GU’s depth presents its challenges

Not that Gonzaga coach Mark Few is complaining, but he admits there is a downside or two to dealing with the kind of depth he has on this year’s roster.

With the late-season return of redshirt freshman forward Josh Heytvelt from a broken ankle, Few finds himself heading into next week’s NCAA Tournament with 10 healthy and highly capable players he can confidently shuffle in and out of games, depending on the situation.

“Right now, we’ve got a lot more versatility than we had,” said Few, who was also without senior wing Erroll Knight (knee) for the first eight games of the season. “Hopefully, that will serve us well.”

It seemed to Monday night, when the fourth-ranked Zags (27-3) survived a 68-67 scare from Loyola Marymount in the finals of the West Coast Conference tournament to run their nation’s-longest winning streak to 18 games and nail down an eighth consecutive NCAA Tournament berth.

After watching his Bulldogs struggle through almost 30 minutes of Monday’s title game, Few stumbled onto a seldom-used, but efficient, lineup that included three non-starters in Knight, sophomore forward David Pendergraft and freshman point guard Jeremy Pargo.

That trio teamed with Adam Morrison and J.P. Batista to do most of the heavy lifting as Gonzaga surged back from a 15-point second-half deficit to become only the second WCC team to win the conference tournament on its own floor.

Few said he made the decision to go with such an unusual lineup for the same reason he makes most personnel changes.

“It’s usually based on the flow of the game more than anything – whether or not the guys on the floor are helping us at both ends,” he explained. “The other night, it was an energy situation, and those three guys went in there and created a lot of energy, so they got to play a lot more.”

But as more and more players have become part of his substitution patterns, Few said he has become increasingly concerned about keeping his regulars in some semblance of a rhythm, particularly on offense, while still affording his younger players the minutes they need to continue to improve.

“Those are probably the two biggest downsides to having the kind of depth we have,” Few added. “Freshmen probably suffer the most, because this time of year you have to have a short leash. You can’t go in there and turn the ball over and get beat on a couple of defensive assignments and expect to stay out on the floor when you’re a freshman.”

Rookie forward Larry Gurganious and Pendergraft seem to have had their playing time affected the most by the mid-February return of Heytvelt and the ever-increasing bounce in Knight’s step.

Gurganious, who played an average of nearly 13 minutes during one midseason stretch that spanned five games, has averaged only 5 minutes during the last nine.

Pendergraft, despite playing a major 16-minute role in Monday’s win over Loyola Marymount, has watched his average minutes drop from 19.6 through the first 23 games of the season to 10.1 over the last seven.

Few acknowledged there are things like a player’s self-confidence, or inability to re-establish a rhythm once he has rested for several minutes, that can affect how some coaches make their substitutions.

But he insisted he is not one to overanalyze his lineup changes.

“The players have to figure that out on their own,” he said. “You can’t factor all of that stuff in. You’ve just got to have guys who go out and get the job done – fulfill their responsibilities.

“The one thing depth allows you to do is to eventually find somebody who’s going to do that.”

That – in Few’s opinion, at least – trumps any and all of the depth’s downsides.