‘They’re competing on the ball.’ Gonzaga’s defensive progress evident to opposing WCC coaches

Washington State’s David Riley saw Gonzaga on both sides of a defensive turnaround that began taking shape in the middle of January after consecutive losses to Oregon State and Santa Clara.

The Cougars dropped both regular-season games to the Zags, coming up short in an 88-75 loss on Jan. 11 at the McCarthey Athletic Center before falling 84-63 on Feb. 19 at Beasley Coliseum.

Gonzaga’s offensive production didn’t change much from one matchup to the next, but the Zags tapped into a new level of defensive focus and intensity when the teams met for a second time. The Cougars faced a three-point halftime deficit in Spokane but found themselves in a much larger hole, trailing 50-28 last month in Pullman.

“They’ve improved. They’ve got a great coaching staff, Mark (Few) is a great coach,” said Riley, who just finished his first regular season as WSU’s coach. “They’ve definitely taken steps. From my perspective, you can see it in the ball pressure and the way they’re competing on the ball. I thought that bothered us more this game than last game at their place, so that’s something that’s noticeable.”

Although WSU lost in double-digit fashion both times, the Cougars posted solid offensive numbers in the first matchup. WSU still shot 32 of 60 (53%) from the field and 8 of 21 (38%) from the 3-point line, but the Cougars were undone by their 16 turnovers.

In the second game, facing a Gonzaga team that was beginning to hit its stride on the defensive end, WSU was limited to 24-of-59 shooting (40%) from the field and the Cougars were held to their third-lowest point total in WCC play.

“Their numbers show it,” Riley said. “They are playing better defense.”

Opposing coaches in the WCC would agree.

“This is pretty typical of coach’s teams, they figure it out,” San Francisco’s Chris Gerlufsen said after the Dons’ initial meeting with Gonzaga in Spokane. “I would say the thing that stuck out is just their want to, their want to to get a stop, dig down and figure out a way to just cause a little chaos from an offensive standpoint for us.

“We did not do a good enough job of just continuing to move the ball and space them, but some of that’s a credit to them. A lot of that was a credit to them.”

Few, Gonzaga players and select support staff members are the only ones who could provide accounts of what transpired inside the Volkar Center practice facility between consecutive losses to Oregon State and Santa Clara and the team’s next outing six days later.

Still, it shouldn’t be difficult to determine what areas were emphasized by GU’s coaching staff after the Zags yielded 200 points to two opponents over a span of 72 hours.

During a three-game stretch against WSU, OSU and Santa Clara, Gonzaga conceded shooting percentages of 53.3%, 58.5% and 53.7%. It was the first time in 26 years under Few that three consecutive opponents shot better than 50% from the field.

With a single-game week ahead, Gonzaga had more time on the practice court to workshop new defensive ideas, strategies and rotation/lineup changes. The progress was apparent immediately.

All of the GU’s next four opponents were held under 40% from the field and up until a 95-75 win over San Francisco last Saturday at the Chase Center, none of the previous 10 had eclipsed 45%.

“We played them three weeks ago? I thought that’s the difference they’d made in that time,” Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett said after a 74-67 win at the Kennel. “They’ve got (Michael) Ajayi out there and he was really bringing something to the boards and defensively. Then they brought (Emmanuel) Innocenti in there and you could tell they ratcheted up their defense, personnel wise and their effort. They had (Graham) Ike guarding hard, getting out on the floor.

“Going into this game I said, they’re a lot bigger on the boards now, they’re playing harder defensively and it’s going to be a tough game.”

Through Gonzaga’s first seven conference games, four opponents scored at least 80 points. Since their two-game stretch against Oregon State and Santa Clara, the Zags have held each of their past 11 opponents under 80, containing teams to 65.2 points per game.

“Mark’s a great coach. He knows we’ve got some issues in certain things and they’re long enough, they’re athletic enough,” Pacific coach Dave Smart said after the Tigers were contained to 20 points in the first half of a 78-61 loss to GU in Stockton. “Ironically, other teams press in a similar way. That’s how we score, because we can find gaps. With them, there’s just not a lot of advantages that we can take advantage of without hindering what we have in the first row of the pressure.

“Whereas with other teams, they’re either a lot weaker in the back row or a lot weaker in the front row. So if they’re a lot weaker in the front row, we can move one of our main guys into the back row and attack their back row.

“If they’re weak in the back row, we can still attack the back row because they’re weak and we get opportunities that we don’t usually get in the halfcourt.”

Gonzaga’s adjusted defensive efficiency was No. 60 nationally at KenPom.com on the morning of Jan. 19, one day after the Bulldogs gave up 103 points to Santa Clara at the Kennel.

Heading into the WCC Tournament, where GU will be the No. 2 seed and open on Monday night against an opponent still to be determined, the Zags are up to No. 35 in adjusted defense.

More than one month after his team set an opponent Kennel scoring record, Santa Clara coach Herb Sendek watched the Broncos cough up the ball 17 times and shoot just 11 of 30 (36%) from inside the 3-point line in Gonzaga’s 95-76 win at the Leavey Center last week.

“They changed some things they were doing defensively to really take away the 3,” Sendek said. “We had a tough time finishing at the rim subsequently.”