Roped and tied!

PHOENIX – The fun times continued for Derek Raivio and his Gonzaga University basketball teammates Saturday afternoon.

Raivio, a senior guard, knocked down seven 3-pointers and scored a team-high 27 points as the 22nd-ranked Bulldogs breezed to a surprisingly easy 87-77 win over Texas in the opening game of the Hall of Fame Challenge doubleheader at US Airways Center.

“This is a whole different team this year,” said Raivio, who moved past Jeff Condill into 28th place on GU’s career scoring list with 2,021 points. “We’ve got more guys, we’re moving the ball a lot better and we’re having fun.

“And we’re winning, too.”

Raivio’s comments, while not necessarily a condemnation of last year’s team and its two-man offensive attack of Adam Morrison and J.P. Batista, spoke volumes about the balance of this year’s team.

That balance was evident once again as sophomore point guard Jeremy Pargo added 18 points and six assists and sophomore forward Josh Heytvelt contributed 13 points and 12 rebounds to post his fourth double-double of the young season.

The Bulldogs (8-1) coupled splendid ball movement and a remarkably unselfish approach on the offensive end with another solid defensive effort to turn back the young, but immensely talented, Longhorns (5-2) and give coach Mark Few plenty of reasons to smile.

“In stretches of that game, both in the first half and the second, we played some of the best basketball we’ve played all year,” Few said, after watching his Zags shoot 50 percent (31 of 62) from the field and control the game from opening tip to final buzzer. “We were moving the ball, and I thought we did a nice job of finally keeping up with their athletes and keeping them off the glass – because that’s where they were really hurting us in the first half.”

Still, the Bulldogs managed to forge a 43-33 lead at intermission as Raivio, Pargo and Heytvelt combined for 30 first-half points. They blew UT away in the second half, opening up a 28-point lead (87-59) on a 3-pointer by Pargo with just a little less than 5 1/2 minutes left in the game.

“That’s when we got a little tentative,” Raivio said in trying to explain how Texas, which got a game-high 29 points from freshman phenom Kevin Durant, held the Zags scoreless the rest of the way and put up 18 unanswered point to close the game and make the final score deceivingly close.

“They’ve got a nice team,” Longhorns coach Rick Barnes said of the Bulldogs, who travel to Pullman Tuesday to face Washington State in a 7 p.m. showdown at Friel Court. “I love the fact that they can really shoot the ball, and, today, I thought they were very unselfish.”

GU finished with a season-best 20 assists, prompting Few to further praise his Zags’ team-first approach.

“Again, the thing I hope they’re starting to understand is that when we have success it’s when we’re moving (the ball) and sharing it,” Few said. “When we struggle, we’re holding on to it and trying to pound a square peg in a round hole.

“Today was a good example of that. We moved the ball and everybody touched it. And then we searched out things and got shots for each other, as opposed to taking tough shots on our own.”

Zags freshman Matt Bouldin turned in another solid performance off the bench, scoring eight points and handing out four assists.

Texas, after shooting only 32.4 percent (11 of 34) in the first half, put together an early second-half run that sliced GU’s lead to 55-51. But the Bulldogs responded by scoring the game’s next 13 points to fuel their romp.

Four players scored during GU’s decisive surge, which was capped by a three-point play by Pargo.

“That’s where the maturity of this team, hopefully, is starting to show a little bit,” Few said of the way his team weathered the storm. “We didn’t panic and we just went back to what had been working, which was spreading the floor, making the extra pass and understanding we don’t have to hit a home run the first time we touch the ball.”

Heytvelt, who made 6 of 11 field goals and blocked a couple of shots, said the Bulldogs had a much more aggressive approach than the one they used in Thursday night’s 69-51 home win over Portland State.

“We came out with fire,” he explained. “We executed on offense, played good position defense and kept (A.J.) Abrams below his average, and that’s what we wanted to do.”

Abrams, the Longhorns sophomore guard and leading returning scorer from last season, made only 3 of 17 field-goal attempts and finished with just seven points – almost 13 less than his season average of 19.7.

Gonzaga 87, Texas 77

Percentages: FG .500, FT .722. 3-Point Goals: 12-27, .444 (Raivio 7-14, Bouldin 2-4, Heytvelt 1-2, Pargo 1-2, Altidor-Cespedes 1-3, Mallon 0-1, Pendergraft 0-1). Team Rebounds: 38. Blocked Shots: 3 (Heytvelt 2, Kuso). Turnovers: 14 (Pargo 4, Bouldin 3, Raivio 2, Kuso 2, Heytvelt, Pendergraft). Steals: 5 (Pargo 2, Altidor-Cespedes, Raivio, Kuso).

Percentages: FG .410, FT .739. 3-Point Goals: 10-29, .345 (Mason 3-5, Durant 3-7, Lewis 2-3, Augustin 1-2, Abrams 1-11, James 0-1). Team Rebounds: 34. Blocked Shots: 2 (Durant, Hill). Turnovers: 12 (Durant 5, Augustin 4, James, Mason). Steals: 7 (Mason 2, Durant, Abrams, Augustin, Atchley, Pittman).

Halftime–Gonzaga 43, Texas 33. A–15,507.