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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Solid stretch leads No. 2 Gonzaga to win over San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO – Close games.

They’ve been few and far between for Gonzaga, which ran into one against hot-shooting San Francisco on Saturday night at War Memorial Gym. Many have wondered how the Zags would respond in a tight contest.

Gonzaga’s answer was solid and scrappy as it made defensive stops, dug out several key rebounds, hit free throws and pulled away in the last 4 minutes for an 81-70 victory in front of 4,000, USF’s first sell-out crowd of the season.

“It could have gone anyone’s way down the stretch,” said forward Kyle Wiltjer, who poured in 29 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for his first double-double of the season. “It shows we were able to execute and get stops when it really mattered. We don’t like close games, but it really is helping us find an identity and what we can do in late-game situations.”

The Zags are 3-1 in games decided by less than 10 points. In their two closest games, the Zags held on to beat Pepperdine by two and lost by three in overtime against Arizona.

Don’t let Saturday’s final score fool you. It was tied at 55 with 11:40 remaining when Gonzaga strung together an 11-1 run, fueled by two 3-pointers by Wiltjer, one by Kevin Pangos and Przemek Karnowski’s bucket inside. San Francisco responded, closing within 68-65 on Corey Hilliard’s jumper with 4:06 left.

Gonzaga (24-1, 12-0 WCC) extended its lead to 73-65 with five points at the free-throw line, four of those following offensive rebounds by Domas Sabonis and Byron Wesley.

“It gave us extra opportunities,” Wiltjer said. “We might not have made the shot but we got it back.”

Mark Tollefsen’s 3-pointer cut Gonzaga’s lead to five with 1:39 left, but momentum flipped back to the Zags when Matt Glover was called for a deadball technical foul. Pangos hit two free throws and Wiltjer added a fade-away from 7 feet.

Pangos dove to the floor to snag a loose ball and fed Eric McClellan for a dunk that essentially ended USF’s upset hopes.

“We made winning plays,” said Pangos, who scored 17 points and moved past Matt Bouldin into seventh place on Gonzaga’s all-time scoring list. “That’s good because we’re going to need to do that. We’re not always going to have comfortable leads.”

San Francisco (9-16, 3-10) didn’t look like the WCC’s ninth-place team. Fueled by Tollefsen’s 18 points and 9-of-15 shooting beyond the 3-point arc, USF put together one of the better performances against the Zags’ defense this season.

The Dons connected on 50 percent of their shots – joining Washington State (52.1) and Pepperdine (50.9) as Gonzaga opponents to make at least half of their shots – but cooled off a bit when the Zags went to a zone defense early in the second half.

“It (Gonzaga’s defense) was really poor until we went zone,” coach Mark Few said. “We were getting lit up, we couldn’t stop them and we needed to try something else.”

The Dons were limited to five points in the final 5:40, two of those Devin Watson’s free throws with the Zags leading by 13 with 28 seconds remaining.

“They were hitting shots,” Pangos said. “We were kind of giving it to them. We didn’t get in a stance, we let the guards beat us and we were fouling. We let their bigs get some easy shots.

“We have to guard them better as a team.”

Gonzaga, which beat USF by 31 points in Spokane, never trailed in the first half but never led by a comfortable margin. The Zags went up 14-8 early but the Dons stayed close with the help of four 3-pointers by four different players.

GU led by four after two McClellan free throws with 1:51 left but Watson’s mid-range jumper and Tollefsen’s 5-footer via an inbounds lob pass with 1.9 seconds left evened the score at 38 at half.