Raivio, Mallon face home finale
Considering all that their fickle final season of college basketball has already thrown at them, it would have been foolish for Sean Mallon and Derek Raivio to assume their Senior Night celebration would play out as originally planned.
Which, predictably, it probably won’t – thanks, in part, to the ankle sprain Mallon suffered early in the second half of Gonzaga’s 78-77 overtime loss to No. 8-ranked Memphis in Veterans Memorial Arena on Saturday.
The injury forced Mallon, a 6-foot-9 fifth-year senior forward, to the bench, where he was forced to watch helplessly as the undermanned Bulldogs’ courageous bid for a major upset was blown apart by a Chris Douglas-Roberts’ basket with just over 5 seconds left in the extra period.
Afterward, Mallon left the arena on crutches, with an iceberg strapped to his swollen left ankle. And GU coach Mark Few said “it doesn’t look good” that he will be available for tonight’s final home game of the season – a critical West Coast Conference matchup against Portland (8-18 overall, 4-7 in the WCC) that tips off at 6 in the McCarthey Athletic Center.
Mallon and Raivio, the only two seniors on the Zags’ roster, will be honored before the game as part of the university’s annual Senior Night celebration. Traditionally, those members of the team who are making their final home-court appearances – seldom-used walk-ons, included – are reward with starting assignments.
But there is a chance Few might be forced to break with tradition in the case of Mallon, a former prep standout at Ferris High School, who has played in 123 consecutive games since redshirting during 2002-03 season, his first at GU.
And even if Mallon does get the start this evening, it might be ceremonial, at best, considering he did not practice with the team on Sunday.
As cruel as such a development might seem, it almost makes sense when taken in proper context.
This has not, afterall, been the easiest of seasons for Mallon and Raivio, who have been forced – along with their teammates – to deal with a torturous, travel-heavy schedule ranked among the most difficult in the nation.
The 10 losses suffered by the Bulldogs (18-10, 8-3) are their most since Few took over the program eight years ago. And instead of breezing into Senior Night with a WCC regular-season championship all but assured, as they have in recent years, the Zags find themselves in second place in the league standings and trying desperately to run down Santa Clara – the team that ended their school-record 50-game home winning streak last Monday – in hopes of securing a 7th-consecutive regular-season league title.
In addition, they are doing so without the services of sophomore forward Josh Heytvelt, who was suspended indefinitely three games ago after being arrested, along with freshman teammate Theo Davis, on drug possession charges.
All of which have prevented Mallon and Raivio from putting much thought into their upcoming Senior Night.
“Our whole season has just been so frantic that I haven’t really given it much thought,” Mallon admitted last week, prior to Saturday night’s loss and his ill-timed injury. “With Memphis coming up and us needing to finish strong and win our league tournament, I’ve been a little too caught up in the moment, I guess.”
Raivio, a 6-3 point guard from Vancouver, and, perhaps, the finest pure shooter to ever wear a Gonzaga uniform, said he feels much the same way.
“I’ve just been trying to keep my mind focused on the next game and not get too caught up in the whole thing,” he said. “I don’t have time to worry about it right now.”
Adding to the strange aura surrounding tonight’s final regular-season McCarthey Center appearances of Mallon and Raivio is the generally held feeling that neither of them – unlike past seniors like Casey Calvary, Dan Dickau, Blake Stepp and Ronny Turiaf – have been able to make this team theirs.
Neither, it has been noted by Few, possesses the dominant personality traits shared by their predecessors. But their contributions have been considerable, nonetheless.
Raivio, who leads the WCC in scoring with an average of 18.3 points per game, was an all-conference selection as a sophomore, when he averaged 13 points and just over three assists. And he has bounced back from an injury plagued and sub-par junior season during which he deferred, on many offensive occasions, to first-team all-American and first-round NBA draft choice Adam Morrison, to position himself as a leading candidate for this year’s WCC’s player-of-the-year award.
The former prep star at Mountain View High School played all 45 minutes in Saturday’s loss to Memphis and scored a game-high 21 points to move past John Stockton, Cory Violette and Bill Suter into the No. 14 spot on GU’s career scoring list with 1,366 points.
He also made all four free throws he attempted to run his school-record streak to 46 in a row, and is a lock to finish as the Bulldogs’ all-time leader in free-throw percentage, having made an astounding 310 of his 336 attempts (92.2 percent) from the foul line.
Mallon’s career numbers have not been as impressive, but his competitive nature and loyalty to the program have been. And he is quick to insist he has no regrets about the way his extended stay at GU has played out.
“I’ve really enjoyed playing here in front of my friends and family,” he said. “And I get to see my other friends when they come back from where they’ve been. I would like to leave sometime in the near future experience somewhere else, but Spokane is a great place and, because I’ve played for Gonzaga, I’ve been able to travel all over the country and see a lot of neat places.”
Raivio, too, has enjoyed his time as a Zag.
“I’ve had a great time here, and I’ve made a lot of good friends,” he said. “At times, I did have to wait my turn behind some other guys and stuff, but I guess it’s all been worth it.”
Both players said they hope tonight’s Senior Night doesn’t get overly emotional like some of those in the recent past.
“I hope it’s not emotional at all,” said Raivio, a marketing major who will graduate this spring. “I hope we all go out there, play real hard and get a victory. We need one.”
“I really don’t know what to expect,” added Mallon, who received his degree in political science last spring and is currently working toward a Masters in organizational leadership. “It’s been tough, emotionally, watching those past seniors go through it, which is why I’m trying not to think too much about it.
“I’ve been so caught up in what we’re doing right now – scrapping and clawing for our tournament lives – so much that it’s really been all I’ve thought about. But I really hope, too, that it doesn’t get so emotional that it affects the way we play.”