Zags continue to rock
MALIBU, Calif. – Nothing came easy for the fifth-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs on Monday night, as they completed a road sweep of the West Coast Conference’s two Los Angeles-area men’s basketball teams with an 81-71 win over Pepperdine.
Another sellout crowd of 3,214, which included NBA superstar Kobe Bryant and former GU standout Ronny Turiaf, now a rookie teammate of Bryant’s with the Los Angeles Lakers, was on hand to lend another rock concert-like atmosphere to the game.
Pepperdine fans once again lined up around the Gonzaga team bus, when it arrived more than 90 minutes before the late-night tipoff, and hurled insults at the Zags. Most of the insults were directed at player-of-the-year candidate and Division I scoring leader Adam Morrison.
Once inside the dark, cramped arena, a pair of GU boosters stood guard behind Morrison, a diabetic, to keep well-wishers and hecklers from bothering him while he checked his blood sugar level on the Bulldogs bench prior to the game.
But it all ended on a positive note for the Zags (23-3 overall, 12-0 in the WCC), who had clinched their sixth consecutive regular-season conference title earlier in the evening when Portland upset second-place Loyola Marymount, which GU knocked off 79-70 on Saturday.
After the LMU win, which secured a No. 1 seed in the conference tournament that will be held March 3-6 at the Bulldogs’ McCarthey Athletic Center, Few admitted this year’s title drive has been as satisfying as any – mainly because of all the distractions the Zags have faced along the way, especially on the road.
And he professed great pride in winning another league title, even though the accomplishment has been buried by the unprecedented avalanche of hype that has blindsided Morrison and his teammates.
“I’m really old-school in that regard,” Few said. “I think a league championship is still a very big thing – especially when it’s like you’re traveling with The Beatles.
“I mean, we’ve had great years here with the (Dan) Dickaus and (Blake) Stepps and Turiafs, where it seemed like everybody’s been after us. But this year, it’s like being with the Stones and Beatles.”
When asked about some of the verbal abuse that has been leveled at his team, Few admitted the most clever comments are probably not printable in a newspaper.
“I’ve had to ask the players what some of it means,” he said, “and I thought I was pretty well in touch.”
Morrison, the main target of most of the insults – and a couple of empty plastic soda containers, as well, following the LMU victory – continues to claim that he is unfazed by the taunts.
“I like it,” he said after lighting up the Lions for a career-high 44 points on Saturday. “People from Gonzaga know I like to play on the road. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.
“There was nothing too original tonight. When they just say I suck, that’s pretty unoriginal, but even that makes me chuckle. And my teammates get a laugh out of it, too.”
When questioned about the most creative comments he’s heard about the sparse mustache he has worn all season, Morrison said they have been “all over the board.”
“I’ve heard so many – probably some stuff you don’t want in the paper,” he said. “But that’s the stuff I usually laugh about. I think it’s funny.”
In Monday night’s win over Pepperdine, Morrison started slowly, missing his first five shots from the field. He finished with a game-high 26 points, just a little more than three under his average of 29.4, but was an uncharacteristic 1 for 6 from 3-point range and 11 for 17 from the foul line.
Fortunately, for the Zags, sophomore guard Pierre-Marie Altidor-Cespedes came up with a career-high 17 points on 4-for-5 shooting from the behind the arc. And senior center J.P. Batista, despite rushing some shots early, finished with 16 points and 13 rebounds against a Pepperdine team that was missing freshman point guard and leading scorer Michael Gerrity, who is out indefinitely with a stress reaction in his foot.
In addition, GU junior point guard Derek Raivio showed signs of breaking out of his recent scoring slump by knocking down two of the four 3-pointers he took and throwing in 12 points.
Few, who thought his team was frustrated by the physical play of the Waves (31 fouls) in the raggedly played contest, said Morrison dealt with his early struggles to score in only a “marginal” manner.
“And that’s to be expected,” Few said. “He’s not going to hit eight out of 10 3s every night. I expect him to have off nights.”
Few added, however, that he was generally disappointed in the way his team dealt with Pepperdine’s bruising and aggressive approach.
“We’ve got to handle our poise a lot better than we did tonight,” he said. “We played like a frustrated team most of the game. But we also got a road sweep this weekend, and we can’t lose sight of that. These guys dug out hard-fought wins where there were some crowds poised to see an upset.”
Erroll Knight went out of the game in the first half and didn’t return because of concerns of a possible concussion. He is not expected to miss Saturday’s game against San Diego.