It is a battle of the unbeatens on Saturday night as the Gonzaga Bulldogs take on the Oklahoma Sooners, with each squad nicely tuned up after one sub-300 KenPom opponent to open the season.
The Gonzaga Bulldog’s defense absolutely clamped down against Texas Southern in the Zags’ home-opening win. The offense sputtered a bit at first, but no one can complain when your team wins by 55 points.
Saint Francis scored a few more points against Oklahoma, but it hardly mattered when the Sooners dropped 102, coasting to an easy 56 point win.
TV Schedule
Meet the Oklahoma Sooners
Record: 1-0, KenPom Rating: 55
Even for Oklahoma fans, this is a new look team, with head coach Porter Moser only returning 11.2 percent of his minutes played last season. Most likely, with the transfer portal as it is, this will probably be the most commonly worded sentence in this blog’s history.
The portal was kind to Moser, who went out and snagged Xzayvier Brown (17.6 ppg for Saint Joe’s), Nijel Pack (13.9 ppg for Miami) and Tae Davis (15.1 ppg for Notre Dame). He also snagged former five-star prospect Derrion Reid, who struggled to do anything at Alabama his freshman season. Senior forward Mohamed Wague rounded out the starting five, and that is a strong unit in Brown, Pack, and Davis, with potential to be better in Reid and Wague.
The bench is a bit more of a question mark. There are a couple of JUCO transfers in there with Jadon Jones and Jeff Nwanko, who probably will figure to carve out some minutes. Otherwise, it is freshmen galore outside of sophomore guard Dayton Forsythe, one of the few Oklahoma holdovers from last season.
The four factors
*currently meaningless because each team has only played one game
| Gonzaga O | Gonzaga D | Oklahoma O | Oklahoma D | |
| eFG% | 58.7 (41) | 28.0 (2) | 63.6 (14) | 44.7 (56) |
| TO% | 17.9 (113) | 23.4 (41) | 14.8 (63) | 18.9 (87) |
| OR% | 55.9 (3) | 24.5 (55) | 40.0 (37) | 30.0 (103) |
| FTA/FGA | 30.4 (142) | 28.8 (66) | 25.7 (166) | 15.2 (11) |
What to watch out for
Gonzaga’s defense faces an actual test.
The Zags held Texas Southern to an eFG% of 28.0 on Monday night. That is an absolutely absurd number and obviously unsustainable. The real question for the Gonzaga defense is if they are actually that good or if Texas Southern is that bad. The answer is probably a combination of both.
Oklahoma has some serious experience in Nijel Pack and Xzavier Brown. We saw Gonzaga put Jalen Warley on the ballhander for a 3/4 press to great success. This year, Gonzaga has the dudes to harass the perimeter, and if they are continually successful, it makes it much easier for Graham Ike and Braden Huff to protect the paint.
At the end of this season, I think there is a very good chance the defense has a higher rating than the offense. Tomorrow will be the first real indicator.
How deep is the rotation really?
Against Texas Southern the Zags trotted out eleven different players for at least 10 minutes. Graham Ike led all players with just 22 minutes. Texas Southern is the equivalent of a glorified exhibition game, so it is hard to read much into the bench usage.
With that said, this team is, for the record, incredibly deep. Ike, Tyon-Grant Foster, Warley, Steele Venters, and Adam Miller are all seniors and will see meaningful minutes. Innocenti clearly gets his and Braeden Smith is the starting PG. Braden Huff obviously is a starter and Ismaila Diagne is the only real size the Zags have off the bench. Mario Saint-Supery is going to get minutes as the backup PG. Davis Fogle has excelled against three sub-par opponents as lightning scoring in a bottle.
There is a real argument to be made that the rotation is going to be roughly 11 players this season. All 11 players have earned the right to see the floor. Mark Few gets criticism (unjustly in my opinion) as running too tight of a roster. When the situation and personnel call for it–he opens it up. Last season, the Zags ran a nine-man rotation. Back in 2012-13, they ran an 11-man rotation.
What makes it all work this year is you don’t have such severity in drop-off of talent from the starters to the bench mob. Ike and Huff are definitely much better at the moment than Diagne, but its a relatively equal playing field across the rest of the lineup.
Is three-point shooting going to be an issue?
The Zags are shooting just 31 percent from three as a team through both exhibitions and the season-opener. In particular, Venters, the hopeful marksman, is just 2-for-9. Adam Miller was the lone bright spot on Monday, draining 3-of-5 from long range.
The thing is, the rest of the squad isn’t necessarily that great at it. Grant-Foster is a career 27.9 percent three-point shooter. Warley hasn’t had nearly the volume but his career mark sits at 29.4. Innocenti will maybe good for one three a game. Smith hit just 31.1 percent his sophomore year at Colgate on nearly five attempts per game.
Ike and Huff can theoretically hit them occasionally but if I see a first shot of the offensive set as a trailing Ike pulling up for three like he is Adam Morrison I am going to throw myself at my television set.
The Zags need Venter to be around 40 percent (his career mark) and hope that Miller is more of the 42.9 percent shooter he was last season, and not the 30.3 percent shooter he was the year prior.
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