I didn’t get to watch last night’s Gonzaga-Wazzu game — I had a lengthy choir practice — which is a bummer, because Andy Katz calls it “one of the best games” of a “classic night of hoops.” The Zags won, 74-69, rallying from a 13-point second-half deficit to improve their record to 6-1 and defend their #17 AP / #16 Coaches ranking.
Washington State, for its part, is unranked, but came into the game 6-0 (albeit having played six cupcakes). The Zags let the Cougs dominate early, but stormed back with 47 second-half points (compared to 27 in the first half) to earn the win. Gonzaga alum La Rev tweets that the Zags “won it between the 12 and 9 minute marks [of the second half]. They brought their F- game in the first half, A+ during that stretch.”
It’s interesting to see how differently the two big Gonzaga blogs, The Slipper Still Fits and A Few Good Zags, summarize the game. The former is mostly positive, the latter primarily negative. Here is SSF’s lede:
Sometimes only a cliche can sum up a game. Good teams find a way to win even when it looks like they shouldn’t. This is exactly what happened tonight in Spokane, Washington as Gonzaga found a way to outlast Washington State by a score of 74-69.
And here is FGZ’s lede:
Well, one team brought their A-game and the Zags weren’t that squad, but what a battle. The lack of interior play on in the first half really hurt Gonzaga. Casto and the Coug D shut down Gonzaga for the entire first half and set the tone. Finally, in the second half the Zags found some competitive fire in Bouldin and Harris and overcame the deficit.
FGZ goes on to add that “[t]he decision making of the Zags was again highly questionable with 18 turnovers; there really is a total lack of leadership and point guard play this season.” But SSF argues that “6-1 is about as good as it gets for this team. The youth is fulfilling their promise and the vets are finding ways to get things done.”
SSF does, though, devote one paragraph to a rather salient critique of the Zags’ play, both tonight and in several other close wins against inferior teams like Colorado and Cincinnati:
The overarching negative is obviously the slow start epidemic. Washington State is no slouch but they are a team that Gonzaga should have beaten comfortably on their home court. … The slow start bug has plagued Gonzaga all season. My worry is that when they play a team like Duke or even Illinois away from the Kennel, they will get buried if they start slow. It’s fun to have second half comebacks, but it is much more fun to dominate from the tip off.
But SSF concludes optimistically: “I’m sure Mark Few will devise a way to get his team in a flow early on in the next few practices before the Zags really sink into December.”
We’ll see. Personally, I’m really looking forward to the Duke game, both because Duke sucks and because I’ll probably be watching it at the local “Gonzaga bar” with La Rev, a Denver native who’s coming home for the holidays just in time to watch the Zags take on the Dukies (babyyyy).
But first: Wake Forest on Saturday, at the Kennel, at 3:30 PM Mountain Time. Hopefully I’ll have time to watch at least part of that one. Go Zags!