Bulldogs, Cougars win

Only three times this three times this year had Gonzaga scored 70 points or less and won until Thursday night when the Bulldogs defense smothered Loyola Marymount for 73-40 win.

Even more amazing is it has been 16 years since Washington State won back-to-back conference games. The Cougars broke that skid by ending an 18-game losing streak to USC by beating the Trojans in Los Angeles for the first time in more than a decade.

Read about the Cougars here and here the Bulldogs below.

By Dave Trimmer

davet@spokesman.com ; (509) 927-2154

When all else fails – and for the Gonzaga women’s basketball team pretty much everything did – play defense.

And the 21 ^st -ranked Bulldogs did that quiet well, thank you.

On a night when shots wouldn’t fall, the team that averages 80.4 points a game took its defense to another level, smothering Loyola Marymount 73-40 before 2,816 fans mostly clad in pink Thursday night at McCarthey Athletic Center .

“Offensively, man, we just couldn’t buy a shot for a while,” GU senior guard Tiffany Shives said. “Games will happen like that so that’s why we can rely on our defense.”

The total for the Lions (11-14, 4-7 West Coast Conference) was the lowest for a GU opponent this season, thanks to 26 percent shooting, including 2 of 15 from 3-point range.

Plain and simple it was an ugly game, but the Bulldogs (22-4, 11-0), who average 85.7 in league play, were never really threatened because of their defense, which held LMU scoreless for more than 10 minutes early in the first half. Still, that only produced a 23-6 lead and it was 25-14 at the half.

Meanwhile, the fourth-ranked offense in the country needed a late surge to avoid their lowest winning score (64 points) of the season. The Bulldogs ended up shooting 47 percent after a 32 percent first half thanks to a 61 percent second half.

“Even great teams have times where you can’t hit a shot, can’t buy a bucket,” Shives said. “If we can rely on our defense like that we can go pretty far – and hopefully we won’t shoot it like that very often.”

Four starters scored in double figures, led by Courtney Vandersloot with 21 to go with eight assists. Shives hit four 3-pointers en route to 14 points. Vivian Frieson had 12 and nine rebounds and Heather Bowman 10.

Offensive rebounding helped the Bulldogs. They had 19 in their plus-21 rebounding to get 22 second-chance points. They also turned 15 LMU turnovers into 21 points.

Loyola averages 66.9 points a game and had 77 in a 14-point loss to Gonzaga at home.

“I think we focused more on the help side,” Shives said. “Last time they drove on us a lot and it was like one-on-one where we were getting beat off the dribble. This time we were all in help-side position so they didn’t see any driving lanes. That helped a lot, instead of being selfish we played a lot more as a team.”

The Bulldogs play their last home game of the season against Pepperdine at 2 p .m. on Saturday.