Analysis: No. 7 Gonzaga ‘not good enough’ in tightly-contested road win against San Diego

SAN DIEGO – It was a mix of shock and disappointment as Gonzaga players walked back to the visiting locker room Tuesday night at Jenny Craig Pavilion.

After a game that was far more eventful than they planned, the seventh-ranked Zags were mostly just relieved to escape San Diego with a 99-93 road victory, bumping them to 2-0 in West Coast Conference play.

Gonzaga coach Mark Few made sure to acknowledge that part when he addressed his team, but that wasn’t the crux of the message after the Zags blew a 21-point lead, gave the Toreros multiple opportunities to claw back into the game and had to convert late free throws to ensure a five-point game didn’t become even more interesting in the closing seconds.

“Just, that’s not good enough,” Few said, repeating what he told Gonzaga players afterward. “The goal is to win, so I congratulated them for that. Just the way we handled that last four minutes isn’t going to be good enough to A, win this league or B, advance to where we want to advance.”

It was good enough, barely, to sneak past the Toreros in a game the Zags were favored to win by 28½ points.

Gonzaga led by double figures much of the game, but had to overcame speed bumps early and late.

For long stretches of November and December, the Zags could reliably count on 40 points of paint production from the veteran frontcourt tandem of Graham Ike and Braden Huff.

When Huff picked up his second foul with less than eight minutes remaining in the first half, Gonzaga logically turned to Ike. That plan didn’t have a long shelf life, either.

Battling inside with San Diego’s Vuk Boskovic, an irritated Ike picked up his second foul on the offensive end, flattening the junior forward while he tried to clear a path to the basket. A sequence of frustrating moments culminated with Ike slamming a plastic water bottle onto the floor, which created a small spill near Gonzaga’s bench. Ike was whistled with a technical foul and arena employees spent the next two minutes drying up the puddle.

Fortunately, when one thing isn’t clicking for Gonzaga, two or three others usually are.

Moments after Ike’s outburst, Mario Saint-Supery found Tyon Grant-Foster on a baseline cut to the basket. The point guard tossed the ball up to Grant-Foster and watched the senior wing finish a lob dunk at the rim, restoring an 11-point lead for the Zags with six seconds remaining in the half.

With Ike and Huff in foul trouble, Gonzaga’s deep stable of bench players – headed by Grant-Foster, Saint-Supery and Jalen Warley – were able to pick up the slack and help the Zags avoid a late scare in their second WCC game and third road test. It was the closest margin of victory for Gonzaga this season, edging the team’s nine-point win against Oregon in a Dec. 21 nonconference finale.

Warley was active on both ends of the floor from the moment he subbed into the game all the way to the final buzzer. The senior wing, who redshirted last year after transferring from Virginia, led the Zags with a season-high 22 points and career-high 14 rebounds for his first career double-double. Warley, who picked up his fourth foul late in the second half, also had three steals.

“You’ve always got to celebrate a win, especially on the road when there’s a lot of great teams in this conference,” Warley said. “We definitely know there’s a lot of things we’ve got to improve on but at the end of the day, you’ve got to celebrate a win any chance you get.”

Days after leading Gonzaga in the scoring column against Pepperdine, Grant-Foster came off the bench to score 18 points and grab five rebounds. The Grand Canyon transfer finished 9 of 14 from the field and 3 of 6 from the free throw line.

Saint-Supery, who handed his starting spot over to junior Braeden Smith two days earlier, finished in double figures for the first time since Dec. 13 against UCLA and scored 14 points off the bench, making 3 of 6 shots from the 3-point line. Saint-Supery also had five assists.

No surprise, but Ike and Huff eventually found their groove, too. Huff continued his streak of double-digit scoring efforts, tallying 14 points on 7 of 11 shooting to go with eight rebounds. Ike, who returned to the floor early in the second half, had 11 points and nine rebounds. He didn’t miss from the field, going 5 of 5, but was also 1 of 5 from the free throw line.

Gonzaga came in as heavy favorites and led by as many 21 points, but San Diego used a late 8-0 scoring spurt to trim the advantage to eight points with 3 minutes, 12 seconds to play. The Zags scored 10 of the next 12 points to go up by 16, but the Toreros responded with another mini-run and Adrian McIntyre’s layup made it a five-point game with 11 seconds remaining.

The 93 points conceded by Gonzaga were the most since Michigan scored 101 in a 40-point drubbing of Few’s team in the championship game at the Players Era Festival. They also signified the most scored by San Diego against Gonzaga in 105 matchups between the longtime WCC foes. It was the first single-digit game between the Zags and Toreros since GU’s 77-72 win in 2018.

Wake Forest transfer Ty-Laur Johnson scored at least 20 points for the fourth time in five games for San Diego, totaling 21 points on 9 of 12 shooting. McIntyre had 12 points, seven rebounds and seven assists.

A busy stretch to open WCC play continues for Gonzaga (14-1, 2-0) on Friday against conference newcomer Seattle U. The Redhawks (12-3, 1-1) won their first WCC game Tuesday, beating Washington State 69-55. Tipoff between Gonzaga and Seattle U is scheduled for 6 p.m. and the game will air locally on KHQ as well as ESPN+.