GU women win ugly
The Gonzaga women may not defend their West Coast Conference regular-season title, but the Bulldogs proved Thursday night they can get what they want.
Two weeks before the WCC Tournament tips off at McCarthey Athletic Center, the Bulldogs knocked Loyola Marymount out of the conference lead with an unsightly 53-43 win, their 17th straight home win in WCC play.
Like the 1,573 fans, the Bulldogs weren’t impressed with their basketball, but they were pleased with their tenacity.
“Defensively we did a pretty good job,” GU coach Kelly Graves said. “It was a win, a gritty win. … They play a physical style, so do we, and it turned into ugly.”
Ugly?
Gonzaga (13-13, 8-3) shot 30.2 percent for the game, LMU (14-10, 8-3) 26.3. The teams combined for 46 turnovers and 10 assists.
But the Lions, who clobbered the Zags 75-46 in Los Angeles when they shot 50 percent from the field, including a 9-for-12 performance from 3-point range, and had a 51-32 rebounding advantage, had two unbelievable dry spells.
Gonzaga missed its first 10 shots – about half failing to draw iron – and fell behind 8-0. But then the Lions went 10:42 without scoring. The Zags, however, only managed 14 points. The teams combined for 15 baskets on 60 attempts and had just two assists apiece.
LMU scored the last seven points for a 21-19 lead but went almost 11½ minutes into the second half before making a basket. But even with just five free throws, it only fell behind 33-26.
“We’ve got to take the W, that’s for sure, but we definitely have a lot of things we need to get better on,” said GU senior Ashley Anderson, who scored 18 points and grabbed nine rebounds. “We’re a good basketball team when we play well on the defensive end. It starts with defense. The offense will pick up. We can’t help if the shots don’t fall. When that happens, we have to crash the boards.
“I think it gets into our heads a little bit, more for some people, but we know we can knock the shots down when we click. We’re running our offense fine.”
One major difference this time was the Lions ended up with just two 3-pointers, both scored in the early 8-0 run, and only had eight attempts against the GU defense. Meanwhile, the Zags, 3 for 15 in the first meeting, made 4 of 8.
When the Lions closed within two just before the 6-minute mark, Juliann Laney drilled a 3-pointer for Gonzaga. Then the defense and seven points from Dominique Harris allowed the Bulldogs to inch away.
Graves was at a loss for the shooting problems, which included 6-foot-3 Stephanie Hawk going 3 of 17, though she had a 10-10 double-double.
“At some point we have to be able to knock some down,” he said. “We’re not a team that takes a lot of bad shots. We’re good shooters. We have to work ourselves out of it. … At least our defense is keeping us in.”
The Bulldogs try to finish perfect at home in the WCC when fourth-place Pepperdine visits Saturday.