the case. Stromer doesn’t need to score 15 points per game, but the team could certainly use more than 5.5. - Michael Ajayi only finished with five points, but he also pulled down a season-high 15 rebounds. Most importantly, he didn’t turn the ball over. The California trip was rather unfriendly to Ajayi, so it was nice to see him have a bounce-back game in a way. Going 1-of-7 from the floor isn’t great, but he is without a doubt the team’s best rebounder. Seeing him clean up on the glass is a step in the right direction.
- California was basically mean to the whole squad. The Zags got it back and kicking from the three-point line tonight, hitting 11-of-24 from long range. That helped elevate the PPP to 1.246 against Portland, and is a nice increase after shooting just 29.2% and 13.3% against UCLA and Pepperdine, respectively.
- Portland is much worse than Pepperdine, but in all honesty, if Gonzaga is as good as they supposedly are, they should’ve beat the Waves by 20-plus. Gonzaga battled through a rough shooting night to take an 18-point lead into halftime thanks to their defense. Then, they kept it up for the largely the entire game for once.
The Negatives
- The Zags weren’t nearly as flat coming out of halftime as they’ve been this season, but they were hardly crisp at the same time. The Pilots outscored the Zags 14-12 in the first 6.5 minutes to start the second half. That doesn’t seem like much, but if there is one thing that has been the Zags’ Achilles Heel all season, it is the start of the second half.
I don’t know what it is that largely makes the team come out so flat, so often, but they sort of did it again last night. Not as badly as they’ve done earlier in the season, but still not super impressive. If Gonzaga is going to put all the pieces together, this is one area that needs to be cleaned up. Rather than hemorrhage leads or tread water, the Zags need to learn how to go for the kill.