Few: Bear down on Griz
Mark Few is hoping to see his Gonzaga Bulldogs ratchet up the defensive passion today when they play host to the University of Montana in a 2 p.m. non-conference men’s basketball matchup at the McCarthey Athletic Center.
The Zags (1-0), christened their new 6,000-seat arena with a 98-80 win over Portland State on Friday night, but the victory did not come as easily as the final score might indicate.
PSU led for most of the first half and shot 61.2 percent against a young Bulldogs team that showed a great deal of indifference on the defensive end of the floor, prompting Few to call it the worst effort he has seen in 16 years at Gonzaga — 10 of which were spent as a Zags assistant.
Few admitted that it hurt not being able to use junior guard Erroll Knight, who is expected to miss between two and four weeks after severely spraining the thumb on his shooting hand at practice last Wednesday.
“He’s our Mr. Everything on defense,” Few said of the 6-foot-7 Knight. “But that’s no excuse.
“We simply have to get better. We’ve got some young guys right now who don’t play well when they hit fatigue.”
This afternoon’s game will be the first of the season for Montana, which finished 10-18 overall and 6-8 in the Big Sky Conference under Pat Kennedy last winter.
Kennedy has since departed, and former Grizzly player Larry Krystowiak has stepped in as head coach of a veteran team that boasts a solid inside threat in 6-7 all-conference senior forward Kamarr Davis and one of the Big Sky’s top perimeter scorers in 6-2 junior Kevin Criswell.
Still, Krystowiak admits he’s not sure what to expect from his Grizzlies this early in the season.
“We just haven’t had any barometer to see where we are,” he said. “But (against Gonzaga) right off the bat, you’re getting a good measuring stick of where you are — going into a good crowd, a good environment.
“I’m not going to say we can’t win. Nobody expects us to win. We’re going to go in and try to represent the program here and let it all fly.”
In addition to missing Knight, Gonzaga will once again be without first-year transfer and junior center J.P. Batista, who will miss his second game as part of a three-game suspension imposed by the NCAA, reportedly because of his junior college’s decision to send him to a summer camp, which was considered an extra benefit.