Spokane7
50°
March 21, 2010 in Sports
Zags’ season comes to abrupt end
Steven Gray of Gonzaga has the ball knocked away from him by Wes Johnson during their game in Buffalo, NY, in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, March 21, 2010.
(Full-size photo)(All photos)
BUFFALO, N.Y. – New York was no kinder to Gonzaga in the NCAA tournament than it was in the regular season. Same goes for Gonzaga’s ongoing struggle against No. 1 seeds.
The Bulldogs made two trips to the Empire State this season and got bludgeoned both times. No. 1-seeded Syracuse ended No. 8 Gonzaga’s season with a decisive 87-65 victory Sunday in the second round of the NCAA tournament in front of 18,934 at HSBC Arena. Coupled with Duke’s 76-41 rout of GU in New York City in December, the two losses were the Zags’ most lopsided of the season.
Gonzaga (27-7) dropped to 0-5 against No. 1 seeds. Much like last year’s loss to eventual national champion North Carolina, Gonzaga was powerless to stop a prolific offense.
It wasn’t Syracuse’s vaunted zone defense or the partisan Orange crowd that did in the Bulldogs. It was the fact that Syracuse made shot after shot and Gonzaga, despite a decent amount of open looks, watched perimeter shot after perimeter shot bounce off the rim.
Syracuse made 12 of 25 3-pointers. The Orange, who came into the game No. 1 nationally in field-goal percentage (51.7), drained 54.7 of their shots, the highest percentage against the Zags this season. Only one of GU’s last 18 opponents had reached 50 percent.
“When they’re going like that, they’re better than anybody in the country,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. “They’re still going to have to make shots to win this thing. If they shoot it like they did today, nobody will beat them.”
Meanwhile, Gonzaga’s Matt Bouldin and Steven Gray were a combined 6 of 24 from the field. Add in third guard Demetri Goodson and that figure dropped to 6 of 29. Gray was 3 of 9 on 3-pointers; the rest of the Bulldogs 0 of 12.
Syracuse (30-4) will face No. 5 Butler in the West Regional semifinal Thursday in Salt Lake City.
“I told Mark this is as well as we played all year,” Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said.
The way this one started out, it appeared a shootout was brewing. Gonzaga scored on its first three possessions, all three baskets on assists by Bouldin. Syracuse warmed up and led 22-21 with 10:10 left after GU’s Elias Harris, who had a huge game with 24 points, connected from 13 feet.
But Gonzaga didn’t score again until a Harris layup four-plus minutes later, which ended a 9-0 Syracuse run. The Bulldogs clawed back within 32-28, but the Orange rattled off the next 11 points as Andy Rautins and Brandon Triche each scored four points and smooth junior forward Wes Johnson buried a 3-pointer. The Orange led 47-32 at intermission.
“That was the game, that last 4 minutes,” Few said.
If it wasn’t out of reach at half, Rautins made the deficit insurmountable by scoring 11 of his 24 points in a two-minute flurry as Syracuse extended its lead to 58-34. The Orange led by as many as 32. Gonzaga needed a late rush to avoid its largest NCAA loss (Maryland 87-63 in 1995).
“It’s disappointing to get knocked out of the tournament so early,” Harris said. “We couldn’t show everybody how we can really play or how much potential we have.”
Harris did, and he had company in sophomore center Robert Sacre. Harris had 24 points and eight rebounds and Sacre added 17 points and eight boards, but the Bulldogs had few other sources for points. Bouldin didn’t break into the scoring column until hitting a midrange jumper four minutes into the second half.
“I thought we attacked the zone pretty well,” said Bouldin, who was 0 of 6 on 3s. “We just weren’t knocking down shots. And the thing about them, you miss a few and they’re going to make a run. Steven and I didn’t shoot nearly as well as we have all year.”
Gonzaga took pretty good care of the ball (11 turnovers) and had a chance to stretch a modest lead early, but Syracuse cashed in on four offensive rebounds in the first half with nine second-chance points.
From there, the Orange put on a shooting clinic. Johnson hit four 3s and scored a team-high 31 points to go with 14 rebounds. He played all 40 minutes. Rautins had five 3s and 24 points. Triche had all 13 of his points in the first half and Scoop Jardine had seven of his nine in the opening 20 minutes.
“Once they got started with a couple of easy ones, it just got them going,” Gray said. “And it didn’t seem like they really missed.”
Pros give precious pointers 
UWhuskytskeet on March 22 at 4:05 a.m.
LOL
sbaran on March 22 at 5:44 a.m.
Great year Zags! No one wins them all. You guys looked really good against Florida. And, well …. Syracuse had a hard time missing….. Thanks seniors - and I hope to see everyone else back next year.
Mr_Bloggy on March 22 at 6:05 a.m.
Mark Few - decent recruiter, poor coach. Time to fire him.
TerryG on March 22 at 3:06 p.m.
The armchair coaches are at it again. The Zags should have done this, Mark Few should have done that. You folks need to have a serious reality check!
At some point in the telecast of the Gonzaga games, a CBS commentator spoke highly of a coach at another school because his team had seven straight, 20-win seasons. Gonzaga has had TWELVE straight 23-win or better seasons. In those twelve years, they have averaged 26.6 wins per season. That includes TWO 29-win seasons and TWO 28-win seasons. The worst season was 23-wins in 06/07. The last I heard, Mark Few had the highest winning percentage, over 80%, of any active coach.
Sure we lost in the 3rd round of the 2009 NCAA Championships but we lost to the eventual National Champion North Carolina. This year we lost in the second round, in an arena that was 1900 miles from Spokane, 150 miles from our opponent’s campus and to a #1 seed team that could easily win it all this year. Even though Gonzaga was a #8 seed, the Huskies, who were a #11 seed, got to play 700 miles from home and did not have the prospect of facing the #1 seed in their bracket until the 4th round. That is just wrong.
Also, we are forgetting that we lost players that accounted for 65% of Gonzaga’s scoring last year. Our typical starting line-up this year included one senior, one junior, two sophomores and one freshman. I think most of us thought that it was going to be a “building year.” I’ll take building years like this every year.
How can anyone criticize the performance of Gonzaga, the coaching staff and the players? We should thrown them a parade and shower them with congratulations and compliments.