Gonzaga starts slowly, ends up routing UCSD

Another lopsided exhibition win did little on Saturday night to ease Mark Few’s early season concerns about his Gonzaga University men’s basketball team.

“Apprehensive,” was how Few described his feelings following the Bulldogs’ 81-36 rout of the University of California San Diego in front of another McCarthey Athletic Center crowd of 6,000.

Few’s apprehension stems from the fact that GU’s season opener against the University of Idaho is less than a week away. And, by his own admission, he saw little in the Zags’ ragged effort against UCSD, a non-scholarship NCAA Division II school, that suggested they are ready for the Vandals.

“There’s a lot of things I don’t think we’re doing real well right now,” Few said of his eighth-ranked Bulldogs, who entertain UI next Friday in the 5 p.m. season opener for both schools. “And I know Idaho is going to roll in here and try to exploit that.”

Granted, the Zags weren’t at their best, especially in the early going, against the Tritons. But they certainly seemed to figure a lot of things out late in the first half after senior center J.P. Batista knocked down a 3-pointer from the top of the key to ignite a 29-0 run that spanned intermission.

UCSD missed 17 consecutive shots, committed nine turnovers and went almost 16 minutes without scoring during GU’s decisive run.

Afterward, Few said he like his team’s defensive effort in the second half, but also praised the early play of the undermanned Tritons. UCSD trailed by only 24-22 before Batista, who finished with a game-high 18 points and six rebounds, launched his 3-pointer.

“I thought they did a great job of coming in and doing what we try to do to teams,” he said. “I thought they out-executed us, I thought they played harder than us and I thought they out-scrapped us for pretty much most of the first half.

“But we talked about that at halftime and kind of turned the table a little bit.”

The Bulldogs cranked up the defensive pressure following intermission and held UCSD scoreless for the first 10 minutes of the second half. They limited the Tritons to 16 percent shooting following the halftime break and finished with 17 steals.

“After about the 13-minute mark they started pressuring us more,” UCSD coach Bill Carr said of the Zags. “They hit a 3 and the crowd got involved, and then our bigs got a little tired and we started doing some things we don’t normally do.

“Their big bodies, I think, affected us”

Few started Larry Gurganious on the wing, and the freshman overcame some early jitters to finish with six points, five rebounds and three steals. Jeremy Pargo, another freshman guard, played 24 minutes, scoring eight points and handing out a team-high five assists.

Starting point guard Derek Raivio finished with 10 points, while Adam Morrison, David Pendergraft and first-year junior college transfer Mamery Diallo each added nine.