The Gonzaga Bulldogs and the Washington State Cougars met for the first time since 2015 and, yet again, the Bulldogs got the win, defeating their in-state rivals, 88-75, in Spokane.
Here are some more scattered thoughts from the game:
- A lot of shoutouts to go around, but let us start with Nolan Hickman. The Gonzaga senior has been a bit unsteady over the past month, but tonight it really started to look like he was rediscovering his place. This was visible in his emotion displayed on the court (something, to be fair to Hickman, he just doesn’t do very often) and his final line: 19 points, 5-of-8 from three, seven rebounds, most importantly–one turnover. Hickman was steady and confident.
- This was necessary because Ryan Nembhard played only ten minutes in the first half due to foul trouble. As Richard Fox noted on the broadcast, the Zags had 21 possessions with Nembhard sitting and they committed only one turnover. That is beyond what you should expect when your primary ball handler heads to the bench for a three-day weekend.
- I mentioned it in the Portland recap and we got to see a continuation of Dusty Stromer’s offensive attack. He had a big first half, scoring eight points and really hunting and creating his own shot. Stromer doesn’t need to average 15 per game, but if he can start to creep closer to 10, it will be such a huge gift to this team.
- Ike has been on an absolute tear since bottoming out against UConn this year. He had another monster game tonight, finishing with 21 points off 8-for-11 shooting. He was an absolute handful for the Cougars in the post and they had zero answer.
- When Ike went to the bench in the second half to get some rest, Braden Huff came in and didn’t skip a beat. Huff finished with 10 points off 4-of-4 shooting. He ran the floor like an absolute boss and followed the example Ike had set. Ike and Huff combined to go a perfect 8-for-8 in the second half with a combined 21 points.
- I was never a fan of how the Zags basically ditched Washington State in the non-conference. Call me old fashioned, but I think the Zags should be facing Washington, Washington State, Eastern Washington, and Seattle U in the non-conference each year. We don’t have to worry about that with Washington State again now that the Zags are joining the Pac Whatever soon. Great to see these two teams hit the floor and great to see the energy from the beginning. These kind of games are what make college sports great.
- The Zags had 20 points off turnovers, finishing with a TO% of 23.9 percent–the third-highest mark of the season. Go figure, they also had 15 fastbreak points. WSU’s offensive is wretched with ball security so it was great to see the defense make sure that trend continued.