Gonzaga women’s historic season sends in Sweet 16 loss to Texas 69-47

PORTLAND – Everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the Gonzaga women’s basketball team in the first half Friday.

And all the credit for most of the Zag’ breakdowns goes to Texas.

Gonzaga fought back in the third quarter, but it wasn’t enough.

The No. 1-seeded Longhorns got after fourth-seeded Gonzaga early as Texas cruised to an 69-47 victory in an NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 game at the Moda Center.

The Zags, ranked 16th, finish the season 32-4.

The Longhorns did it with defense. And that fed their offense – a typical recipe they’ve used all season.

Fourth-ranked Texas (33-4) will meet No. 3 North Carolina State (30-6) in the Elite Eight on Sunday.

Gonzaga was seeking its second Elite Eight berth and first since 2010-11.

Texas’ defense was as advertised.

“Their effort, their intensity, their focus, their intentionality – just off the chart,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said of his team. “It pretty much has been the standard the last two months. I’ve had a front-row seat to it.”

Trailing 37-18 going into the third quarter, the Zags pulled within 41-29 at the 5:02 mark. But Texas answered, pushing the margin back to 19 (54-35) by quarter’s end.

“This wasn’t our best day,” said Gonzaga coach Lisa Fortier, whose team was held to a season low for points and 33 below their per game average.

It started with shooting. Gonzaga made just 3 of 17 shots from the field to open the game and 2 of 13 from 3-point range. The Bulldogs warmed up in the second half but ended up shooting 26.5% from the field (13 of 49) and 18.2% from 3 (4 of 22).

Texas’ biggest lead came at 69-44 with 1:53 to go.

Gonzaga’s Yvonne Ejim and Kaylynne Truong both said the Zags’ game was off and refused to give the Longhorns’ defense credit.

“We weren’t running what we needed to,” Ejim said.

“It’s Texas ball, it’s physical,” Truong said. “Most aggressive (defense we’ve played). I don’t know. A lot of teams we played threw defense at us. We took ourselves out of it.”

In the first half, the Zags went 9 minutes and 3 seconds between made field goals. They scored one basket in the final 14:10 of the first half.

Most of Gonzaga’s scoring in the first two quarters came at the free-throw line (10 of 12).

Foul trouble handcuffed the Zags in the first half, too. Yvonne Ejim had three fouls and Kayleigh Truong, Brynna Maxwell and Maud Huijbens each had two.

The Longhorns’ defense forced Gonzaga’s offense to start in places deep in the perimeter that they rarely had to create from this season.

Schaefer congratulated Gonzaga on a great season.

“It’s hard to win 32 games in a season,” Schaefer said. “We beat a really good basketball team. We were contesting everything. It was not like they were missing (shots). We contested them.”

Gonzaga’s starters have averaged in double figures each game. But scoring was difficult Friday. Ejim led with 14 points and Brynna Maxwell had 13. They were the only players to reach double figures.

Post Aailiyah Moore led Texas with 16 points, 10 rebounds and six assists. BYU transfer Shaylee Gonzales, a two-time West Coast Conference Player of the Year, added 15 points and four assists.

Texas, which goes after all loose balls with intensity including rebounds, outrebounded Gonzaga 39-26.

Gonzales’ contributions were huge because freshman starting point guard Madison Booker, who led Texas with 25 points in a 65-54 win over Alabama in the Round of 32, struggled mightily, finishing with six points and seven turnovers.

Gonzaga had a scary moment in the waning seconds when graduate forward Eliza Hollingsworth was moving toward the basket when she was fouled hard by Gonzales.

Hollingsworth was in obvious pain and was tended to by Fortier, who said afterward that Hollingsworth suffered a sprained ankle and doctors on site believe it wasn’t broken.

“They pressured us. They took us out of position,” Fortier said. “I think it was more about just how physical they were coming off some of those ball screens.”