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Gonzaga Basketball

Blanchette: Zags had it, except for those final minutes

John Blanchette Correspondent
HOUSTON – So what will be harder to turn loose – the most successful basketball season in Gonzaga history or the unhappy coda? The deflating missed layup. The open 3 that caromed away. The meager 14 points in the last 16 minutes. The turnover blues and the stops that weren’t. The blue bloods celebrating another maddening triumph of pedigree. The Gonzaga Bulldogs applauding their entourage – sadly, sincerely – before heading home short of reaching Shangri-La. If there seemed to be fewer wet eyes and catches in the throat in the Zags’ locker room after Duke’s 66-52 victory Sunday in the NCAA South Regional championship game than after some of the program’s previous crushing ends, it wasn’t because they’d been fulfilled just by getting this far. Maybe it’s because they’d seen what was possible in a way many other Gonzaga teams hadn’t. “You could feel it,” said forward Kyle Wiltjer. “We were right there.” And then they were so far away. Without a field goal in the final 61/2 minutes, the Zags let a two-point tension-fest turn into the anticlimax of the four Elite Eight games. And speaking of anticlimax, enjoy your chalk Final Four of three No. 1 seeds and Tom Izzo’s guys. Sheesh. Where’d the Madness go this March? But there’s a reason Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski is off to his 12th Final Four and Duke is Duke – even when freshmen like Tyus Jones and Justise Winslow are running the show. In this case it’s because Duke held the Zags – one of the nation’s most efficient offensive teams – to their lowest point total in 200 games, dating back to a 76-41 beating the Blue Devils administered in 2009. It’s also the poorest Gonzaga output in 40 NCAA tournament games. “Our defense the last 16 minutes was spectacular,” Krzyzewski said, “not good.” Senior Quinn Cook was Kevin Pangos’ second skin. Winslow allowed Wiltjer just three points after a 13-point first half. The Devils showed a new wrinkle by doubling Przemek Karnowski, who was further hampered by getting a tough whistle. “Watched them in the ACC tournament,” said GU coach Mark Few, “and quite frankly they weren’t getting after it like that.” And in doing so, they turned the multidimensional Zags – their very identity this season – one-dimensional. Senior guards Pangos and Gary Bell Jr. had just nine points between them, and it was more about not being able to get shots than not making them. Still, the Zags were just two points down with 4:48 to play when Karnowski slid a deft pass to Wiltjer, who missed the open layup. A little something went out of the Zags then – “He would make that thing 499 times out of 500,” Few said – and the rest seemed to follow when Pangos clanked an open corner 3 the next time down. “If you convert those plays,” Few said, “then the pressure goes on their shoulders.” But perhaps even more damaging was a sequence after a nice burst out of halftime had put GU up 38-34. Eight empty possessions followed – including four turnovers and consecutive missed 3s by Pangos, Bell and Wiltjer. “Those are the 3s that have been building runs for us all year,” Few said, “and that gets us going.” This was hardly the kind of sendoff envisioned for the Zags’ two four-year guards, whose wins and ways prompted Few to call them “probably the greatest backcourt that’s ever played” at Gonzaga. Pangos and Bell took already high standards at a school that prides itself on guard play and pushed them higher, and with this season sent a message to those that follow. “There’s no reason why we can’t get to this point and beyond as a program,” Pangos said. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t make it to the Final Four, but I want them to in the near future.” The timetable will depend on the maturation of freshmen guards Josh Perkins and Silas Melson, and if Wiltjer, Karnowski and Domantas Sabonis resist whatever pro temptations might be out there. For incentive, there’s a chance to build on a mountaintop – 35 victories – and the remarkable vibe of selflessness that coursed through this team. “We’re good enough and we were in position to advance,” Few said. “But when you get to that point, you’ve got to step up and make plays and get stops and make shots. They did, we didn’t.” It wasn’t as if the Zags lost in overtime or on a cruel buzzer-beater, but there was something about it that made it seem closer – and had Few doing a little consolation arithmetic. “We basically made it to the final five, the way this thing lined up,” he said of being the weekend’s last game. “We didn’t make it to the Final Four, but we made it to the final five.” But final it is.