Day after Loyola Marymount

Back with the day-after post following Gonzaga’s 77-62 victory over Loyola Marymount, the first half of which was better known as the Steven Gray Show.

First the links: S-R men’s game story , Chris Anderson photos , John Blanchette’s Gray column , Tacoma News Tribune’s gamer , Seattle Times’ column , and gamers on Saint Mary’s routing Portland . The women’s links: S-R gamer , photos , game story on Saint Mary’s-Pepperdine in the Contra Costa Times , and a double gamers (SMC and Santa Clara) in the San Francisco Chronicle .

More below on Gray, GU and thoughts from Saint Mary’s players and coaches after they dispatched Portland in Sunday’s nightcap.

Back at halftime of the women’s title game with an update.

—Gray absorbed a physical pounding while picking up 14 points, 4 assists and multiple bruises in the first half. He came in still under the weather from a flu bug, then took a hard landing on his right side. He returned after having his right elbow taped. He was on floor at least three other times, twice getting knocked on his wallet on drives to the basket.

And in the middle of all that, Gray whacked his fingers on the backboard, resulting in a couple of bloodied nails and another round of taping from trainer Jen Nyland. He came back in and quickly made his only 3-pointer of the game.

Gray’s play gave Gonzaga a 15-point halftime lead that the Zags needed to ward off a second-half comeback by the Lions.

Afterward, Gray d

“I just tried to come out and follow the game plan,” Gray said. “Come out and play hard. If you do that, it and play hard, it makes the game pretty simple.”

Sounds easy enough, but it was clear Gonzaga wasn’t going to be outworked by LMU, which happened to some degree in the Lions 74-66 win in Los Angeles . GU went in front 8-0 and kept the pressure on.

“Even if the score wouldn’t have been that way, we were flying around with a lot of energy,” Gray said. “You could tell we were playing for something.”

Gray said his fingers were more botherson than his elbow.

“It was all my own doing,” he said. “But it looks pretty bad-ass (holding up two bloodied fingers), I’m not going to lie. There was blood everywhere.”

At one point during the interview, Gray noticed ex-Sonic Gary Payton walking by in the hallway. Gray interjected “that’s Sonic great, Gary Payton,” then returned to finish the point he was making before he saw Payton. Didn’t miss a beat.

eflected credit and noted that he wasn’t trying to do anything extra when fellow guard Matt Bouldin was struggling mightily in the first half.

—Both teams encountered serious foul trouble, nearly from the start. Robert Sacre had two fouls in the first 3:30 minutes. Before half, five Zags had two fouls (Sacre, Bouldin, Gray, Elias Harris and Manny Arop). LMU’s Ashley Hamilton and Vernon Teel each had two and reserve forward Alex Osborne had three.

Sacre eventually fouled out. He had 8 points, 2 blocks and 1 rebound in 17 minutes. Gray finished with four fouls. LMU lost Jarred DuBois to fouls (9 points) and Kevin Young (12 points) and Drew Viney had four fouls.

“We weathered the craziest foul trouble we’ve had this year,” Few said.

GU turned to reserves Arop and Bol Kong in the first half. Arop, a relentless rebounder, had six of his game-high eight boards in the first half. He scored four points. Kong drove from the elbow for a pair of three-point plays and he also fed Arop for a layup. Will Foster also scored on dunk on a nice feed from Gray. LMU had just two bench points, those coming with 8:45 left in the game on Larry Davis’ layup.

“That’s as extensively as we’ve played (Arop and Kong),” Few said. “Usually we give Steven a blow with one of them, and then rotate Steve back in there and give Matt a blow. We were just in some pretty dire foul trouble.”

—Gonzaga’s free-throw shooting remains a sore spot. GU made its first seven free throws, then 1 of 3 to close the half. It got worse in the second half – Foster air-balled a couple and Harris and Gray barely drew iron on one of their attempts. When LMU closed the margin to single digits, Gonzaga started connecting. Sacre and Goodson each hit two clutch foul shots – Goodson’s coming after his shot from close range came to rest on the neck of the rim, between the cylinder and glass (not sure I’ve ever seen that before.) Harris made 4 of 6 in the second half, and 6 of 8 overall.

GU finished 23 of 36 (63.9 percent). LMU was 16 of 20 (80 percent).

Stats of note: There were 46 fouls called, 27 on the Lions. … LMU had 12 turnovers, four assists. … Gonzaga won the boards 37-32 with big production by guards (Goodson 4, Bouldin 5, Gray 6 and Arop 8). … Gray’s seven assists tied his career high. … Bouldin came up with 10 points, 5 rebounds and an assist in the second half. … Drew Viney was 2 of 8 in the first half, but 4 of 6 in the second half and led LMU with 15 points. He also had a team-high eight boards.

—Time to look ahead. Gonzaga defeated Saint Mary’s twice this season. The Zags also hammered the Gaels in last year’s title game, which didn’t help SMC’s at-large resume. They were by-passed on Selection Sunday.

“There’s a lot of ifs and buts with the Bubble Watch,” Gaels center Omar Samhan said. “There’s only one fact: If you win tomorrow, you’re in. You can’t contest that. It’s a fact.”

Samhan had 16 points in the Gaels convincing win over Portland .

Samhan said he likes SMC’s chances because the Gaels have improved defensively, a focal point after their late-season loss at Portland .

“Tomorrow is all about who is excited to play,” he said.

Coach Randy Bennett agreed.

“Omar hit it right on the head,” he said. “We had a tough Selection Sunday. We were sitting around thinking maybe we’re in, it’s going to go down to the wire. We’re in this position again. It doesn’t mean were going to win, but we understand both sides of it. We still have control of our destiny.”

QUOTEBOOK

Few on Gray: “He was an absolute warrior tonight.”

Bouldin on the rugged play: “Really physical. We knew coming in it was going to be a fist fight. It was nothing short of that. They play really hard and play with a chip on their shoulder. You have to match that and I felt we did a pretty good job of that.”

SMC guard Mickey McConnell: It’s a quick turnaround, but it’s not hard to get excited to play in the WCC championship game.”

Gray on GU’s approach vs. LMU: “All week we’ve been working on just really being in attack mode, instead of reactive, which tended to happen with this team. The coaches made it really simple, just attack and play hard. That means getting in the paint and finishing strong and sealing in the post.”

Few on how Harris rates with GU’s past freshmen standouts: “He’s right there with all of them, with all the great ones I’ve been fortunate enough to coach. He has a big heart, he doesn’t mind taking a hits. He gets fouled a lot because he’s so physical and it doesn’t get called a lot. He’s a great learner. He kind of reminds me of Ronny (Turiaf) in that regard. We run a lot of different stuff and he picks it up as easily as Matt or Steven. That’s a great quality.”

Few on points of emphasis prior to the game: “We did emphasize throwing into the post a lot and establishing them. They did not play well down there at LMU and they’re a big factor for us. Our half-court defense, we spent a lot of time on that, and I thought it looked really good tonight.”