Zags, EWU win, Idaho stumbles

Our women’s basketball roundup: As expected the Gonzaga women rolled past Santa Clara, Eastern Washington got a solid road win at Northern Arizona but Idaho fell at previously winless San Jose State, despite a monster game from Yinka Olorunnife (above, center). All that to go with an earlier win by Washington State at Arizona State. Read on.

The Bulldogs got the usual stellar game from the main three but Meghan Winters added a career-high 14 points off the bench in routing Santa Clara early with first half runs of 11-0 and 19-0. An interestisng observation: the Santa Clara men sold out, 4,000 to watch the league bully they hadn’t beaten in since 2001; the GU women drew 3,000 for a team that hasn’t given them a game in years.

The Eagles , led by Chene Cooper and Brianne Ryan, who also had a huge defensive assignment, lost a big early lead but stayed composed against NAU.

The Vandals , despite a career-high 34 points from Olorunnife and 13, couldn’t overcome a poor shooting night against San Jose.

Matchups for Saturday’s games involving all four area teams, can be found here .

Check out this from the story about Montana’s comeback win over Idaho State, talking about sophomore Katie Baker (Lake City):

Baker and sophomore Kenzie De Boer both finished with 10 points.

Baker, who had 17 rebounds at home against Idaho State last January as a freshman, may have accomplished a first in NCAA history when she finished with 19 rebounds – 11 on the offensive end – and finished the game without a field goal. She was 0 for 8 from the floor and scored all 10 of her points at the free throw line.

“Katie was a horse on the boards, but she needs to slow down on offense,” Selvig said. “If you throw them, they are not going to go in, so she needs to make sure she is taking a shot.”

And the big game that wasn’t, No. 4 Stanford beats visiting No. 8 UCLA by almost 30 .

With everything available, I had the opportunity to watch both the Gonzaga men and women last night, even though the games started at the same time. Not to start an arguement, because it is comparing apples to oranges (starting with the quality of the two Santa Clara teams), the best play combining athleticism and basketball smarts came in the women’s game. GU had the ball out under the basket with 1 second on the shot clock when Courtney Vandersloot lobbed the ball into the lane and Katelan Redmon jumped, grabbed it and flipped it into the basket. Shortly after that Vandersloot went over the top to Redmon on a fast break, but Redmon couldn’t quite finish, however Kayla Standish, following, jumped, rebounded, put the ball off the glass, landed. Of course in the men’s game, both plays, but especially the second one, is usually a bring-down-the-house dunk. But if you dismiss the women’s game because of that it has nothing to do with basketball.