John Blanchette: Zags look a lot better with freshman Bouldin in sync

Oh-for-2007.

Officially, that made Matt Bouldin the worst 3-point shooter in the West Coast Conference, which of course is a statistic and a damned lie. Fifteen 3s he’d hucked up since New Year’s and 15 he’d missed, not counting his first one Saturday night, which he missed from here to his Colorado home.

So surely in the cruel culture of the locker room – especially the nothing-sacred Gonzaga locker room – this had made him the object of countless barbs and brickbats, no?

“I didn’t even know,” said his teammate, Jeremy Pargo. “I don’t think anybody made fun of him. He’s a freshman, going through growing pains just like I did last year.”

Besides, don’t freshmen just get made fun of anyway, on general principle?

“True,” Pargo admitted.

But as freshmen go, Bouldin has been regarded as something different from the moment he stepped on the court – and this was the case again Saturday, when he tossed in 16 points in 21 minutes of a 72-56 romp over San Francisco – a game which, just 12 days ago, looked a little bit ominous for the Bulldogs.

After all, they had just lost at Saint Mary’s – their first WCC loss after 30 straight victories. They were out of first place for the first time since January 2005, though they climbed back into a share of it a week later. And the 47-game home-court winning streak would be next tested by what some regarded as GU’s most talented challenger in the league – and certainly the team that had been the least fazed by the McCarthey magic the last two years.

So much for that theory.

The Dons didn’t bring their top scorer, Antonio Kellogg, who is getting straight academically, the Zags shut down the other two USF weapons who really mattered – and the other two tenants of first place, Saint Mary’s and Santa Clara, both lost Saturday.

At home. To the seventh- and eighth-place teams.

So all is right in the WCC again, and mostly right with the Zags.

And with Bouldin, too, which is a relief to his coach, Mark Few.

“He’s so vital to how we play,” Few said. “When he’s playing like he has been this last week or so, it makes a huge difference.”

Mostly, that’s assumed to be a function of his superior vision and passing, and the true big-guard presence he lends to the Zags on the glass and on defense. Because, for whatever reason, his shot has been on sabbatical much of the year.

In WCC play alone, he was shooting just 29 percent coming into the night.

So naturally he was the Zag that the Dons ran away from – and the one they saw make four of five 3s, all of them momentum buckets of some sort.

“Coach (Tommy) Lloyd and I had been talking about it – that once I got one to drop, it was going to change,” Bouldin said. “When that first one fell, I felt a lot better.

“Yeah, I knew about it it – when you’re missing shots, you always know. But the only way to get out of it is shooting and staying aggressive and that’s what I was trying to do.”

Among the what’s-wrong-with-the-Zags gloom merchants, Bouldin’s stuggles had taken on particular significance. Young players in established programs are apparently no longer allowed to have growing pains but are required to make quantum gains each game – and if they’re don’t, then coaches are mandated to snap them out of it.

Well, freshman year happens.

“He hit a stretch around Christmas when he was just down,” Few said. “I kept teasing him that he had ‘bad carriage.’

“It’s hard for freshmen, especially over the holidays when the students are on break. There are some long, lonely, dreary days – and you could see when the kids came back, his spirits picked up dramatically.”

Bouldin agreed.

“I was pretty homesick,” he said, “but every freshman goes through it.”

But, in fact, his fitful progress has mirrored that of his team. The Zags did take some steps Saturday. After a high-turnover first half, their offense showed some of Gonzaga’s trademark flow – but even more heartening was the defense. Four different times they held USF to stretches of 4 1/2 minutes or more without a field goal – and gave up only seven points to open the game while they tried to jump-start their own offense.

“Kept us in the game,” Pargo said.

Likewise, the Zags have marked some time while Bouldin rediscovered his game – “just realizing there are going to be lows,” he said, “and fighting through them.”

“He just gives us a complete player out there,” Few said. “He makes other people look better.”

He means his people. And he’s right – alone on top, the Zags do look better.