Morrison’s last-second basket worked just exactly as drawn up

Gonzaga University coach Mark Few said the last-second shot Adam Morrison made Saturday afternoon to lift his 13th-ranked Bulldogs past San Francisco, worked almost exactly like it had been drawn it up during a timeout that was called with 20 second left and the game tied at 73.

“Everybody did the right thing,” Few said, shortly after Morrison had drained a fall-away jumper from the left wing to finally put away the stubborn Dons, 75-73. “You run the play and make the shot with five-tenths of a second left. You can’t time it much better than that.”

Derek Raivio, who took the inbounds pass and dribbled almost 15 seconds off the clock before finally handing off the ball to Morrison, admitted, however, that he had some concerns about the way the play was developing near the top of the key.

“They were putting some pretty good ball pressure on me,” the sophomore point guard explained. “I had a tough time getting over to Adam. To score with less than a second left is about all you can ask for, I guess, but that was cutting it pretty close.

“Almost too close.”

Morrison, who came off the left baseline waving at Raivio to bring him the ball on the isolation play Few had called, took the handoff – also under extreme pressure – with just less than 5 seconds left. The 6-foot-8 sophomore forward, who finished with a career-high 28 points, backed off USF defender Jerome Gumbs by faking a dribble drive and then lofted the shot over an outstretched hand.

First-year Dons coach Jessie Evans felt his team defended GU’s last play nicely, but simply couldn’t deal with Morrison’s uncanny ability to get off decent shots from anywhere on the floor against almost any kind of defensive pressure..

“He had been rising up over us all night,” Evans said. “He’s a tough guard, because he’s so long and tall, and his release point is so high.”

USF’s John Cox hit a final shot, but the ball left his hand after time expired.