Monson Feeling Aftershocks But Still Hopeful Of Ncaa Bid Despite Big Loss In Wcc Final
Nearly 20 hours and 900 miles couldn’t change Dan Monson’s opinion of Monday night’s 80-67 loss to San Francisco in the finals of the West Coast Conference men’s basketball tournament.
“It’s still sickening,” Gonzaga’s first-year coach said late Tuesday afternoon from his home, where he was watching video of the championship game for the first time.
Monson’s Bulldogs had gone into the tournament at Santa Clara’s Toso Pavilion as the No. 1 seed after winning the regular-season WCC title. But against a veteran USF team that had finished a disappointing fifth in the WCC standings, they showed up short of muscle, quickness and energy.
The Dons (19-10) claimed the WCC’s tournament title and automatic NCAA berth by beating GU badly in all important areas.
They used their muscle to neutralize Bulldogs scoring leader Bakari Hendrix inside, their quickness to coerce 16 turnovers that led to 26 of their points and their energy to beat GU to every important loose ball and rebound.
“We’ve always seemed to struggle with teams that pursue the ball like they did,” Monson said. “(The officials) are letting everything go, so it’s just a matter of the most aggressive person ending up with the ball. And they were definitely more aggressive when it came to those situations.”
Monson said he thought the game was officiated consistently, but in a manner that benefited USF.
“It was probably reffed in their favor as far as letting things go, and we just didn’t handle that very well,” he explained. “The style and type of game it was definitely suited their personnel better than it did ours.
“But, also, they just played better than us.”
The win gave USF its first NCAA berth in 16 years and severely crippled GU’s chances of making the elite field of 64 teams. Still, Monson reiterated that he thinks his team, which finished 23-9, could argue a strong case in front of the NCAA selection committee, given the chance.
“We played 32 games and 30 of them we either won or had a chance to win in the last minute,” he said. “And to me, that’s a team that deserves to go to the tournament. I’m not just saying it because it’s the right thing to say, politically. But I think we still have a chance to be in.”
Monson said he spoke to Santa Clara athletic director Carroll Williams, who is a member of the NCAA’s selection committee, over the weekend and was told GU would automatically be placed on the list of teams to consider by virtue of its regular-season championship.
But Monson admitted that might not mean a thing, especially if some of the favorites in other league tournaments don’t take care of business and let lower-division teams sneak in and steal automatic berths by winning tournament titles.
“Obviously, we don’t need Wisconsin winning the Big Ten, or Notre Dame the Big East,” he said. Some might think USF did some pilfering of its own, but the Dons were the preseason favorites in the WCC and might have won the regular-season title had it not been for an assortment of injuries and illnesses.
Shooting guard M.J. Nodilo, an all-conference selection as a junior last season, missed 12 games with a stress fracture in this foot. He scored 16 points against GU Monday night and was named to the all-tournament team, along with forward Damian Cantrell, who missed eight games with mononucleosis.
In addition, senior Gerald Zimmerman, an all-tournament selection last year, missed the entire season following knee surgery.
With Nodilo and Cantrell back in the lineup, the Dons closed the regular-season with three lopsided WCC wins and, with the exception of an 85-83 semifinal escape against host Santa Clara, had few problems in the tournament.
“It took about a month of them all being back together before they started playing like they could,” Monson said. “But they proved they were the best team in the league in the last couple of weeks when it mattered most.”
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