Gonzaga women prepare for third meeting with San Francisco after thrilling regular season finishes

LAS VEGAS – That old adage about beating the same team three times in a row is about to get a major test this week.

“It’s hard to beat good ones, anyway,” Gonzaga coach Lisa Fortier said as she contemplated another game with San Francisco.

The Zags have taken a pair of nail biters from the USF in the regular season. Next up is a high-stakes encounter in the West Coast Conference semifinals Monday at 2 p.m. at the Orleans Arena.

Win that and Gonzaga will probably get a third shot at regular-season champion BYU in Tuesday’s game. The Cougars play Portland in the other semifinal, which tips off at noon.

To get there, the Zags will need to beat an improved USF team that’s only 17-14, but has won six of its last nine games.

Two of those losses came against Gonzaga. The Zags took the first meeting with USF, 55-49 in Spokane on Feb. 7.

Two weeks later in the Bay Area, the Zags rallied from five points down with 12 seconds left to win 83-82 on a buzzer-beating layup by Melody Kempton.

“There was a lot of emotion in the locker room afterwards,” junior forward Kennedy Dickie said Saturday night, after the Dons beat Santa Clara in the quarterfinals.

“It just really hit close to home since we were that close, and I just think it’s going to make it even more important for us to perform and get the win,” said Dickie, who transferred to USF last summer after two years at Eastern Washington.

Gonzaga also has plenty of motivation. The Zags are 24-6 overall and 27th in the NCAA NET rankings, but are considered a bubble team for an at-large bid.

GU got some good news from other tournament conferences, as several other contenders failed to improve their position on Saturday.

For ESPN bracketologist Charlie Crème, that was enough to move GU from his “Last Four In” category to “Last Four Byes,” and send them to Iowa City, Iowa, as the lowest 11 seed.

However on Sunday, one of Crème’s “Last Four Out” teams, UMass, stole an automatic bid by knocking off Dayton in the Atlantic 10 title game.

That may push GU back to the “Last Four In,” category and raise the stakes for Monday. Bottom line: A loss to USF, currently 105th in NET would lead to six days of hand-wringing and possibly keep the Zags out of the tournament altogether.

Asked about the NCAA scenarios, senior forward Melody Kempton said last week that she tries “not to keep up with those things.”

“We should make it anyway, but we don’t really want to rely on that,” Kempton said.

The first step toward an automatic bid is beating USF.

“We know how Gonzaga plays and those losses were really tough for us,” Dons Coach Molly Goodenbour said Saturday after a 72-63 win over Santa Clara.

“We’ll be focused on Monday, and we believe that we can beat them,” Goodenbour said.

With the stakes so high, Fortier acknowledged the importance of playing with emotion, but not too much.

“Sometimes it helps and sometimes it hurts,” Fortier said. “We try to preach and teach that.”

The two earlier meetings played out quite differently. In low-scoring grind in the Kennel on Feb. 7, GU trailed by two points at halftime but controlled the boards and forced 17 turnovers.

The Zags got 17 points and eight rebounds from forward Yvonne Ejim. They also held all-conference guard Ioanna Krimili to 12 points.

In the rematch, Gonzaga trailed for most of the way, but won in miraculous fashion.

Down five with 12 seconds left, Kempton rebounded a missed 3-pointer by Cierra Walker and made the layup. Five seconds later, Kempton drew a foul and made both free throws to get the Zags within one.

With two seconds left, Kaylynne Truong drew an offensive from Krimili, setting up a last-second pass from Kayleigh Truong to Kempton for the game-winner.

“They’re a good offensive team but we have to stop them,” Fortier said.

Gonzaga has won the last 10 meetings since a 77-72 loss at USF in 2017.