The Gonzaga Bulldogs head to the Leavey Center on Saturday night for a road matchup with the Santa Clara Broncos. It’s a high-stakes matchup for West Coast Conference supremacy as Santa Clara currently sits atop the conference standings with a 13-1 record. The No. 12-ranked Zags enter at 24-2 overall and 12-1 in conference play, while the Broncos sit at 22-5 on the season with their lone league loss coming back in January to Gonzaga. Gonzaga’s lone conference loss remains to the Portland Pilots, somehow.
Santa Clara has spent much of the season hovering just outside the national picture, and for the first time this year, the Broncos have started receiving votes in the Associated Press Poll. If things continue to break right, the West Coast Conference has a legitimate path to three NCAA Tournament bids with Gonzaga, Santa Clara, and the Saint Mary’s Gaels all holding credible profiles. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m. PST, with ESPN providing coverage.
The last time these two teams met, Gonzaga pulled away for an 89-77 win in the Kennel. It marked Graham Ike’s most dominant performance of the season to that point, finishing with 34 points, 11 boards, and shooting 7-of-8 from the free throw line. That game also came with Braden Huff in the rotation, however, providing spacing and secondary scoring during his 27 minutes on the floor, where he scored 12 points on 6-of-9 shooting.
Since then, Santa Clara has been on a tear through the West Coast Conference, stacking wins over Saint Mary’s and the San Francisco Dons at home before closing out a convincing 12-point home win over the Seattle U Redhawks earlier this week. The central problem for the Broncos in their first meeting with the Zags was Ike, and unfortunately for them, he enters this one playing the best basketball of his career. The question now centers on how Santa Clara adjusts its coverage and how Gonzaga generates offense around him without the same level of spacing and scoring support it had in January with Huff in the lineup.
Meet the Broncos (Again…)
Santa Clara sits at No. 38 on KenPom, pairing the nation’s 29th-most efficient offense with a top-60 defense. They have won nine straight conference games, with six different players leading them in scoring during that stretch.
Most importantly for the Zags, they have yet to lose at home this season.
Coach Herb Sendek’s system is built on depth and role clarity. The Broncos play multiple lineups, play a deep bench, and everyone on the floor is expected to rebound, defend, and move the ball. When Santa Clara plays well, it rarely looks explosive in isolation, yet the cumulative pressure adds up, especially at home, where their pace control and discipline tend to suffocate teams that rely on individual shot-making.
That balance defines what Santa Clara does best. Eight of Santa Clara’s players average at least 18 minutes per game, and rebounding comes from every position. 6’9” freshman Allen Graves leads the team at seven boards per game, though the production spreads across the lineup. The same holds true of their commitment to moving the ball and taking opportunistic shots. Santa Clara averages more than 17 assists per game, with no individual averaging more than three, a reflection of how consistently the ball gets to the right spots at the right time. Of late, it’s been Graves generating scoring most consistently for the Broncos. Though on the season he’s averaging 11.3 ppg, over the last nine games that number has jumped to just under 16. Most recently, he went 4-of-6 from three against Seattle U. The Broncos play connected basketball, stay disciplined in their spacing, and have shown the ability to string together quick scoring bursts and extended defensive stops against the best teams in the conference.
Key No. 1: Lean On Innocenti
Gonzaga learned the cost of mismanaging its defensive assignments in its loss at Portland, where Pilots point guard Joel Foxwell carved up the Zags for 27 points while Emmanuel Innocenti, by far the team’s best on-ball defender, played just 14 minutes total. It was a previous oversight and mismanagement of defensive resources, and one Mark Few corrected immediately.
In the very next game against Oregon State, Innocenti logged a season-high 37 minutes, stabilizing the defense, controlling the point of attack, and neutralizing the Oregon State Beavers’ ballhandlers. Gonzaga will need that version of Innocenti again on Saturday. Christian Hammond has delivered his best performances in Santa Clara’s biggest wins, including a 21-point outing against San Francisco on 4-of-6 shooting from three and a 25-point performance against Saint Mary’s that featured 10 trips to the free-throw line. Taking him out of rhythm early and keeping him from swinging the ball to Graves as a secondary option forces Santa Clara to initiate offense inside, forcing their bigs to generate offense in the paint against Graham Ike, Jalen Warley, Tyon Grant-Foster, and Davis Fogle.
Most importantly, the Broncos like to let it fly. Santa Clara averages roughly 30 three-point attempts per game and shoots 34 percent from deep as a team. Hammond leads the Broncos in both attempts and makes, and he remains comfortable hunting his own shot early in the clock, making him the most urgent perimeter problem Gonzaga has to solve. Innocenti is the answer.
Key No. 2: Get Out in Transition
The first meeting stayed tight through the opening 20 minutes, with Gonzaga and Santa Clara heading into halftime tied at 37. The separation came when Gonzaga sped the game up. Mario Saint-Supery took over primary point guard duties, Jalen Warley stepped in as a secondary ball-handler, and both were given the green light to attack early in the shot clock. The emphasis shifted to pace, rim pressure, and forcing Santa Clara’s guards to defend in space.
That stretch turned the game into a steady diet of drive-and-kick offense, transition attacks, and second-chance opportunities on the offensive glass. Graham Ike’s 34-point night stood out on the stat sheet, though the real swing came from the speed, physicality, and control Gonzaga’s second unit brought to the floor. When the Zags pushed tempo and made Santa Clara react instead of setting its defense, the game tilted decisively in their favor.
Key No. 3: Convert the High-Percentage Looks
A team this dismal from three can’t afford to miss shots at the rim. And aside from Graham Ike, Gonzaga has been dismal in that department as well. The Zags went 10-of-18 on layups against Portland, 15-of-22 against Oregon State, and 13-of-22 against the Washington State Cougars. Possession after possession ended in missed finishes from point-blank range. Those numbers add up quickly, especially in road games where empty possessions can ignite an already juiced home crowd.
Gonzaga continues to generate quality looks, that’s not the problem. Their transition offense creates advantages early in the clock, and their guards consistently get downhill. The problem has been finishing. It feels obvious to say that converting shots at the rim matters, yet it remains an unresolved issue for the Zags. Against a Santa Clara team that thrives on spacing and rhythm, those missed opportunities become openings the Broncos are built to exploit.
Santa Clara has played its way into this moment, and come Saturday, the Leavey Center will be packed for what stands as its final home game against Gonzaga before the Zags move to the Pac-12 Conference. I repeat: they have not yet lost at home all season. It is the best chance Santa Clara has had in years to measure itself against Gonzaga on its own floor, with national attention and momentum in play.
Gonzaga, meanwhile, arrives having slipped six spots in the AP Poll and sitting just behind the Broncos in the West Coast Conference standings, making this one of its final opportunities to add a true Quad 1 win before Selection Sunday. The Broncos are coming to play. And if the Zags were caught flat-footed by the version of the Portland Pilots they saw earlier this month, they need to be ready for the version of Santa Clara that shows up Saturday night: aggressive, confident, and fully aware of what a win here would mean, both for this season and for the program moving forward.
But if the Zags can set the tone defensively, control the pace, and convert the chances it creates in transition, it will have what it takes to handle a charged environment and a confident opponent.
