The Gonzaga Bulldogs beat the Saint Mary’s Gaels 73-65 Saturday night in the McCarthey Athletic Center. They did exactly what was needed to get the win, speeding up the Gaels, protecting the ball, and leaning on a dominant return from Graham Ike, who sat out the last three games with a bum ankle. The Zags went into halftime down by four, but Ike could not be stopped. The win ended Gonzaga’s two-game home losing streak in the rivalry as they reclaimed the Kennel in a matchup that has rarely allowed comfort on either side.
ESPN was up to its usual nonsense once again. Tip-off was pushed back ten minutes, then the live broadcast was bounced to ESPNU while the Auburn Tigers-Tennessee Volunteers wrapped up, meaning anyone who recorded the game missed the opening stretch entirely. Worse, that delayed start meant DVR recordings would end before the Gonzaga-Saint Mary’s game actually finished. If you planned to watch later, tough luck. ESPN made sure you caught the wrong game early and missed the end of the one you wanted. A fitting reminder of how little the network prioritizes the viewing experience, and another reason Gonzaga’s exit from their ecosystem next season feels overdue.
Gonzaga tried to set the tone immediately, opening in a man press to disrupt Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett’s 309th-fastest offense in the country. Offensively, the directive was simple: push pace, attack the rim with guards, and force the Gaels to foul or play faster than they prefer. Also, give the ball to Graham Ike.
Jalen Warley spent the opening stretch attached to West Coast Conference Player of the Year frontrunner Paulius Murauskas, with Emmanuel Innocenti helping choke off clean perimeter looks. Four and a half minutes in, Gonzaga led 11-7, with five of Saint Mary’s seven points coming from Murauskas.
Eight minutes in, the Zags had built a double-digit lead behind quick ball movement and pressure defense, recording five assists on their first seven made field goals. The Gaels struggled to settle, sped up on both ends, and forced into one-on-one play away from the basket. The first media timeout arrived ten minutes into the half with Gonzaga up 21-13, holding a 7-1 edge in assists.
Despite Saint Mary’s shooting just 5-for-18 from the field and 1-for-5 from three, the game lead was fragile. A handful of boneheaded turnovers and some poor defense from, well, everyone, sparked a 12-2 Gaels run, fueled almost entirely at the free throw line and three-point lines, trimming the lead to one point and forcing a Zags timeout from coach Mark Few.
Out of the break, Gonzaga shifted into a trap-press, and a transition and-one for Tyon Grant-Foster to Ike briefly steadied things at 28-22. The final minutes of the half unraveled quickly.
Turnovers piled up, Saint Mary’s reached the bonus, and the Gaels continued to live at the line, cutting the Zags’ lead to just two. Gonzaga’s defensive pressure, particularly from Davis Fogle on the perimeter, slowed the bleeding but never fully restored control. At times, he looked like a patient vet; at others, he looked like what he is: a very skilled and very eager freshman.
The closing two minutes of the half were a classic West Coast Conference whistle-fest. Free throws from Murauskas and a late three swung the lead, and then a Joshua Dent three put Saint Mary’s in front. Ike’s free throws restored a one-point edge, giving him 14 points at the half while no other Zag had more than four. The final seconds proved costly. Another dumb foul sent Saint Mary’s back to the line, followed by a Mario Saint-Supery turnover on what should have been the final possession of the half. Then, a highly questionable foul from Fogle with 0.1 seconds remaining gifted the Gaels two more free throws to close the half.
Saint Mary’s entered the locker room up 38-34, having scored 15 of its 38 points at the line. Gonzaga controlled long stretches through pace and pressure, then spent the final eight minutes fighting fouls, turnovers, and whistles that allowed the Gaels to stay attached despite uneven shot-making. To shoot 36 percent from the floor and still be up four at half is precisely the kind of infuriating brand of basketball that Randy Bennett’s made a career of perfecting.
In the opening six minutes, the Gaels dragged the game into familiar territory, slowing the pace and bleeding clock, the kind of half where every glance at the scoreboard comes with surprise at how much time has disappeared. Gonzaga tried to counter by running opportunistically in transition, but Saint Mary’s shot-making kept the pressure on, and with 16 minutes remaining, the Zags still trailed by five.
Meanwhile, Graham Ike opened the half 0-for-5 as the Gaels kept him off the low block and baited him into midrange attempts. But thank God for Emmanuel Innocenti. With Gonzaga down 46-43, Innocenti buried a massive three to tie the game, part of a six-minute stretch in which he poured in 10 points and rebalanced the floor on his own. He proved just as valuable defensively to open the half as Mark Few elected to slide Innocenti onto Joshua Dent, who had been an unsolvable problem in the first half. From there, the reads cleaned up, and when Mikey Lewis picked up his third foul, Saint Mary’s lack of depth started to look like a real problem for Randy Bennett.
The play of the game came next, when Ike caught the ball on the perimeter, hit Harry Wessels with a sharp head fake that sent him collapsing backward onto the floor, then drove cleanly around the wreckage for a vicious two-handed dunk. The play detonated the Kennel and flipped the game’s emotional temperature instantly. From that moment on, the Zags played with force, spurred on by Ike and the table-setting of Mario Saint-Supery, and Saint Mary’s began reacting instead of dictating.
The whistle-heavy stretch that followed slowed the game to a crawl, but Gonzaga absorbed it better. Ike rediscovered his touch, scoring from multiple levels and eventually burying a dagger three to push the lead to double digits inside the final minute.
The Gaels tried to extend the game by burning timeouts and some strategic late fouling, but the officials swallowed the whistle, and the final possession never arrived anyway. Ike picked Dent’s pocket for a clean steal on the perimeter, sealing a 73-65 Zags victory in what may well have been the final meeting between these programs in the McCarthey Athletic Center. It ended the way Saint Mary’s games often do: slow, physical, maddening. Gonzaga survived it by finally imposing its talent when the margin for error disappeared.
Graham Ike accounted for 30 of Gonzaga’s 73 points, logged 37 of 40 minutes, went 11-for-20 from the field and a perfect 5-for-5 at the line, and produced a handful of SportsCenter-level plays on both ends. In his triumphant return to the rotation, Ike simply refused to let the Zags lose at home to Saint Mary’s again. He’s played a lot of spectacular games in the past, but this was one of his most complete.
The defensive effort showed up just as clearly. Gonzaga held Paulius Murauskas to 5-for-14 shooting, limited Mikey Lewis to 1-for-5, and pushed Liam Campbell into a 0-for-5 night. As a team, the Gaels finished at 34 percent from the field.
Jalen Warley added an efficient 10 points on 5-for-7 shooting and pulled down a team-high seven rebounds, while Mario Saint-Supery finished with nine points and five assists in 25 minutes, including a massive mid-range floater that stretched the lead to three possessions with three minutes remaining.
The Zags assisted on 18 of their 27 made field goals, out-rebounded one of the nation’s best rebounding teams 39-34, crushed them in the paint by a margin of +16, and clawed their way back to a ten-point lead after a shaky close to the first half. Nine turnovers in the first half versus just one in the second tells the story. Mark Few’s second-half adjustments leaned into Emmanuel Innocenti and Tyon Grant-Foster attacking downhill, which flipped momentum quickly, and once the right combination settled into rhythm around their anchor in Ike, Gonzaga squeezed the game shut.
Free-throw shooting has crossed from annoyance into problem territory, with Gonzaga finishing 13-for-21 at the line. Tyon Grant-Foster bore the brunt of that damage, going 1-for-5 in a game where free-throw shooting could have made the difference.
The Adam Miller (lack of…) scoring conundrum also continues to baffle fans. Miller finished 2-for-7 and 0-for-4 from three, pushing his conference-play shooting line to 9-for-40 from three, just under 23 percent, while averaging five points per game over that stretch despite playing 20 minutes per night. His misses are looking worse and worse, consistently coming up a foot short, and Saint Mary’s treated his perimeter attempts as acceptable risk while he was on the floor.
Steele Venters’ night was even more concerning. Against the Gaels, Venters logged just three minutes, the lowest total of his season, recording two fouls and a missed free throw as his only contributions. Dating back to the start of West Coast Conference play, Venters stands at 9-for-30 from three, a flat 30 percent, averaging 3.1 points per game with four scoreless outings in ten games. After eight minutes against the San Francisco Dons last week and an even shorter leash here, the runway is shrinking for the Eastern Washington Eagles transfer unless his defense or his shooting undergoes a dramatic turnaround.
Beating your rival always feels a little sweeter than your average victory, and this one might be the sweetest yet, with Gonzaga set to depart for the Pac-12 Conference in 2026-2027. Getting a win at home after two consecutive Kennel losses felt a little more like a last stand than a routine conference win, and Zag fans are right to revel in it for a bit.
But the story’s far from done. These teams meet again on February 28 in Moraga, and there’s a strong chance of another collision in the West Coast Conference Tournament in Las Vegas just one week later. Gonzaga took this battle, but the fight for West Coast Conference supremacy in its final season in the league is far from over.
