Zags putting it together

Finding fault with a top-5 men’s basketball team that has won nine straight games, sits atop the West Coast Conference standings with an unbeaten record and owns the nation’s longest home-court winning streak might seem a bit presumptuous.

But Gonzaga coach Mark Few has contended all along that his fifth-ranked Bulldogs (18-3 overall, 8-0 in the WCC) are a work in progress and will likely remain so the rest of the season.

Topping Few’s list of recent concerns have been his team’s inconsistent effort on defense, its inability to put even the weakest of opponents away until the latter stages of games and the growing proclivity of some of his players to get caught up in teammate Adam Morrison’s scoring heroics and turn into spectators on offense.

All of those issues, however, were addressed – much to Few’s satisfaction – on Saturday night, when the Zags put together one of their most dominant performances of the season in dusting off lowly Santa Clara 85-71 in front of a sellout crowd of 6,000 at the McCarthey Athletic Center.

It helped that Morrison did his part once again by scoring a game-high 24 points to maintain his slim Division I scoring lead over Duke’s J.J. Redick. But of even greater consequence was the way the Bulldogs got after it on defense, shared the basketball and kept their foot on the collective throat of the Broncos (8-12, 1-7) from opening tip to final buzzer.

Afterward, Few called it a “good win for us” that featured solid play on both ends of the court that “provided us a little gap, which, quite frankly, we haven’t done a great job of all year.”

And Few’s players were in general agreement with his assessment.

“We had one of our best efforts of the year,” said senior center J.P. Batista, who finished with 21 points and a team-high seven rebounds. “It’s just something we’ve got to keep doing every game now.”

In addition to the 45 combined points of Morrison and Batista, GU also got a season-high 15 points from junior forward Sean Mallon and some prolonged and productive minutes from freshmen Jeremy Pargo and Larry Gurganious.

Batista said the emergence of Mallon, who was 4 for 6 from the field and 5 for 6 from the foul line, was a major plus.

“Whenever he’s playing like that, it’s good for everybody,” Batista said. “It takes more pressure of me, and more pressure off Adam and Derek (Raivio). That’s what we need Sean to do every night … he was great.”

Santa Clara’s Dick Davey, the dean of WCC coaches, marveled after the game at the Zags’ balance, experience and intelligence, rating this year’s GU team as, perhaps, the school’s best.

Davey tempered his comment, however, by admitting his own team is not as strong as it has been in recent years.

“So it makes it harder to evaluate,” he explained. “But I thought at the beginning of the year, and I still think, this is probably as good a team as they’ve ever had.”

Next up for the streaking Zags is WCC rival Saint Mary’s (10-10, 3-5), which invades the McCarthey Athletic Center tonight at 9. The Gaels are coming off a 66-52 road win over Portland on Saturday and boast one of the league’s most versatile players in 6-foot-10 senior forward Daniel Kickert, who posted a 17-point, 11-rebound double-double against the Pilots.

“We had a real tough game with them down there,” Few said of a 68-60 win at Saint Mary’s earlier this season. “Obviously, they’ve got a great player in Kickert, and (Brett) Collins is a though guard.

“They’re playing better right now, and they’re always a tough matchup for us. They’ll come in here and play us very, very physical, so we’ve got to be prepared for that.”

GU, thanks to Penn State’s upset road win over Illinois on Saturday, now owns the nation’s longest home-court winning streak of 34.