Bulldogs Take Charge Gu Handles Ewu 68-55, But Not Without A Struggle

Citizens concerned over the proliferation of violence on television might denounce Friday’s Gonzaga-Eastern Washington men’s basketball game.

The regional cable telecast featured a contest that was non-conference, but hardly non-contact, and GU ended up powering to a 68-55 win in front of 3,560 at the Martin Centre.

But a good deal of the postgame discussions centered on the improved play of the Eagles under first-year coach Steve Aggers.

“I think they’re a lot more structured than in the past,” GU center Scott Snider said. “Before, you’d get a lead on them and they’d slack off some. But they were competitive the whole game and never quit coming at us.”

In the second half, in fact, the Eagles trimmed what had been a 17-point GU lead down to six.

But from 46-40 with 16 minutes left in the game, the Bulldogs put together a 13-2 spurt and put it out of reach to improve to 5-2 as EWU dipped to 1-8.

Some battles under the basket, though, suggest that some competitive heat might be generated between these two Spokane County teams.

“We look forward to playing them because we play against a lot of these guys in the summer league, so there’s some words exchanged,” said EWU center Melvin Lewis, who scored 10 points in his first action after being suspended pending an investigation of the validity of some credits earned prior to attending EWU. “They got us this time, but we’re going to try to get them when they come to our place (Jan. 5).”

Lewis, a man of considerable displacement and a soft touch, saw 18 minutes of play - probably more than Aggers had in mind. But when starter Adam Dean got into early foul trouble, Lewis was thrust into the breach.

“For not having played a game since last March, he played pretty well,” Aggers said of Lewis. “He can be a force and a factor in the low post.”

Snider occasionally had a hard time defending the 6-foot-8, 300-pounder.

“He’s a really big guy - he’s hard to get around. That takes some time,” said Snider, who was ingesting two pieces of pizza at a time - perhaps bulking up for the rematch with Lewis. “But he’s a really good player, too. He can shoot over you.”

Knowing that GU owned a size advantage under the basket, Aggers had the Eagles come out in a zone defense to try to stifle the Bulldogs’ front line.

But GU netted five 3-pointers in the first 5 minutes - three by Jon Kinloch - to force EWU to go to the man-to-man.

It actually helped the Eagles, though, as they seemed to get more aggressive thereafter.

“They shot it so well in the first half, that was the difference; they made their open jump shots,” Aggers said. “They’re such a smart team, very intelligent. They found our mismatches and went after our weaknesses.

“But I’ve got to be happy with our defense, to hold them to 69 points,” Aggers added. “I was proud of our guys’ effort - we really battled there; there’s no quit in this group.”

The Bulldogs, though, alertly answered the challenge when EWU cut it to six. A steal and feed by Kyle Dixon to Paul Rogers triggered the critical GU rally.

“We made some really good defense-to-offense plays that helped us,” GU coach Dan Fitzgerald said.

While Fitzgerald was not keen on his club’s interior defense, he was pleased to see the Bulldogs hold EWU to 25 secondhalf points.

He also liked what he saw from freshman Mike Leasure, who made all four of his shots and scored nine points in 21 minutes of relief duty.

Kinloch finished with a game-high 16 points, with Dixon adding 14 and Rogers chipping in 13.

D’mitri Rideout’s 11 paced EWU.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: Box score can be found on page C4 in story with headline: UW’s free throws pay off in victory over Portland