Big moments against the Big-12: Gonzaga’s most memorable game against every team from the Big-12 Conference
More years than not, Gonzaga’s success in the postseason has been contingent on the Bulldogs beating at least one team from the Big 12 Conference. The Bulldogs have played five Big 12 opponents in the last four NCAA Tournaments, facing two in both 2019 and 2021.
But Big 12 foes have also played an integral role for a Gonzaga program that’s worked diligently over the years to construct competitive nonconference schedules. The Bulldogs face their second ranked Big 12 opponent this season on Saturday when they meet No. 25 Texas Tech for a neutral-site game at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, as part of the Jerry Colangelo Classic.
With a 26-9 all-time record against the conference, the Zags have played three Big 12 members as many as five times, but they’ve played every team from the conference at least once, with many of the games serving as key November/December tuneups and others coming deep in the NCAA Tournament.
With another high-stakes Big 12 game on the horizon, we look at Gonzaga’s most memorable game against every team from the conference.
Baylor
April 5, 2021; No. 2 Baylor 86, No. 1 Gonzaga 70: It’s still a deep wound for many Gonzaga fans, and perhaps too soon to talk about for others, but the Bulldogs’ 86-70 loss to Baylor in the 2021 national championship is an integral part of school history nonetheless.
A regular-season matchup between Gonzaga and Baylor was called off with a handful of Bulldog players in COVID-19 protocol, but the country’s top two teams remained on a crash course to meet on the first Monday of April, entering the title game in Indianapolis with a combined record of 58-2.
The emotional high Gonzaga fans were riding after Jalen Suggs’ heroic buzzer-beater to beat UCLA in the Final Four dissipated when Baylor charged to a 23-8 lead and led 47-37 at halftime. The Bears shot 10 of 23 from the 3-point line and outrebounded Gonzaga 38-22.
Gonzaga all-time vs. Baylor: 5-1
Iowa State
Nov. 27, 2016; No. 11 Gonzaga 73, No. 21 Iowa State 71: The Zags crossed their last Big 12 team off the list in 2016 when they flew across the country to play the Cyclones at the AdvoCare Invitational in Florida.
An 18-point Gonzaga lead shrunk to one point in the second half and the Bulldogs were fortunate to walk out with a narrow win after both teams failed to score for nearly three minutes down the stretch.
Nigel Williams-Goss led GU with 18 points and the Bulldogs withstood a 29-point, 12-rebound double-double from ISU’s Deonte Burton.
Gonzaga all-time vs. Iowa State: 1-0
Kansas
Nov. 26, 2020; No. 1 Gonzaga 102, No. 6 Kansas 90: Neither school has missed the NCAA Tournament since 1998, so it seems odd the only meetings between one of the game’s original blue bloods, Kansas, and its newest one, Gonzaga, have come during the regular season.
The opening game of the 2020 college basketball season for both teams was the second matchup between Gonzaga and Kansas and an early indicator the Bulldogs might have a “big three” capable of carrying the program back to the national championship.
Drew Timme (25 points), Jalen Suggs (24) and Corey Kispert (23) each scored more than every Jayhawk player and Joel Ayayi pitched in 15 points to go with nine rebounds. Kansas’ Marcus Garrett closed the gap to 72-71 with 10:20 left in the game, but the Zags responded with 13-2 run and led by double figures the rest of the way.
Gonzaga all-time vs. Kansas: 1-1
Kansas State
March 22, 1994; Kansas State 66, Gonzaga 64: Gonzaga happily traded the NIT for the NCAA Tournament in 1999 and never looked back once it did. But from 1993-98 the Bulldogs made just one appearance in the Big Dance and played in its subsidiary postseason tournament on three different occasions.
In the second round of the NIT in 1994, Gonzaga held a one-point lead against Kansas State in Manhattan with less than two minutes to go when the Bulldogs’ Scott Spink fouled Demond Davis on a made layup. Davis knocked down the free throw to establish a 64-62 lead and Gonzaga’s season ended 90 seconds later.
Matt Stanford scored 22 points in the loss and Geoff Goss added 16 points to go with seven assists.
Gonzaga all-time vs. Kansas State: 1-3
Oklahoma
March 22, 2021; No. 1 Gonzaga 87, Oklahoma 71: The programs in Spokane and Norman hadn’t met before 2008, but they’ve played four times since. The Sooners got the best of the Bulldogs in 2008, winning 72-68, but it’s been all GU since with the Zags claiming the next three games and by a winning margin of 18.3 points.
After powering through its opening-round NCAA Tournament game against Norfolk State last season, top-seeded Gonzaga employed a similar strategy against an overmatched, eighth-seeded Oklahoma.
The Bulldogs went to Timme early and didn’t stop, getting a career-high 30 points from the forward who was an efficient 9 of 12 from the field and added 12 more points from the free-throw line. Timme rounded out his stat line with 13 rebounds and four assists, helping push the Zags to their sixth consecutive Sweet 16.
Gonzaga all-time vs. Oklahoma: 3-1
Oklahoma State
Dec. 28, 2005; No. 12 Gonzaga 78, No. 3 Oklahoma State 75: For about a decade, it may have felt like games between the Bulldogs and Cowboys were an annual occurrence. Gonzaga and Oklahoma State played six times between 2005-14 and though the Bulldogs won each of those, three were decided by two points or fewer.
The first GU-OSU game took place three days in Stillwater three days after Christmas during the 2005-06 season. The Zags got a team-high 19 points from Adam Morrison, who’d hit the dagger shot to beat Oklahoma State a year later in Seattle, but just as important in the three-point win were contributions from J.P. Batista, who came off the bench to make 8 of 9 shots and score a career-high 18 points.
With Ronny Turiaf nursing an ankle injury and dealing with foul trouble, Batista played 30 minutes off the bench and made his first eight shots while helping Gonzaga hand Oklahoma State its first loss of the season.
Gonzaga all-time vs. Oklahoma State: 6-0
TCU
Dec. 30, 1998; No. 24 TCU 90, Gonzaga 87: The Horned Frogs have only appeared on Gonzaga’s schedule twice, and there’s not much information available from the first meeting, a 68-60 Zag win in 1975, so we opted to go with the most recent game for this list.
When the teams played in 1998, TCU led by 14 points on three different occasions in the second half before surrendering an 18-6 run that allowed Gonzaga to lead 83-82 with 2:37 to play.
The Bulldogs didn’t have enough fuel left in the tank to finish the comeback, or hold off TCU center Lee Nailon, who scored nearly half of his team’s points with 44 points and 14 rebounds in the three-point victory.
The loss proved to be a vital learning experience for a Gonzaga team that would drop only two more games during the regular season before going on a historic NCAA Tournament run that set the table for the school’s golden era.
Gonzaga all-time vs. TCU: 1-1
Texas
Nov. 13, 2021; No. 1 Gonzaga 86, No. 5 Texas 74: Both teams have slipped some in the polls since their mid-November meeting at McCarthey Athletic Center, but the Bulldogs and Longhorns were both carrying top-five rankings when they played in what at the time was the most-anticipated nonconference game of the 2021-22 college basketball campaign.
The matchup didn’t produce the fireworks many thought it could, primarily because Timme took over early and was individually outscoring Texas 11-7 after 4:15 of the first half. A native of the Dallas area, Timme scored 22 of his career-high 37 points by halftime, and Rasir Bolton’s halfcourt buzzer-beater gave the Bulldogs a 47-27 cushion at the break.
Timme, who finished 15 of 19 from the field, didn’t need much help in the second half, pouring in another 15 points and Bolton added 16 more for a Gonzaga team that led by double figures for the game’s final 30 minutes. Along with his 37 points, Timme had seven rebounds and three assists.
Gonzaga all-time vs. Texas: 3-0
Texas Tech
March 30, 2019; No. 8 Texas Tech 75, No. 4 Gonzaga 69: Each of Gonzaga’s last two postseason runs ended short of the program’s ultimate goal. A Big 12 opponent prevented it from happening both times.
In 2019, the top-seeded Bulldogs returned to the Elite Eight to face the third-seeded Red Raiders in a game that saw both teams lead for more than 15 minutes. Texas Tech’s advantage was two points with 11 seconds left when Josh Perkins committed a technical foul, making contact with Matt Mooney’s wrist before Mooney could make the inbound pass.
The Red Raiders sealed up a six-point win from the free-throw line, advancing to the Final Four and eventually the national championship game, where they’d lose to Virginia. In their final collegiate games, Rui Hachimura and Brandon Clarke combined for 40 points and 18 rebounds but also accounted for nine of Gonzaga’s 16 turnovers.
Gonzaga all-time vs. Texas Tech: 0-3
West Virginia
March 23, 2017; No. 2 Gonzaga 61, No. 13 West Virginia 58: Two of the country’s toughest defensive teams were locked at 30-30 entering halftime.
There wasn’t much to separate the Bulldogs and Mountaineers until Jordan Mathews rose up to make the go-ahead 3-pointer with less than a minute to play.
Mathews’ 3-pointer was just the ninth made by either team in a game that saw Gonzaga and West Virginia combine to shoot 34 of 104 (32.6%) from the field and 9 of 33 (27%) from the 3-point line. The Bulldogs committed 16 turnovers and the teams combined for just 14 assists in the game.
In the low-scoring affair, Mathews was one of three Gonzaga players to score 13 points, along with Johnathan Williams and Przemek Karnowski. Nigel Williams-Goss had an uncharacteristic night on the offensive end, scoring 10 points on 2-of-10 shooting while turning it over five times, but Gonzaga’s point guard helped in other areas and had seven rebounds to go with three steals.
Gonzaga all-time vs. West Virginia: 5-0