That’s it, folks. Gonzaga’s 2025-26 season is over. 74-68. A second-round loss to Texas. It hurts. But what stings most is how familiar this type of tournament loss feels. This is how Gonzaga loses tournament games. These are the same struggles this team has faced all year. And for the second straight season, the Zags fall short of the Sweet 16.
The game’s final possessions will likely haunt Zag fans for seasons to come.
Down one. Thirty seconds left. One job. One single job. Do not give up a three. Keep it to a one possession game. Force anything else. Make them beat you at the rim. And instead, the Bulldog defense collapses, the corner opens, and Texas gets a clean look from outside that felt inevitable the second it left his hands. That’s the shot that ends the season. The Zags gave up a three.
Texas played well, credit where it’s due. But the Zags beat themselves in this one. All the struggles they’ve endured all season showed up all at once. Poor rim protection. Bad shot selection. Guards disappearing for stretches. Missed threes. Missed bunnies. Defensive breakdowns on the perimeter. It all came back like it had been waiting for this moment, and there was no fixing it in real time.
Being without Braden Huff hurt us, sure, but even without him this team had what it took to beat Texas. They just couldn’t put it together when it mattered. And now it’s over. The whole season.
For a good chunk of the game, Gonzaga looked like the team that was going to move on. They weren’t perfect, far from it, but they were solid, organized, and for stretches, clearly the better team. And that’s what makes everything that followed feel so familiar, because for a while the Zags gave just enough to make you believe this one would be different. And then it unraveled according to the exact same script it’s unraveled again and again for years now.
Gonzaga opened with its usual starters: Adam Miller, Mario Saint-Supery, Emmanuel Innocenti, Jalen Warley, and Graham Ike. The Zags set the tone on the defensive end early, forcing Texas into late-clock, contested looks and keeping the Longhorns out of rhythm early. Offensively, the plan ran through Graham Ike, but Texas swarmed him on the catch, disrupting flow and leading to a cold start from deep, with the Zags opening 0-for-5 from three in the game’s first six minutes.
The offense settled once the bench rotation kicked in. Davis Fogle checked in and immediately knocked down a contested mid-range jumper, followed by an Ike floater, and Gonzaga started to find structure through ball movement and interior touches. Ike took control, scoring efficiently and passing out of double and triple teams, while the Zags piled up assists and built a lead that reached eight, even as the three-point shooting lagged at 1-for-7.
Tyon Grant-Foster struggled in his minutes, losing defensive assignments throughout and forcing bad shots on the other end. Jalen Warley left points at the rim despite contributing on the glass and as a passer. Gonzaga continued to generate quality looks and dominate defensively, holding Texas in check for most of the half, with Ike pushing into double figures and the offense largely flowing through him.
Then the wheels came off. Texas finally found a rhythm, stringing together stops and efficient possessions while Gonzaga slipped into empty trips and turnovers. The Longhorns closed on a 6-for-6 surge, capped by a Jordan Pope three in the final seconds, flipping a controlled opening 15 minutes into an emergency in the final five.
Gonzaga opened the second half flat, with an empty possession, an offensive foul on Graham Ike, and a quick Texas push that flipped the lead to 39-35. The Longhorns adjusted offensively, spreading the floor and forcing Gonzaga into a dizzying series of switches, creating a far more fluid attack than anything they showed in the first half. Jalen Warley kept the Zags afloat with free throws and steady all-around play, and Emmanuel Innocenti briefly pushed Gonzaga back in front with a huge outside shot, but the rhythm never held. The game settled into a long back-and-forth stretch, with Texas holding a 49-47 edge at the 12-minute mark as Gonzaga struggled to string together consistent possessions.
Gonzaga’s perimeter shooting remained a problem, falling to 3-for-13 from deep, while the guard play outside of Davis Fogle offered little stability. Ike carried the scoring load and reached 19 points midway through the half, but the lack of balance showed up in empty trips and transition chances the other way. Texas continued to attack the paint off switches and find easier looks at the rim, while Gonzaga’s offense came in short bursts rather than sustained pressure.
The game tilted for good when foul trouble entered the picture. Ike picked up his fourth, and suddenly every possession carried added weight on both ends. Gonzaga, already struggling to protect the rim and generate clean offense, began to press, with rushed shots, missed opportunities inside, and defensive breakdowns compounding the deficit.
There was a late push. Ike stayed aggressive and put his total to 25 points, Mario Saint-Supery helped create a brief window with a pick-and-roll feed and a floater, and Gonzaga cut it to one a point deficit in the final minute. But Texas answered every time, including a dagger three in the closing seconds that sealed it.
Coach Sean Miller took a timeout to draw up a game-winning play. The Longhorns worked the perimeter and attacked off the dribble, Tyon got sucked inside to help protect the rim, but they kicked to the short corner, and Texas’ Camden Heide made his only basket of the game, a short-corner three to make it a two possession game with no time to make up the ground. A game Gonzaga controlled early slipped away through a combination of cold shooting, poor perimeter protection, foul trouble, and a second-half surge from Texas that the Zags couldn’t get past. All they had to do was not give up a three and keep it to a one possession game. And they gave up a three. That’s the whole story.
Maybe this one hurts a little less after watching versions of this game play out over and over again for over two decades, or maybe it hurts even more for that exact same reason. There’s a familiarity to it for Zag fans that almost makes it feel inevitable, like once the cracks start to show, you already know how the story ends. Drew Timme, Chet Holmgren, Brandon Clarke, Zach Collins, etc. Graham Ike joins a storied lineage of great Gonzaga big men undone by foul trouble late in an NCAA tournament game.
And he deserved better. Graham Ike was everything Gonzaga needed, 25 points, scoring at all three levels, handling constant pressure, and still producing. Emmanuel Innocenti matched that impact in his own way, locking down defensively while adding nine points, six boards, three assists, and two steals while holding Texas’ Tramon Mark to just six points on 2-of-10 shooting. Jalen Warley, one of the best glue guys in the sport, also chipped in 10 points, five assists, and a team-high eight rebounds. Mario Saint-Supery’s floor management was uneven, yet productive, with nine points on 3-of-8 shooting, five assists, and just one turnover. That should have been enough.
But the other numbers tell the rest of the story. Ike also somehow finished with just three rebounds. Gonzaga took 16 threes (connecting on just four). A top-10 defense forced only five turnovers against a team that averages 12. Jordan Pope somehow got up eight clean attempts from deep.
Perimeter defense broke down at the worst possible moments. Shots came from the wrong places. Threes didn’t fall. Easy ones at the rim didn’t either. The rotations slipped at the worst possible times. And when the moment came, when one stop could have extended the season, Gonzaga whiffed.
The 25-26 season has officially come to an end. Call it. So too have the collegiate careers of Graham Ike, Adam Miller, Jalen Warley, and Tyon Grant-Foster. What a season, what a heap of adversity that this team fought, and what a tough group of dudes for showing up night after night.
It sucks, yes. But still, there’s plenty for fans to hold onto and lots to look forward to. A new conference with more talent and tougher competition, a batch of promising incoming talent, some extremely exciting guys in the development pipeline, and all the returning pieces necessary to be right back here again next year (hopefully with more favorable results). Take some comfort: under Mark Few, the Zags have always come back stronger than expected, even after their toughest tournament losses.
I grew up in Spokane in an era when there wasn’t much to rally around beyond that tiny, scrappy Jesuit school torching programs with 20,000 seat arenas and massive budgets. The wins, the rankings, the runs, all of it sits on top of something deeply personal to those who attended the university and those of us who grew up in a place where college basketball existed to fill the punishing, endless, grey winters and give the city something to believe in. Zag til I die. That part never changes.
Unfortunately, the noise and the “told ya so’s” will come, they always do. A second-round loss to an 11 seed will dredge up the same tired lines, the same easy shots from people who only check in this time of year. But there is no program in this sport that has done what Gonzaga has done over the last 25 years. None. From a mid-major afterthought to a national standard. That story stands on its own.
And it’s still being written.
It’s an honor to be a Zag fan. It’s an honor to write for this fanbase, and one more March loss changes nothing.
