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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Zags’ Shooting Shows Vital Signs

For Gonzaga, “off-guard” was not a position.

It was a description.

In fact, the Bulldogs had several “way-off” guards.

Couldn’t shoot.

But at least for one game - Saturday’s win over Saint Mary’s - those problems came to an end.

Finally, junior-college transfer Lorenzo Rollins snapped out of the slump with a 23-point, 9-for-11 night.

The effort earned Rollins a spot in the starting lineup for tonight’s game against San Diego in the Martin Centre.

“For now,” GU coach Dan Fitzgerald warned, not yet willing to write that name in with permanent ink. “Not the way he practiced (Tuesday).”

Take away Rollins’ impressive effort against Saint Mary’s and the two main off-guards - Rollins and junior Kevin Williams - have made only 52 of 149 shots (34.8 percent).

Fitzgerald suggested after Thursday’s loss to Santa Clara that the last time a guard made a shot, Native Americans were camped along the Spokane River.

Great quip, but not supported by historical fact.

In fact, the sad shooting is a recent occurrence.

The Bulldogs have led the West Coast Conference in 3-point shooting percentage in seven of the last nine seasons - including a high of 46 percent in 1988.

This year, from 3-point range, they’re hitting 34.6 - six percentage points below last year’s level.

Across the lineup, the Bulldogs still lead the league in field-goal percentage (49.5), with the most impressive scoring outburst coming from senior forward Jon Kinloch last Thursday.

Kinloch gave the Bulldogs a chance to get back into the game in a loss to Santa Clara, with his 28 points inflated by a 14-point streak - including four straight 3-pointers - down the stretch.

“The thing we do with Kinloch is we expect him to be things we shouldn’t really expect of him; he gives us 20 points and we complain that he should have gotten 30,” Fitzgerald said. “He showed a great deal of maturity, when the shots weren’t there, he didn’t force them.”

Hendrix is broken: The extent of injury to Bulldogs sophomore Bakari Hendrix came as a surprise to the GU staff.

Hendrix came down on a teammate’s foot in practice last week and walked without aid to the training room.

“We didn’t even talk about it that night, didn’t think it was going to be a problem,” Fitzgerald said.

The next day, though, X-rays showed a fracture in the ankle that required pins to stabilize. Fitzgerald said he did not expect the reserve forward to return this season.

UCLA? No way: Defending national champion UCLA might have appeared on the Gonzaga schedule this season, but the Bruins were not - unsurprisingly - willing to reciprocate with a return trip to Spokane.

“I don’t play people one for none,” said Fitzgerald, who fielded the scheduling inquiry from UCLA coach Jim Harrick, an old WCC alumnus from years of coaching at Pepperdine.

Fitzgerald said GU receives a number of big-name offers every year - but not on a home-and-home basis.

One year, Missouri waved $35,000 in Fitzgerald’s face, but it did not coax him into a non-reciprocated deal.

Part of the reason, Fitzgerald explained, is that basketball revenues go into the university’s general fund, and are not directly returned to the program. That leaves little incentive to play in a “payday” game that would be an almost guaranteed loss.

“Philosophically, I’m against going one for none, but there are exceptions: if you can get it televised into a large recruiting area, perhaps, or have it two or three years down the road when you can talk to (recruits) about it for a while and get more pop out of it,” Fitzgerald said.

, DataTimes