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.   

After having the good fortune to watch most of the first half of the Gonzaga Men’s Basketball’s game against Pepperdine on Thursday night at work, and having listened to Tom Hudson and Adam Morrison on the radio broadcast narrate the rest of the 2nd half on my commute home, I was anxious to see some highlights from the game.  And scrolling through the GMB twitter feed, the first thing I run across when I find some highlights is another Gonzaga troll trying to kill whatever joy fans are having up here with a comment under a celebratory post that read:  “Gonzaga hasn’t played anyone decent in like 7 weeks.”  Who the hell are these people?  Is it some Duke, North Calolina or Tennessee fan, nursing the hurt from a recent loss or just a little too high on their horse after a win, who has to go out and squash whatever happiness is being had in the realm of college basketball anywhere else it might be had?  I want to reply with something equally snide and say something like “I don’t come to your place of business and slap the bleep out of your mouth!  Why you got to go knocking the Zags like that, Mr. Killjoy?”  But no, I stop and breathe and exercise some restraint.

First off, if you’re going to knock the Zags, wait until whoever it is you’re a fan of is on the court with them, not after one of their conference wins—and not while you’re trolling the internet trying to work away life’s frustrations or some personal vendetta by putting the kibosh on people cheering about something they love.  I hope there’s no Gonzaga fans looking for easier wins by ranked teams in other conferences and trying to demean them.  That’s just petty.  Admittedly, wins in the Big 12, ACC, SEC, Big 10, etc. are, perhaps, harder to come by than in the WCC at times.  But that is just the lot each of these teams has been given, and I think that Gonzaga did the best it could to try to make their situation as difficult as possible by scheduling one of the toughest non-conference schedules of any team.  If the issue you have is the number next to your team’s name on the television screen (Gonzaga’s got a 2 right now, and many assume it will be a 1 on Monday), same your comments for the people who rank teams.  It’s not like any of those numbers matter anyway.  

I do take offense, though, at “hasn’t played anyone decent”—not because I think Gonzaga’s opponents have been stellar compared to other teams.  But these are Division 1 college basketball teams.  Anyone playing on any of these teams is very likely a whole hell of a lot more “decent” than any of the people making these comments—in terms of their skills on the court as well as their morals.  Before you go popping off a slanderous comment about any team, remember all the guys on these teams, on any of these teams, are college student-athletes.  Many of them are not so far from high school, they’re studying their asses off, finding their identities and at the same time trying to excel and compete in the very demanding world of Division 1 collegiate sports.  And you’re going to demean them, saying they’re not anyone decent?  Weak sauce.  In all seriousness, you should be ashamed of yourself. 

As far as the game with Pepperdine goes, it was a momentous one in that Josh Perkins became the career assist leader for Gonzaga, by passing Matt Santangelo’s record of 668 assists.  Perkins had a good night breaking it, with 9 assists and 10 points on 4 of 6 shooting.  The only gripe with Josh Perkins that anybody on the Zags side of things had before or after the game, perhaps, is we wish he’d shoot some more.  But he’s making a whole lot of pretty damn good decisions as far as I’m concerned, often allowing his point total to linger in the single digits when, with his great assist-ance, everyone else is tallying big numbers.  He only seems to be taking a few more shots when things are getting stagnant for everyone else—giving the team the boost it needs to get back on track.  He’s truly elite (should get more attention from the NBA if he’s not getting it now) and like an elite player, when asked about his record-breaking career so far, he said:  “All the credit goes to my team.”  Humility is truly a wonderful quality.

I’m calling this bi-weekly bit “The Zag Wag,” and this first installment comes at a time when the Zags have a lot to wag about.  There’s something particularly special going on in Gonzaga Men’s Basketball again this season and, as a loyal fan, I have plenty to wag my tongue about as March gets closer—as do a lot of naysayers.
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I got into one of those childish arguments on Facebook the other day with one of those naysayers—one of the many who, in the comments of a post that celebrates a Gonzaga win,  say snide things like:  “Gonzaga’s  good, but they’re only a Sweet 16 or an Elite 8 team at the most,” or who demean Gonzaga’s latest conference wins with:  “Get in a better conference.”  Or last but not least, who show their distain and disrespect with:  “Can’t wait to see Gonzaga choke in the tournament again this year.”  After telling him why Gonzaga is in the WCC, that the WCC isn’t really that bad of a conference, and that I think Gonzaga is not only going to be in the final four, but will win the whole thing, we were at odds for some time.  When I mentioned that I’ve been a fan for about 20 years and I ask him who he’s picking to beat Gonzaga, not only will he not offer me an answer, he has the audacity to call me one of the people who jumped on the Gonzaga bandwagon when they started winning a lot of games.  This, coming from a guy who “likes a lot of teams,” won’t even offer up an opinion about who is good enough to beat the Zags, and doesn’t owe allegiance to any team.

I’m not going to stoop to his level and demean the way this guy enjoys his basketball, but I think it’s a good thing to be loyal to a team.  It teaches you something about the ups and downs that come with just about any long-term, worthwhile endeavor.  If an open relationship with his favorite basketball teams is this guy’s gig though then so be it, just don’t knock me for being committed to something.

Naysayers are all over the place though—especially when it comes to Gonzaga.  I admit, he may have a point about me becoming a fan at a time when Gonzaga was good.  I became a fan around the turn of the century when my dad, who knew Gonzaga had been good for some time, said I should come over to his place and watch a game.  We both lived in Moscow, Idaho, and though the Vandals at the University of Idaho (my Alma Mater) and the Cougars at Washington State weren’t bad teams nearby, my dad recognized that something special was going on in Spokane—and we both love basketball.  We watched a lot of great games together.  It became our ritual to get pizza and root beer and sit down together to cheer Gonzaga on.  We were able to follow many elite athletes that have come through the program and we saw a lot of great team wins and a few loses.  We paid close attention as Adam Morrison and the Zags rose to great heights and we felt the bitter heartbreak with the 2006 tournament loss to UCLA that put an end to his days at Gonzaga.  My dad passed away a few years after that, but I keep our tradition and love for basketball alive by cheering for Gonzaga every year.  A Spokane resident now, I watch the games with my own kids and loved ones.  

Throughout the years that I’ve had the pleasure of being a fan, I’ve watched a lot of Gonzaga games, and I’ve closely followed a fair number of Gonzaga basketball seasons.  They’ve pretty much always had a great team, and I’ve almost always been very excited about the possibility of them making a deep run into March Madness.  This team though—this team in 2019, I believe, is special in a way that I haven’t seen yet.  Perhaps I’ve got blinders on because I love Zags basketball.  Every Gonzaga team over the years, I admit, has seemed special.  The team this year, however, seems to transcend even the highest of standards and might be the best yet.  And though I’ve seen too many basketball games through the years not to recognize that on any given night a lesser team can upset a better team, I want to say it right now:  Gonzaga is going to win the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament this year.
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This 2019 team with, as one analyst put it, its “embarrassment of riches,” is steadily at work making great strides every game.  Praising Brandon Clarke after a win, Mark Few said:  “He brings his lunch pail every day.”  This is true of the whole team.  Every opportunity to work is taken very seriously, including every minute of games against teams that might be considered sub-par.  If you watch their games lately you’ve seen it.  The Zags are relentless in their pursuit of perfection.  The work ethic, talent, experience and smarts of both the players and the coaching staff is going to put them on top in March.  They have a great synergy developing in which the energy of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  Sam Scholl, head coach of San Diego Men’s Basketball, had this high praise after the most recent Gonzaga win against the Toreros:

“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.”

Mark Few has always instilled unselfish play into his players and the best Gonzaga teams are great because of their ability to work so well as a team.  What I see more than anything this year is a bunch of guys enjoying the hell out of playing basketball, who know their potential is near limitless, and who know that hard work is the impetus to make all that potential blossom.  Besides the work they do improving the nation’s highest scoring offense, Gonzaga has made it a mission to tighten up on defense, especially since the back-to-back losses suffered against Tennessee and North Carolina in which their defense was a bit lax.  Every game since those losses, you see a concerted effort to get better on that end of the court.  The wrench on the defensive pressure is being torqued tighter and tighter.  Each game is a click or two clicks on the ratchet.  The culmination of that effort so far, might have been the recent game against Saint Mary’s, but you saw it on full display against BYU and the second meeting with San Francisco as well.
Consider the last game against Saint Mary’s—perhaps Gonzaga’s best 40 minutes of basketball this season.  I happened to be watching the movie Free Solo (watch it if you haven’t—it’s amazing) at The Magic Lantern in downtown Spokane during the game, and I was only able to catch the beginning.  I did feel confident though, after seeing the initial 14-2 Zags run to start, how it would turn out.  The first time I got a chance to check the score Gonzaga was up 53 to 20 at halftime.  Gonzaga held the Gaels (a long-standing rival notorious for its toughness and with a very decent offense this year) to 20 points in the first half and just 46 by the end of regulation while scoring 94 points themselves, just over their season average.  The Gaels shot 7.7% from beyond the arc and 26% on field goals overall.  I’d say that’s pretty good D!  Along with his 24 points on 9 of 12 shooting, Brandon Clarke added 3 blocks to his now 82 block total (he had 5 against San Francisco last time they met, along with 16 rebounds and 20 points).  Clarke, perhaps, doesn’t get all the attention he deserves for Player of the Year (he’ll get a lot more attention soon) because Rui Hachimura mania is taking such a lion’s share.  Rui had 18 points (he had 32 against San Diego last Saturday) on 8 of 11 shooting, with 7 rebounds and 2 blocks of his own.  These two big men, Gonzaga’s peanut butter and jelly in 2019, almost always have at least 40 points combined per game.  And one or the other is either close or gets a double-double.  They are also very good at passing to one another and other teammates and neither is stingy with the ball if someone has an easier look at the hoop.

Some things that Gonzaga is not always consistent with were clicking that night against the Gaels.  Gonzaga outrebounded Saint Mary’s 42 to 31.  Rebounding as well as 3-point shooting haven’t been strong points for the Zags in a few games this season.  They shot 44.4% from beyond the arc on this particular night though, with Zach Norvell and Cory Kispert combining for 5 makes on 10 attempts.  Besides playing great defense, both wings finished in double figures.  Josh Perkins, the team captain as senior point guard, who is very comfortable facilitating other people’s baskets with precision passes and perfect lobs (but is also a very apt at scoring when necessary), had 9 assists and 2 points.  Gonzaga also got great numbers from their bench, which isn’t always the case.  Jeremy Jones had 7 points on 3 of 3 shooting, one from deep.  And Geno Crandall who, like Jones, is a defensive specialist as well as serious offensive threat, had 6 points of his own and 4 assists.  Filip Petrusev had perhaps his best performance of the year, scoring 15 on 5 of 7 shooting.  The Zags, who sometimes get a bit careless with the ball to the tune of double-digit turnovers, had just 6 turnovers for the game.

The two games since that game weren’t as impressive and highlight some of the key factors for improvement for Gonzaga.  In the game against Loyola Marymount, though the Zags ground out a win against a really tough team on the road, wasn’t pretty.  Clarke and Rui had to be great again as LMU not only kept things close, but took a small lead midway through the 2nd half.  Clarke finished with 17 points on 7 of 12 shooting, with 12 rebounds and 3 blocks (he averages 3!).  Rui was 7 of 13 with 22 points, 7 rebounds and a perfect 8 of 8 from the charity stripe.  A saving grace, the whole team only missed one free throw, going 21 of 22 (96 %) from the foul-line.  Zach Norvell was 3 of 6 from beyond the arc.  The game as a whole, though, seemed pretty sloppy.  Despite Clarke and Rui’s efforts, Gonzaga got outrebounded 36 to 35 in the game and turned the ball over 10 times as opposed to LMU which only had 5. 

The San Diego game last Saturday was a bit better perhaps.  It was a tale of two halves—the second half being significantly better than the first.  In the LMU game, the Zags had a great final quarter, going on a 20-6 run to close the game, similar to what happened in San Francisco this year when the Zags closed out a very close away game with a burst of energy to finish.  Luckily, the Zags have been running strong in tough games at the right time.  At San Diego the last 20 minutes were much better than the first.  Both teams went into the locker room with 30 points at half, but the Zags came out in a rampage, shooting 69% in that half, scoring 49 points and besting the Toreros in another hard-fought contest.  This time, Rui had the double-double with 22 and 10 rebounds.  Clarke had 14 on 6 of 7 shooting with 8 rebounds and 2 blocks.  Zach Norvell had 18 himself on 7 of 11 shooting, but he and the rest of the team shot a poor 21.4% from beyond the arc.  Again, double-digit turnovers led to trouble and worry for Gonzaga which had 10 while San Diego only gave it up 9 times.  The Gonzaga bench wasn’t firing on all cylinders either, scoring only 2 points in the contest.  Josh Perkins, who found a lot of his passing lanes blocked up, made wise decisions and shot a lot more often in the game, scoring 15 points to help boost things.  Another strong team performance from the free-throw line (12 of 14) helped seal the victory despite some troubles.   

Apart from these last two games in which Gonzaga seemed to struggle a bit, and a closer contest away in San Francisco, the Zags have been stellar in conference play, blowing by the opposition by an average of more than 30 points.  The defense is getting tighter every game they play and the offense, apart from rare slumps, is humming along nicely.  In the years I’ve followed Gonzaga in conference play I’ve never seen them win so convincingly so often.  What I remember most consistently about WCC play in the past is Gonzaga playing it pretty close to the competition until halftime, working out a few kinks, and then pulling ahead or eeking it out at the end—or every now and again falling to a rival.  There’s been some worrisome moments in conference play this year, but they are few and far between.  Noone had much of an answer for Gonzaga last year at the end of the season and into the WCC tournament, but what I see happening this year is, perhaps, a team that’s even better than that. 

One huge question looming in the minds of Gonzaga fans is:  What is going to happen with Killian Tillie?  Some say that the Zags can’t win the tournament without Tillie.  It is certainly a serious concern.  Tillie’s absence from the Sweet 16 game against Florida State last year may have cost them the game—or at least his healthy presence would have made it a much closer contest.  Seeing him limp off the floor against Saint Mary’s was tragic.  There is some speculation that he will be ready to play by the postseason but easing him into the lineup as part of gradual recovery from the ankle injury that kept him out for so long prior to the beginning of conference play was an important part of getting him ready for the postseason.  This recent stall in that plan is a serious bummer for all of Zag nation.  Having him back, whatever his condition will be a boon in March.  My assumption is the Zags will be concentrating on getting the very talented Filip Petrusev as many minutes as possible in the meantime.  He has already shown great proficiency and poise in the post and from behind the three-point line.  He was solid in the win against Duke.  Look for him to get more minutes, especially when the Zags start to gain a comfortable lead in upcoming games.  Getting him on the floor will be a good sign for Gonzaga.

Although I truly wish Killian Tillie were healthy, there is, perhaps, a positive I can see in him having to sit out.  I wonder if Tillie might be back next year in order to get a better pre-NBA showing.  As little as we want Tillie to be limited in his possibilities in any way, the idea of a Tillie-Petrusev frontcourt next season is really exciting.  A starting 5 with those two bigs would be a starting 5 that can all shoot and make the 3 consistently.  Not that Rui and Clarke suffer from beyond the arc.  They don’t, but they don’t pull the trigger very often.  Having Tillie back might be a pipe dream, but the future of Gonzaga basketball is something that’s fun to dream about and the prospects lately are looking pretty good.

As March approaches, I’m going to be watching for Gonzaga to rebound the ball more effectively, take better and make more 3-pointers, put together games that are a complete 40 minutes of great basketball, limit turn overs and work the excellent guys we have on the bench in more consistently.  The truth is anyone can lose in March and almost everyone does.  You can have an off night and your opponent can sizzle.  Steph Curry could step in and light you up for 40 like he did with Davidson against Gonzaga in 2008.  Of all the Gonzaga teams I’ve seen, I believe this is the one that can handle whatever befalls them.  With veterans that are cool under pressure and talent to match any excellent team, I believe they can handle any situation.  I’m excited to see some rematches from earlier in the season as the tournament field narrows with Michigan State, Tennessee and/or North Carolina—perhaps against Duke as well.  Whatever it all comes to, I believe this team has everything it takes to come out on top as the national champions.

~ Clark Karoses