John Blanchette: Don’t jump off bandwagon yet
SEATTLE – Well, the schedule is everything it was anticipated to be.
And the Gonzaga Bulldogs? Maybe not so much.
The Zags’ sensational performances against North Carolina, Texas and Washington that launched so many imaginations have given way to fitful lurches, a strobe of flash and darkness – and combat not only with a December lineup of big hitters, but with themselves.
Good theatre, though.
The fourth Battle in Seattle more than matched its earlier namesakes in drama and emotion, save perhaps the ridiculous banked 3-pointer at the buzzer of a year ago. And a crowd announced at 15,110 couldn’t disagree. It’s just that 24th-ranked Nevada – 18th in another poll – made the Zags losers for the first time in this KeyArena carnival, 82-74, and you know what that means.
Three straight defeats for the Zags for the first time in six years.
Depression, hand-wringing, outrage – and probably some seats opening up – on the Bulldogs bandwagon.
What’s wrong with the Zags?
They’re overscheduled. They’re undermanned. They’re expectation-heavy. They’re poise-deprived. In a nutshell.
And they’re 9-5 on an odyssey that, to this point, has included six top-50 teams. They’re also one of two teams that has beaten three ranked opponents this season. The other is UCLA. Eight teams in the Top 25, including Nevada, can’t even claim one ranked victim.
But that’s not going to mollify the end-of-the-world brigade – nor the Bulldogs for that matter.
“It’s simple basketball,” forward Sean Mallon fumed in the KeyArena locker room afterward. “You’ve got to be able to get stops and you’ve got to get points. And we were pretty bad at that today.”
Speaking of nutshells.
The game’s great waves of momentum finally seemed ready to flatten out when the Zags – up by as many as 14 points and down by as many as eight – surged into a 67-61 lead with 4 minutes left after the Wolf Pack lost their big hammer, Nick Fazekas, to fouls. Except that Nevada inconveniently scored the next 14 points.
“They’ve won a lot, you can tell,” said Gonzaga coach Mark Few. “They’re veterans – five starters coming back – and their experience really showed tonight. Right when they were about to cave in, they were able to make a play, whether a fluke or not, that got them back into it. And then they made winning plays.
“That’s what you want your veteran guys to do.”
And there’s a telltale statement. The Zags are hardly grizzled – half of their eight-man rotation had exactly two college starts among them before this season – but they have some gray. With a four-point lead and the Wolf Pack still playing man-to-man and helpless against the drive, senior Derek Raivio hoisted up a dubious 3-pointer. The next trip down the floor, he fell trying to split the Nevada zone and turned the ball over. Inside of 90 seconds to go, first Jeremy Pargo was stripped trying a spin move and then Raivio traveled.
All the while, the Zags got not a single stop the last 10 Nevada possessions.
Throw in the end-of-the-half swoon against Duke and the end-of-game meltdown at Washington State and it’s clear the Zags have a problem with poise.
“I don’t know if it’s poise,” said forward David Pendergraft. “Maybe it’s mental toughness – not having little short-outs and errors down the stretch. We’ve got to play smart. For the most part, physically we’re playing tough and hard, but we’re making mental errors down the stretch that just shouldn’t happen.”
Not only down the stretch. Traditionally terrific on set plays out of timeouts, the Zags instead turned the ball over on four such occasions Saturday, and saw Josh Heytvelt clank a dunk/layup with the score tied at 67.
And for the legitimate concerns about defensive stops, just as big a concern is feast-or-famine offense that hasn’t found a dependable perimeter threat after Raivio and is still searching for a power presence on the block. You wonder if any of the four injured players Few expected to have available by now might help that.
But if you think that sounds bleak, listen to this:
“We’ve had bigger wins than this,” said Fazekas. “It’s Gonzaga. It’s just another game.”
Ouch.
“It’s a high-level game and the crowd got into and all that,” he continued, “but to win in March is a lot bigger deal than to win in December.”
Well, yes, the Pack has been to three straight NCAAs, but they haven’t beaten a ranked team since they knocked off the Zags in the second round three years ago – in Key – so this was no time to feign disdain.
Or feign disgust. In GU’s locker room, it’s for real.
“I came here to win,” said Pendergraft. “I’m not here to fill up the stat sheet or go to the NBA or anything. I’m here to win games – and it sucks when we’re not winning.”
Good theatre, it seems, is overrated.