After being a dad for most of the morning (and for the rest of the day), I've put together the day-after post from Gonzaga's 85-69 win over LMU on Saturday. Here's the S-R gamer and photos.

Read on for more.

--Continuing with a theme we touched on in the game story last night: The WCC’s presumed lower echelon is playing pretty good basketball. I haven’t seen much of San Francisco and Santa Clara, but LMU and Pepperdine look much improved from a year ago.

Short-handed LMU rebounded from a 40-point loss to Portland to play Gonzaga to a first-half tie. The Lions were without point guard Jarred DuBois, Ashley Hamilton and Larry Davis. DuBois took a shot to the nose last week and was held out of practice earlier this week. On the team’s flight from L.A. to Portland on Wednesday, DuBois apparently passed out, a frightening situation for all involved. He underwent a battery of tests which ruled out most of the immediate concerns. He was dehydrated, a condition that was aggravated by being at altitude on the airplane.

DuBois sat out both games on the road trip and his family wants him to undergo additional tests when the team returns home. Vernon Teel, normally an off guard, took over at point guard and played 40 minutes against GU, putting up 27 points, seven assists and six turnovers.

“He was so worn out,” coach Max Good said. “He played way too many minutes. If we have DuBois, he plays 32 minutes and he doesn’t make all those turnovers. There wasn’t much time for rest. They say you rest on offense, but not when you’re the point guard and the only one we got.”

Davis has been dealing with recurring Achilles’ issues. Edgar Garibay was lost for the season with a torn ACL after seven games. Hamilton (knee) sat out against GU.

“I’m really proud of our guys,” Good said. “That’s an old cliche, but we were playing without four starters that we played with at Montana (in the third game of the season).”

Gonzaga’s Steve Gray said teams like LMU and Pepperdine are maturing.

“Everyone is starting to mature a little bit because a lot of the bottom teams were young teams and they’re getting years of experience,” he said. “It’s going to be a fight from here on out.”

--Gonzaga didn’t have much luck shooting 3-pointers (3 of 16), but it didn’t really matter. The shots were open looks, but only Matt Bouldin (3 of 7) found the range. Steven Gray, Grant Gibbs, Bol Kong and Demetri Goodson combined to go 0 of 9.

It didn’t matter because Gonzaga kept piercing the zone with the dribble or more often the pass. Those passes typically went to the high post where Elias Harris (22 points, 4 assists), Kelly Olynyk (7 points, 1 assist) and sometimes Gibbs (8 points, 6 rebounds and 1 assist) were usually open. The Bulldogs went to the foul line 38 times.

“He’s a good feel-for-the-game guy,” head coach Mark Few said of Gibbs. “So he’s always great to play against zone (defense) because he’s a good passer and he knows where the ball needs to be at the right time.”

Gibbs said LMU’s defense, usually a 3-2, left the high post open.

“If we just moved the ball and hit the high post, we could get good looks,” Gibbs said.

--Center Rob Sacre essentially went 50 minutes of game time without scoring a point against Pepperdine and LMU, two teams that don’t have great interior presence defensively. He finally connected on GU’s first possession of the second half to break the string and he went on to play an effective half. He finished with seven points, eight rebounds and three blocks.

Few said it wasn’t designed to get Sacre the ball to open the second half.

“It was just because we like attacking inside-out versus a zone,” Few said. “We don’t want to settle for 3s.”

At times, Sacre looked tentative. He caught the ball about 7 feet away from the hoop in the first half with 6-9 Tim Diedrichs playing behind him. Sacre tried to throw a pass 30 feet across the court and it went for a turnover. On another play in the second half, Sacre caught the ball on the low block and momentarily had a wide-open path to the basket. He hesitated, then took the ball to the hoop and drew a foul.

--Gonzaga has run into a pretty good string of offensive-minded point guards, just in WCC play. That list includes San Diego’s Brandon Johnson, Portland’s T.J. Campbell, Pepperdine’s Keion Bell and LMU’s Vernon Teel. Bell scored 37 against Gonzaga.

“We played two point guards (this week) that have ultimate freedom to take as many dribbles as they need, spin and do whatever they want to, especially when they’re calling fouls, that guy initiating contact (gets rewarded),” Few said. “In the second half, we did a better job squeezing in and helping and at least we didn’t give up as many layups.”

Teel attempted 16 free throws, but made just 7. LMU, which came in shooting 70 percent, was just 16 of 32 at the stripe.

Gonzaga, which shoots 66.5 percent, warmed up in the second half to finish 24 of 38 (63.2 percent).

“If we make our free throws we probably score 90-something,” Few said.

--More evidence of the improving fortunes of LMU and Pepperdine. GU beat LMU 91-54 and Pep 92-58 at the MAC a year ago.

This year, GU knocked off Pepperdine by seven and LMU by 16.

“It was never a game (last year),” Good said. “Somebody said, ‘What decided that game?’ I said, ‘One call.’ They said, ‘One call?’ I said, ‘Yeah, when we called and scheduled the game.’ At least they’re going to have to take a shower after the game tonight.”

--Manny Arop is the latest Zag to be slowed by illness. Gibbs was sick during GU’s road trip last week and it’s also hit some of the families of the coaching staff. At one point, Arop left the floor and went to the locker room briefly in the first half, returning a couple of minutes later. He played six minutes and grabbed three rebounds and had two assists.

QUOTEBOOK

Sacre on attacking Pepperdine’s zone: “We wanted to move the ball, get it inside-out. We did a good job in the second half, drawing foul pressure. I know it was a long game for us and it was super long for the people to watch. And it wasn’t bad calls by the refs. It was one of those physical games and they had to call those plays.”

Good on playing zone against GU: “It’s like walking in a mine field when you’re playing against a team like Gonzaga. You have a misstep and something bad is going to happen. We had 4-5 critical plays, inside 10 minutes where we could have scored and didn’t, and the next thing you know they’re running down our neck. They had two plays where they threw it past the intended receivers and into the hands of a teammate and they hit 3s both times. I guess it wasn’t meant to happen.”

Few: “LMU came in here and gave great effort, especially in the first half. They really took it to us on the glass and kind of made us pay. They sat in zone for 40 minutes, which we haven’t seen in a while, but we ended up scoring 85 and shooting over 50 percent, so we were fine on offense. … We played much better defensively in the second half and held them to 30 (points) and we rebounded better.

“At the end of the day, we got two wins at home against teams that came in here and played pretty darn good.”

Good on Harris: “Harris is such a good player. I don’t know only a handful of programs in the country that can lose an Austin Daye and come up with an Elias Harris, who is certainly a pretty good replacement. I don’t want to say he’s a better player, but he’s certainly awfully good.”

Few on Harris: “I think his teammates are more comfortable where they’re finding him. He’s still got a long ways to go. Those are the areas we’re trying to bring out.”

Gray on Gibbs: “He was huge. We know from practice what he’s capable of. He can shoot it and he can see the floor. He’s a tough guy. It was nice to see him go out and translate it onto the floor.”

Few on Gibbs: “He came in and helped us. He gave us a little bit on the glass. He was in there competing and at least trying to block people out.”

Few on GU’s bench scoring 28 points: “It helped, just because we had Steven in foul trouble, Rob and Meech, so we had to call on the bench a lot.”