Bulldogs search for solid solutions

Gonzaga coach Mark Few had hoped the positive experience of turning back a late-game challenge from Santa Clara in last Saturday’s 77-69 road win over the Broncos would be something on which his Bulldogs could build.

Yet two nights later, in an 80-75 loss to Saint Mary’s College that snapped a 30-game winning streak against West Coast Conference opponents, the Zags fell victim to some all-to-familiar stretch-run foibles and failed, once again, to close the deal.

Against SMC, in front of a frenzied sellout crowd of 3,500 in McKeon Pavilion, GU sliced a 12-point, second-half deficit to 61-60 on a 3-pointer by Derek Raivio with just less than 8 minutes left in the game.

But Saint Mary’s, with sophomore forward Diamon Simpson and backup freshman center Omar Samhan having their way with the Zags on the low blocks, responded by getting to every important rebound and loose ball and mounting a 12-7 run that sealed the upset victory.

On Thursday afternoon, the Bulldogs reconvened practice in preparation for Monday’s 9 p.m. WCC road game against the Portland Pilots. Most of the preworkout conversation centered on what went wrong at Saint Mary’s and what can be done to fix it.

David Pendergraft, the Zags’ undersized 6-foot-6 backup power forward, recalled Raivio’s seemingly crucial 3-pointer against the Gaels.

“I really felt, like, ‘OK, here it is. We’re going to finish this thing off,’ ” he said. “We’ve been working on finishing games, and then we went out and failed to finish one off again, which was really disappointing.”

The most perplexing aspect during the late stages of the Saint Mary’s loss, in Few’s opinion, was the indifference his team showed in defending the low post and its failure to secure rebounds on the defensive end of the court, where the Gaels twice ran down their own missed free throws.

“What has really hurt us down the stretch in several of these one- or two-possession games is giving up defensive rebounds,” Few said.

But in this case, finding a solution to the problem has proven much more difficult than identifying it – because of, in part, to the Bulldogs’ lack of a wide-bodied, tough-minded center like J.P. Batista and Cory Violette, who have done most of the heavy low-post lifting in recent years.

Both Few and junior guard Pierre Marie Altidor-Cespedes are convinced Batista, in particular, was underrated as a defender in the minds of most casual observers.

“He had a big body, and he wouldn’t let guys get in position for easy baskets,” Altidor-Cespedes said of the 6-9, 270-pound Batista, the second-leading scorer and top rebounder on last year’s 29-4 team that finished 14-0 in WCC play.

“He handled his own deal down there, and didn’t need any help,” Few added. “And he also secured the paint and got the rebounds. We just don’t have anyone with that same body makeup or toughness, and that’s hurt us.

“But also, our guards haven’t done a great job of rebounding the basketball, defensively, in stretches his year, and that’s obviously a concern. That’s a concentration problem and a toughness issue more than anything.”

Few said he and his staff have continued to stress the importance of playing within one’s capabilities and concentrating on the task at hand, whether it be setting a ball screen or defending the post.

“But we’ve still had some real concentration lapses,” he said. “We hold up pretty good during the middle of the game and then, all of a sudden, at the end of the game, it’s not there.”

Altidor-Cespedes noted it would also help to have another consistent scorer or two.

“Last year we had J.P. and Adam (Morrison), who were two consistent scorers,” he said. “You basically just gave them the ball and they scored.

“This year, we have good scorers, but I don’t think we have guys who can just lead us to victory on any given night.”

In the absence of such a player, Altidor-Cespedes sees one solution – although it might be a bit overly simplistic.

“I just hope in the next few games we can create bigger gaps and have more comfortable leads so games aren’t that close,” he said. “Because when games are close at the end, it’s hard to know what’s going to happen.”