A week of greatness! A win
over a scrappy team from San Francisco and arguably Gonzaga’s best game of the
year against a Santa Clara squad who boasts four players with over 1000 career
points. Also, talks of a 1 seed?
Gonzaga was on in the
midst of a polished, dominant first half against a San Francisco Dons squad that couldn't
keep up with the Zags potent offense.
Just watching that first half made the Zags look like a top ten team,
but somehow the Zags couldn’t put the Dons away and left the
break with a 34-27 lead. In the second
half, the Dons tied it at 45 all with about ten minute left, but Cole Dickerson
(14 points) and Cody Dooling (14 oints) weren’t enough to outmatch our
tremendous front court of Kelly Olynyk (26, 9 rebounds, 3 assists) and Elias
Harris' double-double (17 points, 13 rebounds).
The Zags eventually pulled away with a 71-61 win.
Wednesday night, the Zags
were a well-oiled machine. Analysts are
calling this the most complete performance by any team all season. This is the best I’ve seen Gonzaga play in a
long time. This game came on the eve of ESPN columnist
Joe Lunardi’s projection of Gonzaga being the fourth 1 seed. Gonzaga certainly played like it in its dominant 85-42 win over the Santa Clara Broncos. Gonzaga led 44-15 at the half highlighted by
Kelly Olynyk's pick from Kevin Foster and his breakaway backwards Jam. This was Santa Clara's lowest scoring half of the seasons, and lowest scoring game as well. Gonzaga picked up where they left off in the
second half and ended up pulling all the starters with 11 minutes left. All 12 players had the opportunity to log quality minutes in this game.
The best stat line I saw
out of this game was holding Kevin Foster, the soon to be second all-time
scorer in the WCC, to only four points.
If we can do this to team’s best players, and especially to a player
with the talent and athleticism of Foster, then we can go deep into the tournament this
year.
Let’s open this up. What does everyone think about Gonzaga being
a 1 seed.? Are we there yet? If not, what
needs to happen for us to get there?
Everyone enjoy the San
Diego game. GO ZAGS!
7 comments:
Shutting down foster was impressive and it helped soothe some of my fears for march. Hart has improved to the point that I no longer view him as any sort of liability and bell seems to have rediscovered his shooting stroke. We're looking good you guys!
Seeding is entirely a subjective process and we all know that Zags games are on very late at night where the East Coast, and even the Mid-West are concerned. It matters not a bit how well they play if the folks that make the decisions never watch the games.
I can totally see a team or two from the ACC or Big 10 having a couple zowie! games and getting that 4th #1.
Indeed I can see the Zags winning out and getting a #3 seed. Not because that is where they deserve to be ranked but based on matters entirely beyond their control.
I do hope the selection committee makes me eat this post but . . . based on past seedings it's hard to be overly optimistic
mjc
JFWIW,
IMO, the Zags are starting to look like that 'dominate team' that the sports casters say does not exist this year. I don't think anyone will be happy to see us in their bracket no matter what our seed.
Regarding shutting down Foster, we also held Hawes to 1 point, Dellavedova to 3 in the second half and Dee and Anderson to a combined 12. When we limit the point guards production, we limit more than just their points, we disrupt their flow and game plan.
Who would ever have thought that we would hear "Gonzaga" and "defense" uttered in the same sentence?
I've noticed the hype surrounding the Zags and a potential for a 1 seed but I am not buying.
What the Joe Lunardis are saying does not mean anything to the selection committee. I just can't see us getting a 1 seed even if we win out. You have already seem how teams will jump us in the polls even though we've won out 2 games for the week.
Right or wrong, we will get no higher than a 2 seed, imo. There is too much bias to not let the blue bloods run that 4 pack. It will be a mix of Duke, Indy, Kansas, Michigan, Mich State, Syracuse, Georgetown, maybe Florida.
It's just the way it is.
Maybe it will be better for us getting a 2 or 3 anyway... we'll see shortly what the matchups bring.
A lot is dependent on how other contending teams perform during the next couple of weeks. I think if GU wins out they have a strong chance for a 1 seed, and could even hold a 2 seed with a tourney loss to SMC or BYU. Over the years GU has generally been seeded lower than their rankings. But reviewing the last 10 years, GU has played 20 tournament games and lost 3 games to opponents with lower seed, and won 2 games against opponents with a higher seed. So even though the tourney is a hodgepodge of upsets, GU’s performance has somewhat validated their seeding.
I do think we have a bit of a perception problem with our players. Having KO get all of the attention he has earned is helpful to the team image, but on the national stage I think the team credibility is diminished by the lack of highly ranked recruits. Looking at the AP top 10 from last week and their recruits for the last 4 years, Miami had 4 top 100 recruits, Michigan had 5, with 2 top 50, Indiana had 7 with 2 top 25, two teams had 8 top 100, three teams had 9 top 100, and Duke lead the group with 11 top 100 recruits, 6 of them top 25. And GU had 1 top 100 – GBJ who was ranked in the low 80s.
I've said for weeks now that our ceiling is a 2 seed due to east coast bias and the general puffery of the WCC, but I'm starting to change my mind. While Lunardi certainly doesn't dictate any actual decisions within the selection committee, having prominent media members discuss us as legitimate 1 seeds (in some cases, as the 3rd seed) will do wonders for our perception in a few weeks.
I made my earlier claim, that we would be stuck as a 2 seed, under the assumption that Miami would have a loss or two to the elite in their conference (not wake, who is awful) and that a 3rd elite team like Duke or Michigan State or Michigan would step up their game with some big wins. That hasn't happened. Instead, Indiana has built itself up as a clear favorite while the rest of the field has faded away.
I think if we win out (which is a big if, obviously, but something we can and should do) we have a decent shot at getting a 1. Every other top ten team will be cannibalizing each other in their conference tournaments, and that 2 in our loss column will be impossible to ignore. Think about it: we lost to a hot shooting Illinois team that beat Indiana and then on a bullshit fluky play AT Butler (who also beat Indiana). We're an inbounds pass away from being a 1 loss team. I think a 1 seed is within our grasp. Hopefully we pile on the style points and put away the WCC over these next two weeks.
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