Day after Portland

Interesting game last night at the McCarthey Athletic Center. Gonzaga ruled the first half, then struggled to score in the second half. However, GU’s defense stayed the course throughout, paving the way for a 74-61 win over Portland.

First, the links: S-R gamer and Oregonian gamer .

UPDATE: Ex-Zag Keegan Hyland appears to be bound for Vermont.

Read on for my day-after post.

—You won’t see too many box scores like GU’s, or Portland ’s, for that matter.

The Bulldogs scored 74 points with just one player, Steven Gray’s 19, in double figures. Six others had 7-9 points, two more had four points. Nine players had field goals, five players made at least one 3-pointer. Nine players played at least 10 minutes. Six had at least one steal.

That speaks to balance and the effort of the bench, led by Manny Arop, Kelly Olynyk, Mathis Mönninghoff, David Stockton and Sam Dower, in a brief appearance.

Arop had eight points, three offensive rebounds (one he ripped out of Olynyk’s hands) and two assists. But his best work might have been at the other end where he put the clamps on Nemanja Mitrovic, who had 16 points, but went scoreless in the last 11 minutes after hitting a short jumper over Arop. Mitrovic was 0 of 2 from the field with two turnovers during that stretch.

“They’re very set oriented, always running sets, running off screens,” Arop said. “You can’t lose sight of them for a minute or they’ll make you pay. They’re probably the most dangerous team in our conference next to Saint Mary’s, in terms of punishing you on any mental mistakes you make.”

Olynyk was clutch as well. He had five points in a 9-0 burst that put the brakes on a Portland comeback in the second half. One of those was a 3-pointer, much like the one he delivered at a key point in the victory over Baylor.

“I missed a couple earlier, but I think I pump-faked and the guy left,” he said. “Nobody was there for what felt like forever. I had to shoot it. It’s a good shot.”

Stockton missed all four of his 3-point attempts, but he had a nice driving layup and snuck loose on the baseline for a layup on a nice feed from Gray. Stockton also contributed a couple of nice passes (no assists, because the feeds resulted in players being fouled), a steal and drew a charging foul on the 6-10, 270-pound Jasonn Hannibal. Stockton is listed at 5-11, 152 pounds.

Mönninghoff drained three 3-pointers in the first half, two off passes from Goodson, from the corners, where most of his 3s seem to come from.

Said Coach Mark Few of the bench: “That’s kind of how it’s been going all year. We’ve always had somebody coming in and making some sort of play. Manny really picked us up in the second half.”

— Portland , meanwhile, was its efficient self on offense, making 52.2 percent of its shots, 58.3 percent of its 3-pointers, yet managed to score just 61 points. The Pilots were undone by 20 turnovers. Gonzaga was intent on applying ball pressure, even if meant giving up scoring drives or some interior opportunities. The Pilots still made seven 3-pointers, but only had 12 attempts. They average 18 attempted 3s and launched 27 against WSU.

Mitrovic was 4 of 5 from long distance and Eric Waterford 2 of 2. Jared Stohl was just 1 of 5 and missed a couple of open attempts, an unusual occurrence for the sharp-shooter who led the NCAA a year ago in 3-point percentage.

“Even a couple of the 3s Mitrovic hit, we had a hand in his face for the most part,” Few said. “I thought we did a nice job on Stohl and he’s a big part of their offense.”

—Compared to most of GU’s opponents, the Pilots did one of the better jobs on the starting inside tandem of Elias Harris and Rob Sacre. Harris had two fouls less than three minutes into the game and played just 17 minutes. He tried to force the issues a couple of times, but drove into heavy traffic and didn’t convert. Sacre’s only field goal came on a tip-in of Goodson’s miss with 4:23 left in the second half. However, Sacre drew a number of fouls on Pilots’ post players and made 7 of 8 free throws, one of the primary reasons GU had 24 free throws to Portland ’s 8.

Portland has good size inside with Luke Sikma, Kramer Knutson and Hannibal. Those three combined for 22 points and 18 boards, with Hannibal, who averages 2.5 points per game, hitting three field goals and narrowly missing a wide-open putback in the midst of Portland ’s second-half comeback.

“They just played hard and physical, I give it to them,” Sacre said. “It’s a long season. We’ll keep grinding away.”

Portland ’s defensive strategy appeared to be to pack the paint, whether in man or zone, to limit the inside touches or force immediate passes back out when the ball did find Sacre. The tradeoff was that it created perimeter opportunities for Gonzaga, which hurt the Pilots with seven first-half 3s, but was just 2 of 10 in the second half.

“We started to over-think stuff (in the second half), and they threw some different things at us,” Gray said. “It was nice to get a couple of big buckets late and keep them at bay.”

STATS OF NOTE

— Portland had two 4-minute scoring droughts in the first half, and Gonzaga cashed in with 8-0 runs both times.

—Goodson, quietly, put together another solid stat line. He had seven points, four rebounds, four assists, three assists, one big-time block and no turnovers in 28 minutes. For the second straight game, he connected on an outside jumper.

—Olynyk had a team-high eight rebounds in 20 minutes. Portland won the glass, 31-28, but Gonzaga had 12 offensive rebounds and a 12-6 edge in second-chance points.

—Gonzaga is 42-1 at the MAC in WCC games.

—Olynyk came in as an accomplished perimeter shooter in high school, but struggled as a GU freshman (4 of 18, 22.2 percent) last season. He’s now made 7 of 15 3s this season.

—Gray made 5 of his first 6 shots, but then cooled off considerably. He took advantage of the shorter, 6-2 Stohl for a couple of mid-range jumpers early, but the Pilots did a better job of helping as the game wore on. He finished 7 of 16. He went roughly 15 minutes between field goals, spanning parts of each half, between field goals.

—Gonzaga scored 47 points in the first half, 27 in the second.

—GU’s 25 3-point attempts was a season high. The previous high was 22 vs. Southern in the season opener. The only other game with at least 20 attempts was against Notre Dame (11 of 20).

—It took Gonzaga roughly the first 13 minutes of the second half to score nine points. After the Zags’ lead had slipped to three, they then scored nine points in about 60 seconds to put the Pilots back in a double-digit hole.

QUOTES

Portland ’s Nemanja Mitrovic: “We just didn’t play very good defense in the first half. We let them score way too many points. We really focused on playing better defensively in the second half. That’s what helped us make the comeback and that’s what hurt us in the first half also.”

Pilots coach Eric Reveno on second-half comeback: “I think we got some stops and we were a little more deliberate on offense. We can score the ball, we shot a great percentage, we can shoot the ball. That gives you hope. We just have to get some stops.”

Few: “It was great to get that first (conference win) under our belt. That was a confidence team that came in here with a couple more wins than we had in the preseason. We knew they weren’t going to give it to us. They battled us and battled us, even when we had them down and they were able to frustrate us a little at the offensive end in the second half. Defensively we hung with it and ended up winning the game for us.”

Gray on defending Portland ’s perimeter: “The coaches talked about getting up and into them and forcing them to do things they weren’t used to, to get them out of their system. We were stressing in practice a 3 for them is as easy as a layin.”

Arop on Portland ’s team: “They’ll definitely be in it (WCC race). They’re a veteran team, they have good players, good inside guys to go along with great shooters. No. 33 (Mitrovic) and Stohl shoot the ball well. They’re a tough team to play because they have good inside and outside and they also crash the boards.”

Olynyk on the bench: “The bench really stepped it up. The starters got into a little slump there, especially in the second half and guys off the bench … Manny played great, Sam (Dower) put in a couple of great minutes. It was really good that we can rely on the bench when the starters are really struggling a bit.”