Dave Boling: Questioning this Gonzaga team’s guts? Consider them fully checked after rout of Kentucky.

Sometimes they call these kinds of games “gut-checks.”

Indicators of how well teams cope with adversity. Resilience. Determination. Fortitude after being seriously tested and having come away disappointed.

Are you stepping onto a slippery slope or finding firm footing and climbing back?

Getting an early chance to discover something so important about your team’s character can be crucial to your entire season.

Well, the “guts” score in the game Friday night in Nashville: Gonzaga, guts in abundance, Kentucky, short supply.

The talent was about equally disparate.

The score? Lopsided, of course, 94-59.

The result? Saturday morning, the Zags woke up No. 2 in the nation in NET Rankings, behind only Michigan. We may presume that extra credit was given for the gutsy bounce-back against Kentucky.

Without question, the Zags are back on the track they negotiated successfully in their first seven wins. That could have been in doubt. In a couple recent seasons, the Zags had dipped into slumps that lasted a few games.

Oregon State and Santa Clara last season, for instance, were games in which the Zags struggled finding their identity.

Surely, the loss to Michigan was so convincing, the Zags could have been unnerved – maybe for a long time. Their best player, almost unwaveringly reliable, had come up empty. All the fail-safe options that made the team appear almost slump-proof, failed to engage.

The Zags had nine days to chew on that bitter, gristly 40-point loss to Michigan in the title game of Players Era Festival.

That’s the kind of thing that can ruin the guts of any team.

The biggest thing going for the Zags was their opponent. They weren’t playing the massive Michigan team, again, but a short-handed, injury-depleted Kentucky team.

Right, but it’s still Kentucky, a team with a reported $22 million roster.

The Wildcats fell to 5-4, but were ranked No. 18, and just dropped a three-point decision to No. 16 North Carolina.

Here’s what the Zags showed:

• Confidence: Zero hangover from the Michigan debacle. They had been shaken by the Wolverines. Even as veteran as this team is, the Zags had been Bambi and Michigan was an 18-wheeler flashing its brights.

Consider: Even with all their experience as individuals, they haven’t had much experience as a collective, as Zags. That connection is a process. Michigan provided a stress-test for the system, identifying weaknesses. Kentucky provided target practice.

• Interior dominance: Zags may celebrate the return of Graham Ike. Michigan was a tough night and a bad matchup. Ike scored one point after seven earlier games at All-American quality play.

Ike was obviously revving hot for this one. And he made Kentucky pay. The biggest gut-check for the Zags was Ike. So much is expected of him. And he’s answered every night until the Michigan game.

Friday night? Sensational. Ten rebounds to go with 28 points.

If Ike can keep that internal fire kindled and stoked at this level, whoa. Really, seriously, whoa.

Add to Ike another top-shelf performance by Braden Huff, going for 20 on a variety of lane and baseline shots.

• Deadly shooting: This is a function of confidence, too. After clanking in only 3 of 22 3-pointers against Michigan, they went 9 for 18 from behind the arc, netting 57 percent of all shots.

That allowed them to score 95 points against a team that had just held North Carolina to 67.

Guard Adam Miller, particularly looked on-target, hitting 3 of 5 3s.

• Relentlessness: Zag fans who had watched GU against Kentucky at Climate Pledge Arena last season, surely were not relaxing when the Zags roared to a 43-20 lead Friday.

Up by 18 at halftime last year, in what might have been their best first half of the season, GU went cold and UK became the aggressors, winning by one point in overtime.

No such thing this year, the Zags adding 51 more points in the second half as the bench ended up contributing 32 points.

From here, they’ve got a breather Sunday at home against North Florida before going to Seattle for another match with UCLA at Climate Pledge Arena next Sunday, and will later get another big-arena test against Oregon in Portland on the 21st.

Other lessons will be learned as the season progresses, but the 8-1 Zags have proven to themselves they can bounce back from a loss and dominate a team that clearly wasn’t playing with nearly the talent and guts they showed.