No. 9 Gonzaga keeping it simple ahead of high-stakes home finale against Portland: ‘Just win’

Gonzaga’s Graham Ike hadn’t put a great deal of thought into what it will feel like to take the court at McCarthey Athletic Center for the 41st and final time Wednesday night.

It’s understandable when you consider everything else probably weighing on the forward’s mind entering a high-stakes, high-pressure home finale against Portland.

“I haven’t really thought about it yet because we’re not there yet,” Ike said Saturday after a 71-62 win over Pacific. “Try to just keep myself in the moment, if I get outside where my feet are it tends to be bad for me. So I have not thought about it yet. When we get there, we’ll see what happens.”

Wednesday’s schedule of events in Spokane will start with pregame Senior Night festivities. If all goes according to plan, the evening will culminate with Gonzaga locking up the No. 1 seed at the West Coast Conference Tournament, lifting a trophy and celebrating a share of its first regular-season championship since 2023.

Standing in the way of all that? The only team not named Michigan to deal the ninth-ranked Zags a loss in 2025-26.

Three weeks removed from an 87-80 loss at the Chiles Center that marked one of the most surprising results of Mark Few’s tenure, Gonzaga (27-2, 15-1) welcomes Portland (12-17, 5-11) to the Kennel for a 6 p.m. (KHQ/ESPN+) tipoff.

The message from Gonzaga’s coach before the most consequential game of the season to this point?

“Just win, just win,” Few said. “We just need to win at this time of year. You just need to win.”

How the Zags plan to carry out that goal Wednesday night, in the wake of their Feb. 4 loss to the Pilots?

“I guess we shall see,” Ike said.

The Zags need one win from their final two games – Wednesday against Portland or Saturday against Saint Mary’s – to clinch the top seed at the WCC Tournament. Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s and Santa Clara are guaranteed to account for the top three seeds in some order, but the No. 1 seed comes with significantly greater value this season than in years past.

The Zags, Gaels and Broncos are a combined 39-1 against the nine other teams in the WCC – the only blemish being Gonzaga’s unexpected trip-up at Portland. Despite what head-to-head records say, Santa Clara and Saint Mary’s remain Gonzaga’s toughest contenders in the WCC and clinching the No. 1 seed guarantees Few’s team wouldn’t face either until the championship game.

First the Zags have to get through Portland – something that hadn’t proven too difficult for Few’s teams at Gonzaga until the latest encounter earlier this month.

Freshman sensation Joel Foxwell beat most of the defensive coverages Gonzaga threw at him and scored 27 points on 11-of-18 shooting to go with eight assists. Ike managed to put up 24 points and 10 rebounds, but Gonzaga didn’t play to its strengths otherwise and settled for 30 3-point attempts – 11 more than its season average.

Portland led by 15 points with seven minutes to play, held off a desperate rally from Gonzaga in the closing minutes and rode an incendiary shooting night – 32 of 54 (59%) from the field – to the program’s first victory over a top-10 team and first win over the Zags since 2014.

Gonzaga’s recovered on the court and in the national rankings, reeling off five straight wins to climb back up to No. 5 in the NET rankings and No. 9 in the Associated Press Top 25.

Players have said most of the right things in the lead-up to Wednesday’s game, but also stayed relatively coy when asked how they’d approach the rematch with Portland.

“Like every other game,” junior wing Emmanuel Innocenti said. “As (Ike) said, you’ll see on Wednesday.”

The Pilots had lost three straight going into the first Gonzaga game and enter Wednesday’s matchup in a similar spot. Portland’s recent three-game slide includes losses to the San Diego and Pepperdine teams currently occupying the bottom two spots in the WCC standings.

Coming out of the Gonzaga win, Foxwell struggled in Portland’s next two games, scoring 15 combined points on 4-of-22 shooting. The freshman rebounded to score 55 points in the next two games, making 18 of 35 shots against Pepperdine and Seattle U.

Ike’s bound to get the biggest ovation of the seniors honored on Wednesday – a group that could also include Tyon Grant-Foster, Adam Miller, Jalen Warley and Steele Venters – and the forward will try to extend his streak of 20-point games after narrowly reaching that total against Pacific.

Lower on the list of storylines Wednesday is Ike’s push for WCC Player of the Year honors. The forward may be leading all candidates at the moment, averaging a league-high 19.9 points to go with 8.4 rebounds on the season. Ike’s had at least 20 points in nine straight games dating back to Jan. 8 against Santa Clara.