The Gonzaga Bulldogs moved into second place in the WCC standings with a hard-fought win at home over the San Francisco Dons, 88-77.
Some thoughts from the game:
- The first half pretty much summed up this Gonzaga season as concisely as possible. The Zags took nearly five minutes to score their first points as the offense looked lazy and the defense lacksadasical. Gonzaga closed the game out tied at halftime thanks to lockdown defense leading to multiple shot-clock violations and patient and efficient offense. At this point, I don’t ever expect to see the good for a full 20 minutes, and that is largely what makes Gonzaga a good team, not a great team.
- Another stat line that sums up this Gonzaga season: 16-for-27 on lay-ups. Missed gimmes are this team’s bread and butter and by bread and butter I mean pickled pigs feet and lard.
- It doesn’t happen too often that Ryan Nembhard leads the team in field goal attempts, but that is what was needed tonight. With the offense struggling to score early on, Nembhard took over like an old school point guard and just got buckets to keep Gonzaga in the game.
- Michael Ajayi is looking a lot more integrated into the offense, and seeing his joy after each basket he makes is a little bit of that energy and swag that has been missing from this squad this year. If he is putting up 10 points a game, it goes a long way for this team.
- WIth USF trailing by just seven points with 2:15 left, Ajayi missed a second free throw. Graham Ike grabbed the rebound, got the ball to Nembhard, who added another two points. That sequence of things going right in late-game situations is exactly what has been missing from Gonzaga all season.
- Gonzaga has now won 31 games in a row against USF, which is pretty nuts considering that the Dons are also one of the better WCC teams, having either been in the NCAA Tournament or nipping around the heels more often than not as of late.
- Nembhard finished with 12 assists and he is on track to obliterate the WCC single-season assist record. This team might be frustrating, but there is still a lot of cool things happening with this program this season.