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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Gonzaga finds a bit of beauty in ugly victory

Gonzaga's Adam Morrison, left, looks to pass over UMass' Rashaun Freeman. 
 (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

SEATTLE – Scoring isn’t as easy as Gonzaga University usually makes it look.

Need a second opinion, you say?

Then ask Bulldogs coach Mark Few, who watched his Zags survive a shaky offensive performance Saturday afternoon to turn back the University of Massachusetts 68-57 in the second-annual Battle of Seattle in KeyArena.

“Not all of them are going to be pretty,” Few said, just moments after his Bulldogs (5-1) survived a stirring second-half charge by the Minutemen (2-2), despite shooting a season-low 39.3 percent from the field.

“You’re not going to play perfectly, and we certainly didn’t. But it’s important to be able to, somehow, find a way just to dig it out. I think it was good for us to win an ugly, grinder kind of game.”

Which is exactly what this one was – thanks to the unremitting defensive pressure applied by both teams during an intense but unevenly paced game that was, at times, difficult to watch.

In the end, GU won because of its superior talent on the front line, where forwards Adam Morrison and Ronny Turiaf, and backup center J.P. Batista combined for 49 points and 25 rebounds.

Morrison finished with a game-high 20 points and nine rebounds, while Turiaf contributed 19 points and 14 rebounds, despite being double-teamed on the low blocks all game long. Batista added 10 points and a couple of rebounds for the Zags, who came in averaging 87 points a game and shooting 54.2 percent from the field.

UMass, from the Atlantic-10 Conference, got 19 points from forward Maurice Maxwell and guard Athony Anderson, but in the end had no way to counter GU’s inside muscle.

“They’re a very physical team,” UMass coach Steve Lappas said of the Zags, who outrebounded his Minutemen 37-27. “I think we did as good a job on their (big) guys as anybody had probably done, and I’m proud of the effort we gave.

“But just their physical size and (the fact) that there’s so many of them makes it difficult.”

UMass tried surrounding Turiaf with defenders every time he touched the ball. And the strategy, although hardly unique, bothered the Bulldogs’ scoring and rebounding leader – especially in the first half when he was held to just eight points on 2-of-7 shooting from the floor.

Turiaf took only three more shots in the second half, but he made two of those and got to the foul line 11 times in the game’s last 10 minutes.

“It’s frustrating as hell,” he said of the double-team tactics employed by UMass. “Every time I touch the ball, one or two guys sag down on me and it’s like I can’t play my own game. But I know if I stay strong, at some point in the game my teammates are going to be open.

“I think it’s kind of crazy to pay so much attention to me, because you’re going to eventually get burned by my teammates. I can guarantee you that, because I know how good they are.”

And even on a day when most of GU’s perimeter shots were bouncing out, the Zags were able to give Turiaf just enough help to hold off the upset-minded Minutemen.

UMass opened the game by hitting five of its first nine shots and jumped to an early 13-8 lead. But a 7½-minutes scoring drought, which resulted in GU scoring 15 unanswered points, put the Minutemen in a 33-20 halftime hole that grew even deeper after the Bulldogs scored the first four points of the second half.

At that point, some of those in the pro-Gonzaga crowd of 10,126 had to be thinking it was over – until the Minutemen mounted a major comeback that saw them outscore the Zags 20-3 over 9-minute span and eventually take a short-lived 47-45 lead with 8:52 left in the game.

Few said confidence played a huge role in UMass’s big run.

“We missed a couple of shots and they poked a couple of balls out and got run-outs that led to easy baskets,” he explained. “That can get you going. They started feeling good about themselves and we started struggling.”

The energy UMass expended in its second-half charge was considerable, however. And when it became apparent the Minutemen had drained their tank, the Bulldogs blew past them one last time with a decisive 18-2 run that Morrison started with a 3-pointer from the right wing and closed with a fast-break dunk.

During the early part of the run, UMass had its two big men, sophomore center Rashaun Freeman and Stephane Lasme on the bench with four fouls. Both would later foul out, but by the time Lappas could rush them back into the game, it was over.

The Bulldogs’ Erroll Knight, a junior shooting guard who was making his first appearance of the season after missing GU’s first five games with a severely sprained thumb, said knew the Zags had one more run left.

“I saw it in Ronny’s eyes,” he said of Turiaf, who 11 of his points in the last 10 minutes of the game. “He’s a great competitor and he came up with some huge rebounds and huge free throws at the end that sewed up the game.”

Gonzaga 68, Massachusetts 57

Massachusetts (2-2) – Maxwell 7-15 2-2 19, Lasme 2-3 2-2 6, Freeman 4-4 1-4 9, Anderson 4-9 2-2 14, Bowers 3-12 0-0 6, Chadwick 0-0 0-0 0, Viggiano 0-2 0-0 0, Carrier 1-4 0-2 3, Salovski 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 21-49 7-12 57.

Gonzaga (5-1) – Morrison 7-18 5-5 20, Mallon 1-5 0-0 2, Turiaf 4-10 11-16 19, Altidoe-Cespedes 1-1 1-2 3, Raivio 3-7 0-0 9, Doudney 1-3 0-0 3, Batista 4-7 2-2 10, Knight 1-5 0-0 2, Pendergraft 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 22-56 19-25 68.

Halftime–Gonzaga 33, Massachusetts 20. 3-point goals–Massachusetts 8-25 (Anderson 4-8, Maxwell 3-6, Carrier 1-4, Viggiano 0-2, Bowers 0-5), Gonzaga 5-12 (Raivio 3-4, Doudney 1-3, Morrison 1-5). Fouled out–Lasme, Freeman. Rebounds–Massachusetts 27 (Freeman 6), Gonzaga 37 (Turiaf 14). Assists–Massachusetts 14 (Anderson, Bowers 4), Gonzaga 12 (Morrison, Raivio 3). Total fouls–Massachusetts 21, Gonzaga 16. A–10,126.