No. 1 Gonzaga Women’s Time in Las Vegas Cut Short, Upset by No. 4 Oregon State

Earlier today, the Gonzaga Women faced off against the Oregon State Beavers in Las Vegas in the semifinals of the West Coast Conference Tournament. With Gonzaga holding the No. 1 seed, the odds were narrowly in favor of a Bulldogs victory with a pregame betting line of -2.5, but the Zags couldn’t secure the victory as they wound up falling short 61-63.

While all defeats for my Zags, Men and Women’s team, are difficult to accept, this one hurts more because it’s likely the end of this group’s season given their non-conference performance that resulted in a NET ranking of just 109. And so while the ‘23-24 Bulldogs were able to work their way into the NCAA Tournament, this squad will likely have seen their final game of the campaign.

That means no more Yvonne Ejim, no more Maud Huijbens, no more Tayla Dalton, no more Esther Little, and, given the recent social media posts, likely no more Bree Salenbien. Ejim’s post-game interview was really hard to watch as you could sense the immense disappointment in the outcome of this match.

The Beavers started off hot with a 12-2 run in the first 5:30 minutes that was fueled by their outside shooting rather than the expected inside shooting. Part of this could have been fueled what sounded like a very pro-Beavers squad as their chants at the tip-off were very easy to hear. The Zags were at least able to climb back into the game some over the remainder of the quarter after an important timeout, but still trailed 9-17 heading into the break.

The second quarter was much, much better from a Zag perspective as the gang appeared locked-in and ready to attack the Beavers’ weak spots. This resulted in what I would describe as one the season’s best 10 minutes of the season as the Bulldogs scored 23 points compared to OSU’s 10 points, which absolutely flipped the script with a 32-27 point lead entering half. Part of this was Oregon States’ foul trouble, but Coach Rueck elected to trout those players out and the Bulldogs couldn’t generate another foul on those at-risk players, which is wild considering the referee group called 12 (TWELVE!) fouls in this period. Spoiler alert, this wound up being a major failure for these Bulldogs as Kennedy Shuler, who hit the game winner, was playing with 2 throughout this period.

However, despite the 2nd quarter showcase, this group of players and coaches have shown an inability to achieve any degree of consistency and this was on full display as the Bulldogs opened the period with a 4:30 scoring drought that saw the lead built in the second vanquished. Thankfully, things went better across the back-end of the quarter with the Zags re-establishing the lead and entering the final 10 minutes up 47-42. The biggest thing that marred this quarter was an extremely questionable offensive foul on Maud Huijbens that resulted in her fourth game foul and essentially removed her from the game. At this stage, the Dutchwoman had scored all of her 11 points which included 3-5 shooting from beyond the arc.

The same type of back-forth game looked to continue after the break with both teams sharing baskets until the Bulldogs went on a 9-4 run after the two minute mark until just after four minutes. At this point, things were looking pretty rosy for the Zags as they had their largest lead of the game, 7, and were controlling the ball with just 10 turnovers at that time.

The clock now sits with just 4:14 minutes left. Things are looking up, right? Well, no as it turns out given that the Beavers went on an 11-2 run over the next 4:04 minutes until Yvonne Ejim nailed two huge free throws to tie the game 61-61 with 8 seconds left. In the dying minutes of the game with Oregon State having advanced the ball with the new collegiate rules when calling a timeout before the play has been inbounded, the ball went to Kennedy Shuler, a player that had 2 fouls in the first quarter alone, who drove to the right, entered right into a duo of Zags with help coming, and nailed a gutty layup with just 0:08 left. The Bulldogs couldn’t make the most of their limited time with a curious sideline alley-oop Ejim who couldn’t make a one-time shot as she fell backwards against her inertia and Oregon State advanced to secure their chance for an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament tomorrow evening.

It’s a disappointing result for reasons that should be obvious, but I’ll at least state my mind: this team, while likely not one that would’ve made the second-round, deserved to make the NCAA Tournament. In particular, Ejim deserved another chance not just for her own experience, but also to showcase for professional scouts from organizations like the WNBA. The Canadian definitely deserves a serious consideration in this year’s draft class, but lacking another post-season opportunity to showcase her talents with the spotlight firmly in place might hurt her chances given the arcane roster restrictions/limits imposed by the WNBA.

Something that I’ve learned this season from watching all the Bulldogs’ game is that I don’t like Scott Rueck. His aggressive nature with his squad and, more importantly, the referees doesn’t seem to respect the game in a manner that I would deem to be at the level of professionalism this conference should demand. However, it’s on the WCC officiating crew to establish this respect and their performance across this season has clearly sown doubts in the level of respect we should put in their effort on the floor. Like how do the Beavers commit 15 fouls that result in just 11 free throws, 6 made which is another issue in and of itself, compared to the Bulldog’s 17 fouls and resulting 15 free throws, 12 made. You can’t tell me that the Zags weren’t generating the same level of contact on their perimeter-based game. Call the game. Consistently. If you do that, it will result in a beautiful. If not, you create a messy game flow that disservices the players and the fans.

I’ll cover more about this squad in the coming days, but for now, let’s grieve the end of our team’s season and send the love they rightly deserve their way.