Zags dig in, escape with win
Pushed to the edge once again on Sunday, the Gonzaga Bulldogs peeked over and issued their customary response.
“No thanks, not yet,” they calmly told the University of San Diego, before stepping away from a potential fall – one that could have turned their 38-game home winning streak into nothing more than a mere grease spot – and crafting a hard-earned 96-92 overtime win in the semifinals of the West Coast Conference men’s basketball tournament.
Adam Morrison scored 24 points and teammates J.P. Batista and Derek Raivio added 21 each as the fifth-ranked and top-seeded Zags (26-3) sidestepped another huge scare, bumped its late-season winning streak to 17 and earned a spot in tonight’s title game against Loyola Marymount, which knocked off Saint Mary’s 66-63 in Sunday’s other semifinal.
“Nothing comes easy in March,” said GU coach Mark Few, whose Bulldogs earned a bye into the tournament semifinals by virtue of winning the league’s regular-season title. “But nothing has really come easy for us all year.
“I thought we did another great job of just digging out a win.”
The Zags dug this one out with Batista, their all-WCC center and second-leading scorer, hobbling around on a bad leg for almost three-quarters of the game. The 6-foot-9, 269-pound senior center suffered a mild knee sprain early in the first half when the Toreros’ Ross DeRogatis rolled onto his leg, and a deep thigh bruise later in the period when he banged into the knee of USD’s Gyno Pomare on a drive to the basket.
Batista missed the first 9 minutes of the second half getting treatment for his injuries and spent the remainder of the game shuffling in and out of the lineup.
Still, he managed to add a game-high 13 rebounds to his point total and post the 18th double-double of his career, much to the delight of a pro-Gonzaga sellout crowd of 6,000 that jammed into the McCarthey Athletic Center.
Few said he was proud of the way his team responded when Batista, who is listed as questionable for tonight’s title game, was out of the lineup.
“He’s a major part of why we’re successful,” Few explained. “But (Morrison and Raivio) and those other guys in our locker room really stepped up and allowed us to stay in the game.”
Morrison, who was honored earlier in the day as one of only two college players named to the USA Basketball Men’s Senior National Team, scored his 24 points in the face of another outstanding defensive effort by USD’s Corey Belser. The junior wing made just five of 16 basket tries, but was 11 for 14 from the foul line – the same as Batista.
The Zags shot 26 more free throws than the fifth-seeded Toreros (18-12), who got a game-high 26 points from senior forward Nick Lewis and 19 from freshman guard Brandon Johnson.
“We did everything tonight except win the game,” USD coach Brad Holland said. “We kept coming at Gonzaga and kept coming at Gonzaga. We fought through everything that was in front of us – the foul count, the crowd. Our kids just played a heck of a game.”
With Batista in the training room, the Toreros charged back from a 43-33 halftime deficit to take a couple of brief second-half leads and then forced the extra period when the bug-quick Johnson spun into the lane and dished to Belser for a buzzer-beating layin that tied it at 85 at the end of regulation.
GU scored the first four points in the extra period and Batista made sure there would be no second overtime by scoring the Bulldogs’ last five, two of which came on a nifty assist by Morrison.
Few said he was pleased with the way Morrison responded to the face-guarding tactics of Belser, who was named the WCC’s defender of the year earlier this week.
“Corey Belser is a great defender, he’s as good as we’ve faced,” Few said. “But I thought Adam stuck with it tonight. To get 24 against a guy who is basically just face-guarding you – not giving help on any drives or post-ups – is good.”
Morrison added: “(Belser) does what he always does – tries to frustrate you. But like I’ve said before, I’ve never lost against him, and I think he had six points.”