For Gonzaga, it was a night for the unsung heroes.  You might have thought the Baylor coaching staff read a scouting report of Gonzaga with a bunch of asterisks on it—but forgot to read the asterisks.  I imagine a line like:  “Rui Hachimura is very good and scores almost at will.  He needs to be stopped!  Killian Tillie, besides being very handy in the paint himself, is an excellent shooter from distance.  Be sure to have a hand in his face at all times.*”  Oh, the staff thinks, we need to key on this guy, Rui Hachi-, Hachi-moto or whatever, and make sure Tillie doesn’t kill us from deep.  And it seems, from what my sweet girlfriend and I watched on Saturday night, they left it at that.  Of course, the asterisk reads:  “*Brandon Clarke is a complete badass, plays defense like a man possessed and can jump out of the damned building.  Don’t let him block shots, dunk, hit any floaters, or get into his mid-range game.”  Oops, sometimes those asterisks are important to read.  Another possibility:  “Zach Norvell and Josh Perkins can hit from anywhere on the court.  Deep NBA 3 pointers, jumpers, floaters, whatever.  And they both drive extremely well to the basket.**”  OK, lets really get out on those two from deep and be ready if they put the ball on the floor and drive.  And the double asterisk they missed:  “**Don’t leave Corey Kispert alone either.  He’s like a basketball Samurai, precise, deadly, and waiting patiently for the proper moment to strike.  He’s a strong, excellent defender who hits the glass hard.  Get a body on him or he’ll be serious trouble on the offensive glass.”  Double oops, missed that one too. 

Kidding aside, I doubt Baylor missed any asterisks.  Its just that Gonzaga has so many asterisks!  You key on something and they’re going to burn you somewhere else.  Baylor, it seemed, did a good job on defense as 4 of Gonzaga’s main guys shot a less than stellar 9 of 29—including our leading scorer who went for just 6 points and 5 rebounds due to some early foul trouble (and, I speculate here, likely wasn’t feeling well).  All their effort to stymie Rui went for naught as Brandon Clarke scored a Gonzaga team NCAA tournament record-setting 36 points.  Baylor’s attempts to limit “snacks”/to chill “the microwave,” Zach Norvell, though somewhat effective, just opened it up for Corey Kispert to take advantage of open looks and pull in a team second-best 16 points of his own for the game.     

Brandon Clarke was absolutely the man on Saturday, no doubt about it—but if you’ve been paying attention to Gonzaga this season, that’s kinda old hat.  Though not the leading scorer as often as Hachimura, he has scored in double figures every game (every game!) of the season.  He’s a rock on both ends—a very, very solid, springy rock.  It’s wonderful for him to have a game like the one he did on Saturday and get the kind of national attention he’s deserved for so long.  Clarke’s phenomenal stat line for the game includes 15 of 18 shooting (no wonder he leads the nation in shooting percentage!) for 36 points (the most by a Gonzaga player in an NCAA tournament game—besting Adam Morrison’s record by a point).  He had 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 5, count ‘em, 5 blocks (that’s 8 in the first 2 games of the tournament!).  Steve Cameron, in his column “The Zags Tracker,” mentions two interesting points about Clarke in his review of the game.  He has more blocks than missed shots (110 to 105) this season.  That there just leaves you a little speechless.  He’s also only the 3rd player in NCAA tournament history to garner 35+ points and 5 blocks in a game.  The other two were Shaquille O’Neal and David Robinson. 

It was great to see that kind of performance live.  If Clarke didn’t quite have 10 dunks in the game, he was really close, and a lot of them were spectacular enough to bring you out of your seat with your arms up and make you yell “Ohh!  Ohh!” (really loudly so the obnoxious Baylor fans behind you badmouthing your team know he just threw it the f- down).  The one that really lit up the arena was off a dunk that Tillie tried to put down himself on a lob from Crandall if I recall correctly—but when it came off the rim with some pretty good zip, Clarke caught it and threw it down with authority.  Clarke has some of the best hands in college basketball and anything in his reach rarely gets away.  He and Tillie had another awesome highlight together when Tillie tossed it, hook-like from the free throw line, over his shoulder to Clarke streaking from the left along the baseline who took it from under the rim over the top and smashed it home.  That clicking between the bigs--between Clarke and Tillie and Rui and Tillie in the past couple of games (which we’ve seen so much of with Rui and Clarke in Tillie’s absence) is a great sign.      ​

Clarke and Corey Kispert are truly the heavy lifters on this team, doing a lot of work without getting a huge amount of the credit.  Mark Few called Corey Kispert his “player of the game” on Saturday because of his excellence facing very difficult defensive assignments as well as his scorching shooting.  Kispert had 16 points on 6 of 8 shooting, including 4 of 6 from beyond the arc, and 7 rebounds to boot.  Much of the openness in the paint that Clarke took such wonderful advantage of was due to Kispert’s searing the defense with his long jumpers.  And many of Kispert’s rebounds came as he crashed the offensive glass, leading to easy put backs if not alley oops back into the hoop.  Though his shooting can sometimes run cold, Kispert can’t be left alone from distance, and shows immense strength, stamina, hops and pure heart on both ends.  It’s great to see the guys who don’t always get the headlines, show how great they really are in this game.  Happy, I’m sure, to let Clarke and Kispert have the brighter lights, Zach Norvell and Josh Perkins also played a quality game as well.  Perkins had 11 points and 6 assists, while Norvell finished with 9 points and 7 rebounds.  Geno Crandall had a very modest night, his only points coming off a somewhat laughable attempt to feed Clarke with an alley-oop that, with very little rotation on the ball, went in the basket for 3 points.  All he could do was shrug his shoulders and chuckle.  It's great to see these guys have fun when they play, even when it's accidental! 

Largely due to Clarke, Kispert, Tillie and Norvell’s efforts, the Bulldogs bested the Bears on the boards, with 39 rebounds to Baylor’s 27, including 13 to 12 on the offensive glass.  This is a great sign prior to the next game against Florida State.  The Zags were over 50 % on a 31 of 57 effort from the field, with a slightly less stellar effort than last game from deep going 7 of 20 for 35 %.  The Bears held it fairly close for a good amount of the game, down by only 5 points with 16 minutes left in the second half, but the Zags just kept tightening the choke hold.  Mark Vital, and Makai Mason each had 17 points, and Jared Butler and King McClure had 11 and 15 respectively despite strong efforts on the part of the Zags all game long on defense.  The assist ratio was almost 2 to 1 in favor of Gonzaga with 19 to Baylor’s 10.  To the Bulldog coaching staff’s chagrin, the free-throw percentage dipped below 70 again.  I have no doubt its going to come up in the game against Florida State on Thursday.

Though any game you win in the tournament is a great game, as Mark Few mentioned in his post-game interview, Florida State is “vastly under-seeded.”  If you’re a Gonzaga fan you remember the Seminoles from the Sweet 16 last year, and the difficult end to an excellent season that wasn’t expected to go nearly as far as it went when people projected things at the beginning of the season.  The Bulldogs weren’t expected to win the WCC in 2018—not the conference nor the tournament.  They won both and handily set aside all opposition in the WCC tournament that gave us such trouble this year.  The end to a very nice string of wins late in the season came in the Sweet 16, at the hands of Florida State and Leonard Hamilton’s fathomlessly deep bench.  Like the game against the Zags last year, Hamilton went often to his bench against Murray State in the game that earned them the right to play Gonzaga in this Sweet 16.  He kept fresh bodies in to defend the likes of Ja Morant and snuff out further tournament hopes for that superstar despite his stellar shooting to begin the game.  It is, no doubt, the same strategy he will employ against Gonzaga on Thursday night.  I think the best defense against a depth like Florida State’s is a depth of your own and the Zags are in a much better spot this year than last. 

Last year we didn’t really have it.  Tillie was, unexpectedly, out for that Sweet 16 game in 2018.  With him, as I’ve mentioned already, last year’s game would no doubt have been closer.  Geno Crandall, a seasoned veteran of the game who lends a great deal of depth to the Zags' backcourt, wasn’t a part of the team either.  Nor was Brandon Clarke—and Clarke is a serious game changer, as we’ve already seen.  Jonathan Williams was, of course, an excellent player in the 2018 game, but neither he nor Hachimura had convincing answers to solve how the team could compete against Florida State’s endless supply of fresh length and strength.  Rui scored 16 in the game to lead the Zags, Norvell had 14, and though the Zags narrowly outrebounded the Seminoles by a 42 to 40 margin, all the shooting percentages were extremely low for Gonzaga, going only 25% from deep and just under 34% from the field.  It wasn’t good enough to win then and it won’t be good enough to win on Thursday.  We have the answers to solve those problems this year and I suspect Mark Few will have some tricks up his sleeve to further frustrate the Seminoles.   

I have no doubt that this team, unlike last years team, has all the pieces necessary to make it over the hurdle of Florida State in the Sweet 16.  Making it over that hurdle, I believe, will put Gonzaga in very good territory to continue on toward a national championship.  One really positive sign is that Hachimura, leading scorer for the Zags in that 2018 game, has a lot more game-time under his belt and is infinitely better prepared to meet the challenge.  He’s learned to bang with the best of the big boys.  He’s stronger, faster and his intensity level is on the rise every game he plays.  Brandon Clarke had all those qualities to begin with and no doubt about it, will be seriously primed and pumped for this one.

Oh yea, and Tillie’s back.  It still rings like angel trumpets in my ears.  Clarke and Hachimura have slightly different games, I think. I would call Hachimura a finesse player, with excellent moves around players, using the basket often to his advantage as a way of losing defenders on the other side.  And his smooth jumper is a thing of absolute beauty.  He can play D and bang down low with the big guys, but perhaps smooth, poetic play is his natural state.  As we saw against Baylor, Clarke is going to give it all he's got everywhere on the court, swat you if you come up with even a pinch of weakness, get to the basket directly, and hit you in the teeth if you’re in his way.  Both players, I believe, have learned the style of the other—perhaps best by necessity from practicing against it all year.  Clarke has developed some very smooth moves, and Rui has had to become stronger and more forceful in his all-around game.  I remember watching the team scrimmage just before the opening of the season for the fans at the McCarthy Athletic Center.  It's a free, yearly event that draws a lot of people in and allows the team to introduce itself to the fanbase.  One thing I noticed right off the bat, because I suspected Rui would dominate the scrimmage, was that Brandon Clarke was really giving him some serious trouble during the scrimmage.  That, of course, boded well for the rest of the season because anybody who can give Rui trouble has got to have some serious skills.  Tillie, I would say, is a wonderful balance between the two extremes that Rui and Clarke represent.  He can finesse as well as bang with the best of them, and both seem natural to him.  And though Rui and Clarke pull the trigger from deep occasionally when left wide open (and make it at a pretty darn high percentage), Tillie makes 3’s with guys in his grill all the time.  They are an absolutely lethal triumvirate with such an incredible range of skills, and the Seminoles are not going to dissuade all three from having great games easily.  Oh, and Petrusev, our other tall guy off the bench, showed he can both shoot from deep, pull off sweet post moves and dunk against the likes of Duke and North Carolina earlier this season as well.  It seems to me, we’ve definitely got depth to contend with Florida State down low. 

In the backcourt, Perkins, Norvell and Kispert return from the 2018 team with the added help of our beloved Geno Crandall and his precision skills, imaginative execution and tenacious D.  Jeremy Jones, another veteran player with serious skills on both ends, plays with that wonderful quality of fuzzying the line between guard and forward.  He will be right in the grill of anybody he’s up against on defense, big or not, picking pockets, rebounding and he will not hesitate to take advantage of any scoring opportunities he’s offered.  All this is to say Gonzaga’s really, really good, and as prepared as they can possibly be, with the personnel to make amazing things happen.  There’s good reason the committee had them down as a #1 seed.  Florida State is going to be facing something they haven’t seen as of yet in this team--very different and, I believe, more lethal than any other Gonzaga team in the history of great Gonzaga teams.  Needless to say, I’ve got Gonzaga in ink as my pick to move on to the Elite 8, the Final 4, the Final and as the Champions.                       

If you watched any games this last week, you may have seen that the NCAA had warm-up shirts made for the teams that brought a smile to my face seeing them on the Gonzaga players.  The shirt simply said “FAMILY,” with the team logo underneath it.  It sounds like the kind of sentimental thing that gets printed on shirts a lot around tournament time, but when it comes to Gonzaga the word resonates with so many who have been a part of the program.  I’ve been reading an excellent recent history of Gonzaga basketball written by Bud Withers, called Glory Hounds.  Besides an in-depth look at the hard work always being done at Gonzaga to improve the team and the program in whatever way possible, the overarching take-away from that book (written mainly about the last 20 years of Gonzaga basketball) is that the whole program is a tight-knit family and that love, warmth and caring are very much at its heart.  Withers quotes Ray Giacoletti (former head coach at Drake, North Dakota State, Utah and Eastern Washington and who had been a Coaching assistant in many different places) who said of his 6 year assistantship at Gonzaga:  “Most places talk about family, and that’s all BS.  This place is truly family, and they live it.  You can feel it just being on that campus. . . I never felt that before in a college setting.”  Withers also interviewed a number of former Gonzaga players for the book who share a deep-seeded feeling of love for the program.  Of Ronny Turiaf, a player dear to so many fans here at Gonzaga, Withers writes:  “When I asked him if he felt the love [while at Gonzaga], Turiaf took it a step further.  ‘Not that I felt it,’ he says.  ‘It was that I was in it.  It never appeared to me any other way.’”

I have gone on at length to praise the players on the Gonzaga team over the past few blog posts.  I’d like to take a bit of room here to praise the coaching staff that has done such an excellent job of fostering that love, warmth and family spirit.  The current coaching staff, no doubt about it, are a bunch of precious gems.  And as precious gems they’re often gazed upon longingly by other programs with thoughts, perhaps, to steal them away.  Praise should especially go out to the man who has been loyal to steering the Gonzaga Men’s Basketball team for 20 years and has been a part of the program since way back in 1989.  Mark Few, who was once again named WCC coach of the year this season and is now one of 11 coaches named as a semifinalist for the Naismith Coach of the Year (he already won that distinction in 2017 when he and the team won a program record 37 games), holds the record for ongoing tournament appearances since beginning his career as head coach.  It’s incredible to realize that the Bulldogs, under his leadership since July of 1999, have never missed March Madness!  As Withers mentions in the book, to have been so consistently great is a feat no program like Gonzaga has been able to replicate.  And it is largely Mark Few and his staff’s dedication to the program, where “literally, there isn’t a stone that goes unturned here,” that has nurtured that greatness.    

I played basketball in a small town in North Idaho back in the late 80’s and we had a head coach who taught the fundamentals of basketball well, had a smart system in place, and his players gave him a lot of effort and respect.  He got gallons of sweat out of us preaching a strong emphasis on defense, teaching that “charges taken” was the best statistic any player could hope to accrue.  “Defense creates offense” was his mantra.  He molded rag-tag groups of mostly farmers and loggers kids into decent basketball players, got the support of a fair percent of the community and the school, and won a fair number of games.  But as part of the basketball team, I knew his coach-player relationship was based on heavy-handed control, and a too often belittling of his players.  His rhetoric lacked even the modicum of compassion and respect that makes a good player-coach relationship.  Besides the fact that he told inexcusably racist jokes sometimes (perhaps as his best attempt to bind players together through a backwards, small-town mentality),  I don’t think many of the players enjoyed playing for him.  As a coach, it seems to me you have to walk a very fine line between, on the one hand, asking/demanding/ harassing your players to do what you want them to do to be their best and, on the other hand, showing compassion toward them as individuals, allowing them to have fun playing basketball, and allowing them to use their natural talents as they’ve developed them already. It became, for me and my fellow teammates, difficult to enjoy the game we were playing whether we were winning or losing.  What I felt on the court then was not the love of the game and the desire to compete and win and play well.  Instead I felt the hesitancy, second-guessing and anxiety that comes with not wanting to mess up and garner his reprimand.  My feeling is that the team was far worse as a result. 

My idea of Mark Few as a coach is as a man who walks that line well, choosing love over fear.  Withers quotes Ray Giacoletti again, speaking about Few, as saying: “I’d be hard-pressed that there’s maybe anybody in college basketball that’s as good at keeping things in proper balance.”  This proper balance, in which a player finds his coach not only a very demanding, trusted authority on what is best to improve his and the teams’ basketball skills and direct their efforts and performance in games, but also a compassionate proponent of the player as a fun-loving, caring individual with goals, feelings and desires separate from his use as a player seems a very necessary part of being a great coach.  What I think the best coaches get as a result of walking that fine line so well is not simply fearful effort that comes from a desire not to do poorly, but expansive effort from the heart to do well not only for yourself, but for your teammates, your fans, your coaches, , your family, everyone involved that you care for, and perhaps your God on top of all that.  You can see it in the way the Gonzaga players put heart-felt effort into the games they enjoy playing and enjoy playing together.  It’s one of the important, intangible things that rarely get mentioned.  Sam Scholl, head coach of the San Diego Toreros men’s basketball team said it well when talking about the Zags after his team was bested in a very good effort this season:   “The thing that doesn’t get talked about enough with Gonzaga is that they play for each other, as good if not better than anybody they play against.  You can see it in everything they do, the way they celebrate for each other’s baskets, the way they talk to each other on the floor, the way they come in and out of timeouts, the way they huddle.  That for me is the most impressive thing.  They’ve got an unbelievable amount of talent, but man do they play for each other.”                  

One of the things Spokane and Gonzaga fans everywhere are so thankful for is something Mark Few’s wife, Marcy, says of him in the book while reminiscing about their early years together:  “What I remember sticking with me is how loyal he is, and what a good person he is.”  His loyalty has kept him in Spokane despite being wooed toward other head coaching positions. In Glory Hounds, Oregon’s attempt to woo Few away from Gonzaga and closer to his hometown of Creswell, Oregon was mentioned as perhaps the most difficult offer he had to refuse.  Another attempt to take him away is mentioned in which someone offers to build Few a trout steam on his potential new property (should he take the coaching job) so he can continue his beloved hobby of fly-fishing while coaching somewhere in the Mid-West.  But Mark Few seems to recognize that a real trout stream (or a river for that matter) in the Pacific Northwest is far better than more money and a fake one somewhere else.  (Maybe they should have offered to build a wave pool to surf in as well).

Mark Few’s insistence on loyalty, integrity and family has also brought together an excellent bunch of assistants.  From Tommy Loyd (in his 17th year with the program) and his hard work recruiting overseas, nearby and all over to the inventive strength and fitness routines put together for the players by Travis Knight.  From Donny Daniels adding his considerable experience from places like UCLA and Cal State Fullerton, to Brian Michaelson in his 10th year with the Zags program scouting and developing players.  Few and his assistants’ focus on family, loyalty, hard work, integrity, sincerity and honesty have created and defined Gonzaga basketball.   

The current players say as much whenever they can, never hesitant to use the word “love,” when referring to the players, coaches, fans and the program.  Zach Norvell calls Mark Few “one of the most humble guys in the world,” and in the next sentence demands that “he loves to compete” and that Few’s motto is “never settle.  And always get better.”  Rui Hachimura, after his considerable trials coming into Gonzaga with extremely limited English to play basketball for a team he somehow trusted to do the best they could for him, in English improved through the dedication of so many on the staff and at the University:  “I just love being here.  I love my coaches.  I appreciate everybody.”  

The love definitely goes back and forth, round and round between players and staff and fans and the rest of Zag nation.  This is truly a “Family” in the best sense of the word.  

 ~ Clark Karoses

So here we are again.  Selection Sunday is upon us!  It’s March, tournament time, and the madness is about to begin!  Once again, the Gonzaga Men’s Basketball team can count their losses this season on the fingers of a single hand.  And despite a slip-up in the WCC tournament final, everything looks golden.  It’s Saint Patrick’s Day as I write this, the sun is shining, and I believe the luck of the Irish is with us here in Spokane as the Zags are about to embark on a journey to the top of the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament (and that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow).  The Zags goal this season is to have the best final outcome of any Gonzaga team, and there’s only one outcome that will fully satisfy Gonzaga players, fans and the coaching staff.  It’s no longer just about getting into the Final Four.  It’s not about surviving.  It’s about thriving into April and cutting the nets down after the National Championship game in Minneapolis.

Coming off a disappointing end to the WCC tournament in Las Vegas, it can be difficult for Zag fans to think positively about things to come.  But we’ve got plenty to be positive about.  Being the fan of a team that wins so consistently can make any loss difficult to stomach.  I think it’s best to remember Nietzsche’s:  “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”  Know that any weaknesses revealed in our most recent loss will be used to further strengthen the team’s play.  And we should thank goodness that the game Gonzaga Men’s Basketball lost last Tuesday to Saint Mary’s wasn’t played in the round of 64, 32, the Sweet 16, Elite 8, etc., etc. of the Big Dance.  I have no doubt that since that loss emphasis has been placed on the problematic areas of the Zags game that were revealed.  Before we touch on the game every Gonzaga fan will want to forget, let’s remember what we are thankful about from the WCC tournament. 

Zag nation received perhaps its greatest gift of the season on Monday night facing Pepperdine when it welcomed Killian Tillie back onto the court at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.  He seemed in quite excellent form for his first night back after missing time due to his foot fascia difficulties.  Tillie picked up where he left off last year in the WCC tournament (in the 2018 tourney he went 13 of 14 from deep, shot 78 percent overall, and averaged 24 points a game over 3 games—and picked up MVP honors).  Few limited Tillie to 15 minutes last Monday night where he was perfect from 3-point range against Pepperdine, going 3 of 3, accounting for all his 9 points.  He also had 6 rebounds and Zags fans everywhere were breathing a deep sigh of relief. The Prodigal Son returned.

In that game, all the starters and six players total (Petrusev had 10 off the bench) finished in double figures for the Zags (A point for Tillie and 2 for Jeremy Jones would have made that 8 players).  This included the dynamic duo of Rui Hachimura and Brandon Clarke, going for 16 and 15 respectively.  Clarke, 6 for 7 from the field, also had 7 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks.  Rui added 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks himself.  Besides getting up and denying some shots the opportunity to get to the basket, the Zags were picking a lot of pockets on Monday night, with 11 steals (4 by Geno Crandall who also had 6 assists).  Josh Perkins, who got in a bit of early foul trouble, also had 6 assists and 11 points in 26 minutes and was perfect from the free-throw line.  In 24 minutes, Zach Norvell (aka snacks, aka microwave) fared even better.  He was 8 of 10 from the field, 2 of 4 from deep, finishing with 18 points to lead all Zags, adding 2 steals and 3 assists.

Team-wise, the numbers were great too.  The Zags were up 37 to 28 in rebounds.  Gonzaga shot 37 of 62 overall on field goals, just shy of 60% overall.  They were 11 for 23, or 47.8% from deep.  If you want to nit-pick for problems, the turnovers were a little heavy and Gonzaga gave it up 13 times.  Free throw shooting, which had been on a stairstep up in percentage each of the last few games dipped below 70% overall on a 15 of 22 effort.  But the way Gonzaga shared the ball for good buckets and great shots was reminiscent of the best moments all season.

Oh, how quickly and mysteriously the tables can turn in college basketball.  Sometimes you just have an off night—and Tuesday night against the Gaels was that for sure.  Gonzaga was 18 of 48, or 37.5% on field goals overall against Saint Mary’s, and shot an embarrassing 2 for 17 from deep (just 11.8%).  The Zags were bested on the boards as well by a margin of 34 to 27.  Norvell, 8 of 10 the night before, was 1 for 11 shooting field goals and 0 for 6 from beyond the arc.  Perkins, making good decisions and shooting well during the games leading up to the championship, went 4 for 14 and 0 for 3 from deep.  He and Brandon Clarke were the only Zag players scoring in double figures on a team that regularly has at least 5 players going for more than 10.  Brandon Clarke, such a reliable bright star for this team this season, had the best stat sheet for the night with 16 points on 6 of 8 shooting, 4 of 4 from the charity stripe, with 8 rebounds and a block.  Tillie, in limited minutes again, was 2 of 3 from the floor, 1 of 2 from deep and finished with 5 points. 

Sometimes the train just goes off the tracks.  Sometimes things just go awry.  You stand up and shake it off, take what you can learn from it and move forward, leaving as much bitterness behind as possible.   As much as human beings long for certainty and the ability to predict outcomes, the world (and college basketball especially) consistently denies us the privilege.  You have to hand it to Saint Mary’s for putting together a stellar effort in the game, playing outstanding defense, and just out hustling the Zags.  Jordan Ford had a career night.  I’m sure the administration of the WCC likes that outcome a lot, with two teams from a very underrated conference making the tournament.  It would be great to see the Gaels make some waves in their bracket and lets all hope for a rematch in April (though that’s a serious longshot)! 

I have no doubt that Gonzaga and its phenomenal coaching staff have done and are doing everything they can over the extended break to prepare the players for the tests they’re going to face in the tournament.  And while this loss hurts, I think it does two positive things for the team going into the big dance.  First, it may have revealed some areas where work can shore up potential difficulties to come on Thursday and beyond.  I also think it can put the team in a more hungry, focused mindset to help the team be more aggressive.  Tasting defeat makes those who haven’t felt it for some time realize how distasteful it is and can turn the complacent, superior-feeling mind back into one focused on the moment and the work at hand.

I don’t know what you’ve got on your bracket, but I’ve got Gonzaga slated for a rematch with Florida State in the Sweet 16 and another rematch in the National Championship with North Carolina, this time faring better than last time, besting the Tar Heels 88 to 77.  I made up another one in which Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga meet in the national championship just for the heck of it—wouldn’t that be some sweet revenge!  Best of luck to you in your brackets.  If you’re smart you’ll send the Zags on a stairstep down the West bracket as far as they can go! 

​~ Clark Karoses 

I went back and watched the last Gonzaga Men’s Basketball Senior Night game against BYU.  Re-watching a game, I think, brings out the critic in everyone.  I noticed that the game (which I considering a near perfect 40 minutes on first watching), though it ended as a 34-point landslide victory for the Zags, wasn’t as pretty on a second viewing.  The highlights are spectacular and the emotional intensity of the team and the crowd in Spokane was way, way up.  Though it never seemed to me like the Zags were going to lose, the game wasn’t secure for quite a while.  The Zags had a 13-point lead at halftime, and BYU was hanging tough.  And though they outscored the Cougars 51 to 30 in the second half, a lot of the Zags offense, besides a good number of ridiculously sweet highlights, came from the saving grace of free throws—and a few of those from technical fouls.  It turned out great of course.  The Zags took care of the ball well, but took some bad shots, missed some easy buckets and made a few bad decisions.  

Our team basketball IQ, a somewhat arbitrary measure of the ability to make good decisions in games, looked like it was drooping at times.  It’s difficult to say that about a game where the team scores 102 points and does pretty darn great on defense, but that’s what I noticed on seeing it again and I suspect there will be some moments when the team re-watches the game, where Mark Few will be pointing out flaws.  So going into the weekend in California, with a game on Thursday night against Pacific, and the final conference game of the season against Saint Mary’s on Saturday in Moraga, I was definitely looking for poor decisions.  

Luckily, I didn’t see too many.  I remember a few errant passes, and a couple of the inevitable “what are you thinking?” moments, but I thought the road game in Stockton against Pacific showed us a team that deserves it’s spot as #1 in the nation because it makes really good decisions, plays with intensity on both ends of the court, and finds its rhythm and the ability to score without becoming flustered after a few misses or mistakes.

And Gonzaga’s two starting bigs, Brandon Clarke and Rui Hachimura, came out to play basketball in Stockton.  Both have scored in double figures in every game they’ve played this season.  Both of them!  In every game!!  That’s an amazing stat.  It’s amazing neither has had an off-night scoring and stayed in single digits—or that neither so dominated a game that the other suffered.  They are an outstanding, complimentary and humble duo, providing the foundation of a team that I don’t believe is going to lose again this season.  The first meeting against Pacific this year was the closest both came to faltering in that double-digit scoring streak.  Josh Perkins led all scorers on that night with 14, while both Rui and Clarke scored exactly 10 points.  Our two bigs, and the team as a whole, were thrown off-balance by the Tiger’s slow, physical style of play in that first meeting of the two teams this season on January 28, that ended with Gonzaga besting Pacific 67 (the Zags lowest total this season) to 36.  Rui wasn’t able to garner a rebound in that contest—and I believe he came out Thursday, February 28 on Pacific’s home court with the memory of that frustrating game in mind, intent on changing it up.  After the game, Brandon Clarke said that he and the team had been working on absorbing contact and playing through the sorts of bumps Pacific, Saint Mary’s as well as all the good teams they’ll face in March will inevitably bring.  They obviously did a good job working on that, according to the game stats.  The two forwards more than doubled their combined point total from 20 in the first meeting to 48 in the second!  

Hachimura went on a tear with 27 points on 11 of 16 shooting, one of those makes being a 3, and pulled down 6 rebounds.  Clarke had his third straight double-double with 21 points and 13 rebounds, as well as 4 blocks.  Leading the country with nearly a 70% field goal percentage, his 8 of 10 shooting bumped that number up a smidge.  Geno Crandall, such a spark in Zags play these last few games and steadily adding even more firepower to an already explosive offense, finished in double digits as well, with 10 points, 4 rebounds and 3 steals.  Zach Norvell went 4 of 7 and finished with 12 points, hitting one of his two three-point attempts.   Despite going 2 of 4 from beyond the arc, Josh Perkins ended up just under double digits with 8 points, 2 steals and just one assist to add to his record-breaking career total at Gonzaga.

Pacific gave a valiant effort on their senior night.  In the second half, Gonzaga only outscored the Tigers by a single point, 47 to 46.  The shining star on the team, Roberto Gallinat, shot 4 of 8 from beyond the arc and garnered 23 points.  The Tigers as a team, like Gallinat, shot a very impressive 50% from deep.  But Gonzaga did too many things well and wouldn’t let the Tigers claw their way back into the game.  Gonzaga’s defense was really good, I thought, despite the good numbers the Tigers had from deep.  Most of the looks Pacific had anywhere on the court were well contested, they just ended up hitting a good number of them.  Gonzaga rebounded well with a 34 to 28 advantage on the boards, turned the ball over only 8 times (while forcing 12 turnovers), and shot 60% on field goals as a team.  Another night of great free-throw shooting was the icing on the cake for Gonzaga.  One cannot stress the importance, I think, heading into March, of strong free-throw shooting—and at 15 of 18 from the line, or 83.3%, Gonzaga looked great on Thursday night.

Gonzaga went into Saturday’s game in Moraga looking to keep the good things going and win their 20th straight game this season to cinch down the final win that would give them a clean sweep of every WCC conference game—hoping, of course, to win by double digits as they have in every one of those conference wins so far.  And they pulled it off impressively in a hard-fought game at a very hostile, humid, and slippery (thank goodness nobody got hurt) gym.  First off, I’d like to give Josh Perkins his well-deserved props.  He has become the perfect point guard for this team with its wealth of talent.  He is quite content to rack up assists in the games where everyone else is hitting shots; when Snacks is going off with a barrage from deep for instance, or when Rui and Clarke are shoveling in what’s being served up inside.  But when necessary—when the Zags are being tested like they were on Saturday night—Perkins has proved that he can rack up the points as well.  With what might have been Gonzaga’s worst performance from beyond the arc of the season, shooting a dismal 2 of 14 (14.3%) from deep, with starting wings Norvell and Kispert struggling to find their range, Perkins did exactly what he had to do in picking up the scoring slack himself—recognizing what was being given and taking it.  Perk had 19 points (one basket coming nearly from the seat of his shorts as he was falling to the floor during one of the many slips that occurred on that sweating floor), was a perfect 5 of 5 from the free throw line, had 2 assists and 2 steals as well.  

Brandon Clarke and Rui Hachimura continued their down-low dominance, both again in double digits.  They had almost an identical stat line, going 7 of 10 from the field.  Clarke had 15 points, 7 rebounds and 4 blocks.  Clarke not only finished the season leading the nation with a field-goal percentage of 69.9%, but had a Gonzaga record-breaking total of 99 blocks (I think he got cheated out of at least one this season—I’m gonna call it an even 100).  His excellent play earned him both the WCC Defensive Player of the Year honor as well as WCC Newcomer of the Year.  Hachimura, the WCC Player of the Year, had 17 points and 8 rebounds.  One of the things boding well for Gonzaga in everything to come is to see these two big men leading the fast break and passing to one another for an emphatic slam dunk.  Any of the starters, point-guard to forward, can begin the fast break, handle the ball on the way and dish at the opportune moment.  We saw it on one particularly strong play, where Hachimura got the defensive rebound, dribbled (he is very quick pushing the ball) up the court and hit Clarke in transition for a rim-punishing slam.  Watching two bigs take off like that and beat both teams up the floor bodes very well for the team.  And to see these two scoring so well and so consistently in every game, makes me think even if the Zags have some lack of decent outside shooting, (which won’t happen often because Norvell is too good a shooter, Kispert is great when he has the right looks, Perkins is excellent, and Geno is getting in rhythm as well), one or both of these guys is going to make up for any slack.  

Geno Crandall, who is showing less and less of what I might call the “reckless abandon” that didn’t go so well with Mark Few’s game plan as he was acclimatizing himself during the beginning of the season, continues to show stretches of great poise, intensity and moments of absolute brilliance.  His talent, utilized as a part of the smarts of the Gonzaga offensive schemes is, I believe, only beginning to more fully bloom.  And I think it will come to fruition near the first day of spring.  He was 3 of 5 against Saint Mary’s, hit his only 3 attempt, finished with 8 points and had the greatest assist of the game, tossing it up perfectly for Brandon Clarke who, sprinting toward the hoop, rose into the air and took that lobbed ball off the top corner of the backboard square behind the rim for an extraordinary slam dunk that even the fans in Moraga must have appreciated seeing and hearing.  Though there were some exceptional assists on Saturday night, no one player has been garnering a great number in the last two games.  It was a given for most of the season that Josh Perkins was going to be the leader with somewhere close to 10 assists a game, but his numbers have been down recently.  He only had 1 assist at Pacific and 2 against Saint Mary’s.  The assist leader has been Zach Norvell in both games, with 3 assists, but he shared the honor with Brandon Clarke against Pacific.

Rebounding wasn’t so strong in Moraga.  The two teams both had 30 rebounds.  Maybe the best and most hopeful thing watching this game, for me, was seeing Gonzaga find a double digit win despite significant struggles from 3-point shooting, decent but not great rebounding, too many turnovers (10 as opposed to 13 for Saint Mary’s) and struggles from Philip Petrusev on both ends of the court.  Petrusev did, however, have a sweet fade away shot to finish the 1st half and reclaim the lead going into the locker room.  Despite first-half troubles, and a collapse of their lead early in the second that found them nearly even with Saint Mary’s at 47 to 44, the Zags showed their dominant defense and offense by going on a 17-0 run, putting the game well out of reach for the opposition.  Their free throw percentage, an all-important statistic going into March, went up another rung on the ladder.  Gonzaga was 11 for 12 for the night, or 91.7% from the charity stripe.