Gonzaga rewind: Frontcourt keeps Bulldogs afloat in early stages of 75-74 win at BYU
PROVO, Utah – BYU students unofficially announced their plans with less than 30 seconds remaining in Thursday’s game.
Rows of white shirts packed into aisles at the Marriott Center, slowly migrating down to the court anticipating the moment they’d get to hurdle onto the hardwood and celebrate a top-10 win.
That seemed inevitable when BYU held a four-point lead with 63 seconds remaining. But untimely miscues from the Cougars, combined with clutch shot-making from the Bulldogs, allowed Gonzaga to spoil a court storm in Provo and steal a narrow 75-74 win in its final game at the Marriott Center as a conference rival.
“You could see all the fans getting ready to rush the court and stuff, but we just continued to keep our heads down and stick with it,” Gonzaga’s Anton Watson said. “And that’s the good thing about this team is that we’re going to stick to it until the end.”
With 5 minutes remaining, ESPN’s win probability tool gave the eighth-ranked Zags a 7.9% chance of leaving Utah with a victory. That number hovered at 26.5% when Nolan Hickman came up with a steal with approximately a minute to play.
We look at Gonzaga’s frontcourt, recap the highs and lows of the Bulldogs’ three-game road swing and reflect on the West Coast Conference rivalry with BYU in this edition of the rewind.
Props to the posts
Gonzaga’s backcourt delivered four key outside shots inside the final 5 minutes , but it was the frontcourt that buoyed the Bulldogs on offense much of the first half.
Watson and fellow senior Drew Timme scored the first 11 points, and Ben Gregg joined the party less than 7 minutes into the game, accounting for six of the team’s next eight points. Nine minutes of game time elapsed before someone other than Watson, Timme and Gregg scored for Gonzaga. The Bulldogs’ posts wound up scoring 33 of the team’s first 37 points.
“Early in the first half, we were just throwing it inside to them,” junior wing Julian Strawther said. “High-low was working beautiful. The floor was super open and spread out. Those guys, we trust them with all our heart, too.
“Drew Timme’s the best post scorer in college basketball. Anton and Ben I see them work on their game all week, so giving them the ball in space.”
The Zags had early success throwing over the top of BYU’s defense to Watson, who converted a handful of open looks to score 14 points without missing a field-goal attempt (6 of 6) in the first half.
“I think they were just switching on me at the start of the game and I was just being aggressive, honestly,” Watson said. “Every time I got on the post I scored, and then I hit a 3, so my confidence was high at the beginning of the game and I just tried to keep continuing that throughout the game.”
Timme’s frequently commands double- and triple-teams deep in the post. Watson was often the beneficiary of BYU’s defensive coverages aimed to limit the production of his All-American teammate.
“Drew gets about two, three people on him every night every time he dribbles, so it definitely opens up a lot for me,” Watson said. “He got me a few easy buckets and I just sat under the rim and dunked it. Those are easy buckets for me, but Drew, he’s going to have that every night.”
Watson, Timme, Gregg and Efton Reid combined for 49 points on 22-of-37 (60%) shooting from the field. They also totaled 28 rebounds and four steals. Timme pulled down 13 rebounds, moving past Casey Calvary for eighth on GU’s all-time list. Gregg had four offensive rebounds in just 12 minutes .
Too close for comfort
It’s a destination Gonzaga is used to reaching, but the Bulldogs’ path to 4-0 in conference play has been anything but conventional.
Gonzaga faced double-digit deficits in the second half of all three WCC road games, trailing by 12 points at San Francisco, 14 points at Santa Clara and 10 points at BYU.
The Bulldogs still won all three , arriving at a 4-0 WCC record for the seventh consecutive season.
“The mental strength of this team is strong and it shows,” Watson said. “It’s definitely going to help us in the future, but I think there’s times where it’s like, ‘Hey, let’s just win the game, let’s keep the lead. But the past three games have been super close and we’re just happy we got the (win).”
In 2021-22, the Bulldogs won their first three road games – against Santa Clara, BYU and San Diego – by a combined 95 points. Gonzaga’s three road wins this season have come by a combined eight points.
Mark Few has warned this year’s Gonzaga team wouldn’t put away conference opponents in the fashion that other Bulldogs teams have. The 2020-21 team won WCC games by a margin of 24.1 ppg and the 2021-22 team finished with a margin of 23.5 ppg. The 2022-23 Zags have won their four games by 7.7 ppg.
“One of these days, you’ll listen to the old ball coach,” Few said. “… It’s kind of ingrained in our program. When you’re in this program, you expect to win, and hopefully they’re learning how to win like all our other groups have.”
Farewell, Provo
Watson monitored the Gonzaga-BYU rivalry growing up in Spokane, then as a four-star high school prospect who committed to the Bulldogs as a junior at Gonzaga Prep.
He doesn’t have fond memories of his first meeting with BYU in Provo – a 91-78 loss that ended with fans rushing onto the court – but hasn’t lost a game to BYU since.
Thursday’s narrow victory improved Watson’s personal win streak against the Cougars to six . Both he and Timme, the only other fourth-year player in Few’s program, are 7-1 in games against BYU.
If the teams don’t meet up in the conference tournament, the last WCC game between Gonzaga and BYU will take place on Feb. 11 at McCarthey Athletic Center.
“It means a lot,” Watson said. “This is my fourth year. It’s crazy, because they have one of the best environments, some of the best fans, and every time we come in here it’s a fun game. So I enjoyed it every single time I played here and we only lost once in here, so it’s cool.”
Gonzaga had played BYU just one time, in the 2011 NCAA Tournament, before the Cougars left the Mountain West to join the WCC ahead of the 2011-12 season. The Bulldogs improved their all-time record to 23-7 and they’ve gone 9-3 in games at the Marriott Center since BYU became a conference rival.
Few expressed gratitude for the opportunity to match up with BYU two to three times every season since 2011-12. The Cougars and Saint Mary’s have represented Gonzaga’s top conference rivals. They’ve been the only teams to hand the Bulldogs a loss in WCC play since the 2013-14 season.
“This has been so great for our program and it’s been – I don’t think we make final fours without BYU coming in our league,” Few said. “I just don’t. They’ve challenged us. This is as good of a game-day environment, much like ours is, much like Kansas’ is and the big-time places are. It’s been a treat to come in here and battle and there’s been a lot of games similar to this.
“We’re going to miss them big time and we do so out of great respect and tip our caps. We wouldn’t have made those national championship game runs without them, I don’t think.”