An emotional Senior Night at the Kennel while honoring Ryan Nembhard, Nolan Hickman, Khalif Battle, Ben Gregg, Michael Ajayi, Joe Few. No Graham Ike, will he return? Is Ajayi ready to put his name officially in the NBA Draft at the end of the season?
For now, that doesn’t matter. The biggest question mark surrounding the start of this game is why did Gonzaga coach Mark Few think it was alright for him to play his son for the first two minutes and ten seconds of this game? Joe Few got blown by Saint Mary’s forward Luke Barrett who went straight to the rim with ease. The Gaels began this key matchup on an 11-0 run and dug themselves a hole.
The Zags already had an issue of starting games on a weak note. All of that could’ve been easily avoided, pulling him after the first dead ball. Gonzaga ended up losing in the final game at the McCarthey Athletic Center this season, 74-67.
“Seniors just voted on that. That didn’t have anything to do with the game. We fought back into it, much like at their place. Just came down to making plays down the stretch. They obviously did a much better job. That seven-point swing was tough to overcome.” – Gonzaga coach Mark Few
On the other bench, Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett continues to have his offense so crisp. He was a glaring miss from the Naismith’s National Coach of the Year watch list. The passing and rotation of the ball from the Gaels caught the Zags off-guard one possession after another. Per usual, Saint Mary’s controlled the time of possession on the offensive end.
Saint Mary’s guard Mikey Lewis showed why he’s one of the best freshman in the country and proves that fact the most when he goes up against Gonzaga. Off the bench in the two matchups, the Oakland native has scored 34 points on 9-for-19 three-point shooting. Lewis was all by his lonesome offensively out on the perimeter in both Moraga and Spokane. Minimal defensive rotation from the Zags on his looks from deep and the one closeout from Ike ended up in a four-point play.
Coming into this game, Gonzaga was hot from beyond the arc after strong performances against Pepperdine and at Washington State. That wasn’t the case tonight, going 4-for-14 on three-pointers as Few’s game plan was to attack the paint more.
The Saint Mary’s big man duo of Mitchell Saxen and Harry Wessels seem to be the kryptonite for Gonzaga’s frontcourt. They out-physicaled the Zags down the stretch. Saxen finished with 16 points on 7-13 shooting to go along with 9 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal. The reigning conference defensive player of the year had a tough assignment against Ike who had a game-high 19 points on 7-11 shooting. This was the matchup that turned out to be the most competitive throughout the night.
The Gaels and the Zags are the top two rebounding teams in the West Coast Conference but Saint Mary’s ended up winning the battle on the glass, 38-26. Ike, Gregg, and Ajayi were all below their season average when it came to securing a board. With all the understood implications of this matchup, the defensive expectations weren’t met by Gonzaga.
Saint Mary’s has now beat Gonzaga two years in a row in Spokane for the first time since the 1989 and 1990 campaigns. This is the first time since the 1992 and 1993 seasons that the Zags went two years without at least a piece of the regular season conference title.
This matchup not only had bragging rights against the Gaels but more importantly, seeding implications for the West Coast Conference tournament in Las Vegas at the Orleans Arena. Gonzaga still has work to be done to just wrap up the No. 2 seed with a Bay Area road trip against Santa Clara in the Leavey Center on Tuesday and San Francisco at the Chase Center on Saturday for the final week of conference play.
The Zags have four conference losses for the first time since 1997-98. Hopefully that will end there, who’s to say?
Arden Cravalho is a Gonzaga University graduate from the Bay Area… Follow him on Twitter @a_cravalho
