Random thoughts:

Tough to win against a team shooting lights out from all over the court. I don’t think any of their shots hit the rim. The microphone on that net amplified every swish.

Tough to see your team seemingly figure out how to attack their zone defense using your strengths, and then either go away from that gameplan, or see the other team make adjustments to negate your advantage.

Tough to see our players struggle. Matt was mostly ineffective, a non factor. Gray couldn’t get any shots going. Meech was bad. Kelly O was HORRIBLE in the first half. Yeah, Harris and BobSac had a great 10 minutes, but then got shut down.

As the original post mentioned, we had this game in control and within reach for 10-12 minutes of that first half, and then the wheels fell off… and that’s the most frustrating thing for me to see. In 3 straight possessions I think Syracuse hit two 3-ptrs and a 2-ptr, and we came away with nothing. It went from a 6 point lead to 14 in a BLINK. And we had no answer, we seemingly made no adjustments on defense, and we seemed to go away from what was working on offense.

Syracuse is a GREAT team, but I don’t know how anyone could beat a team shooting like that. I thought we had some good defensive possessions, and put a hand up in front of their 3 point shooters…

…but on the other hand, we got burned by the thing that’s seemed to burn us all year – inability to rotate out and defend a three. [or, maybe we just had no shot at winning with them shooting 50% from downtown.]

I know, it’s hard to end the season satisfied – 63/64 teams lose. If we had to lose, I wish that every season would end like it did in 2003 – going up against a great team, putting up an amazing fight, and coming up just short. It’s “satisfying”, in a crude kind of way. Unfortunately, that’s rare, and it didn’t happen today. And it sucks.

and on an unrelated note, I’m sick of seeing the 60 minutes advertisement for the Bryan Brothers.

Is that the “how can you beat a team that gets that hot” argument is what gets rolled out every time we lose. We seem to always give up career highs, and today was no exception.

We’ve been getting torched from outside for a decade now, and there never seems to be an adjustment.

Yeah. It’s been impossible to figure out Matt all year, especially after the concussion.

There really isn’t much more to be said about this game. Kind of a replay of last year. We needed more of our players to play well and just didn’t get it.

I would like to see us get a shooter. Someone that isn’t necessarily a great athlete, but can rain it from three. I think that would complement the inside game of Rob and E and Gray’s slashing game very nicely. Maybe Kong can fill that role. Somehow St. Mary’s manages to get loads of them….

Nice choice of photo for the story. The look on Elias’ face when he went out said it all.

Time to put the countdown clock for next season back up.

With the game out of hand, Few should have given big Will an opportunity to say goodbye.

I have never seen a worse guard. He shoots 50% from the line and his assist to turner-over ratio is horrific. As for him being a great defender that is completely false the only people he can defend is guards from the WCC; any guard with any real talent schools him (just like today giving up 27 points). The only real talent he has is being fast and that does nothing when he always out of control.

Lay ups are the one thing we did well. It’s the reason we shot 50 % for the year. It’s the reason Elias and Sacre were our leading scorers for this game. Getting lay ups hasn’t been a problem all season, and it wasn’t a problem this game.

The three ball, on the other hand, that’s where we need work. It seems anytime we get into a pressure situation, our outside shot just disappears. It has been inconsistent all year, and today it was downright terrible.

I think the truth about today’s game is that you won’t get far without a consistent outside game, and the only chance we had at upsetting Syracuse was going to be beating or at least matching them from the outside. Northern Iowa knocked out Kansas because they held them to under 30 % from the three point line. Saint Mary’s beat Villanova because they exploited them inside while making enough 3’s themselves to negate Novas. We lost this game because their shooters caught fire and couldn’t miss, where we shot 14 % from three point land. Part of that was because our D was just a little slow getting out on their shooters, part of that was because they were simply on fire the whole game. In the end though, it was the 36 points they scored from deep, not the 38 points we scored in the paint, that lost us the game.

It’s a bummer that there is only one team in the field of 65 that gets to end its season on a positive note.

I don’t know who could have beat Syracuse today. It’s time to look forward.

Gonzaga lacks it. Yes they played “defense” against FSU, but FSU sucks on offense. No credit to the Zags.

Bouldin is NOT going to the NBA now. No reason too. Pressure moment against NBA talent? Fail.

Also, have to agree with some comments in the in-game chat…. I feel like we have plateaued under Few. Maybe he’ll move on and give Giacoletti a shot at being a head coach again. He understands to pound the ball inside to win: Andrew Bogut, for example.

It’s just annoying how we play “competition” in the non-conference stuff, but all of the teams that we beat, end up flailing in the regular season/conference tournaments. Wisconsin lost to Cornell, MSU pulled out a buzzer beater against a great Maryland team, Cincinnati didn’t go anywhere and same with Illinois.

Let’s just hope that Elias stays. That look on his face at the end of the game makes me believe that he will, but who knows.

… am extremely excited for next year. Can’t wait. It’ll be awesome.

After last year’s loss, I thought it was the end of the world. We were losing 4 solid players and had no idea what we’d end up with the following year. In turned out that the Zags beat all preseason expectations. It was a good season. The ending was disappointing because we knew that Bouldin and Gray didn’t play up to their potential. We know they could play better, because we’ve seen them play better.

Despite the good year, this team really wasn’t that deep — lots of talent, but extremely young. We had 4 solid guys, but a lot of question marks after that. Hell, even the top guys were question marks half the time. Next year, we won’t have Bouldin, but the young guys will have had a year under their belts, and from past experience, that means a lot.

Elias always came up big in big games. We should get him back. Rob was arguably our most consistent contributor during the last few weeks. He’ll be back. Steven … is Steven. He’ll be back. We’ll get Sam going. It’ll be great.

  To me its very simple. There is one characteristic I have seen plague Gonzaga in most of these situations spoken about and I notice it even in games we win or “survive”. Sometimes this comes with a large lead or sometimes it comes with a small lead, like today, but I see it ALL the time and it drives me nuts! There is a mental switch that happens (for and endless debatable amount of reasons why) that makes them start “playing not to loose” instead of “playing to win”. To me it is so obvious in a game when they go into this mental trance. With either style of play it is INFECTIOUS for good or bad. The best way to spread anything through the body is the heart. Today the heart (Matt) was barely pumping and we saw the result. He has been an exceptional player for Gonzaga and will be missed, hate to see the kid go out on this game. How to keep the team from going into a “not to loose” mentality during a game (big stage or not) I have no idea. I have know idea how you teach that or if it can be taught. I would like to see Few, Rice, etc. figure that out. If they (coaches) cant stop it from happening (because it seems to be human nature in some way) at least NOTICE it when it does, IMMEDIATELY,(waiting a possession or two proves to be to dam late over and over!) call a time out and fix it. Letting it continue and hoping it takes care of itself or “works it self out” is what our staff seams to do often. They don’t always fall into this “not to loose” style of play and we can see the result, MAUI wins, Illinois, Memphis, F state etc. But when they do fall into it, its usually a disaster and it hasn’t been just this year. I have know idea how to fix it, just an observation.

We need a nasty play-making guard, the current guys to stay healthy and work their butts off this summer, and better days are ahead for sure.

Disappointed about today – hell yes
Excited for the future – hell yes
Go Zags!

Not enough has been said about the terrible coaching that occurs during games. I think Mark Few has amazing qualities as a head coach. He recruits well, schedules well, he develops players well, and he can even game plan well. However, his in game coaching has been horrendous! Elmore had it right on the call yesterday. Why weren’t we pressing their shooters? Our defensive strategy and adjustments were not to be seen. Rob and Elias stepped up, and our guards did not. Fine, but Few needs to make sure that a cold Bouldin doesn’t go 0-6! Boudlin shoots well from the outside when he does other things well. Few needed to have both bouldin and Gray drive inside, even a little bit. But we were content to swing the ball around and have Meech shoot 2 threes! WTF!

I want Few to develop as a coach, I really do. But maybe he will not develop that last, important part of his skill set at Gonzaga. In game adjustments are exponentially more important in the Tournament.

All that said, I still love Few and he is still my coach. It is just frustrating at times.

First the game. Well to me it was clear, as many of you have said, Syracuse shot lights out, for many reasons. One they had some open looks early. They knocked them down and gained some confidence. Then late…well they just couldn’t miss…wheater someone was in their face or not. Syracuse is a great team…a complete team. They have a superstar, Wes Johnson, Shooter, Routins, Big men and great role players. I think they are the best team in all collage Bball and I think they will win it all…If that happens then the Zags have been knocked out two years in a row by the champion.

Looking to next year:
1. Will Few have an open compotion for the point guard spot? This year I think he had Meech in for so much for his defense and the fact that Matt couldn’t guard most PG’s. Next year slip Arop or Kong into Matt’s starting position and do we need a defense only player in there? Few knew that Mat WAS the PG on the team and got them into sets and got the offense working. Can Meech be the man? I would like to see an open compition at least. I think Villarino looks like much more of a complete PG and player. When SU didn’t even try to guard Meech, you know you have problems. It was 4 v 5 against the best zone defense in the nation. You can’t win like that. Next years team needs a point guard b/c that is what they lost in Matt.

2. Rotation
The rotation was off all year and I know that is mostly b/c of young talent that was there one game and not the next. But, next years team will have this whole offseason to work and play together. Few should have a defined rotation next year, so the players know what is expected of them and when to expect to play.

3. Next years starting line-up: (This probably diserves it’s own thred…and probably will have one soon enough)
Who do you have starting? I like
1 GJ (Meech)
2 Gray
3 (Kong or Arop) I really don’t know
4 Harris (Olynyk)
5 Sacre (Dower)

That’s 9 guys. I wouldn’t play any more. You could have Harris move to the 3 and go big as well. I think this team needs to define itself and after yesterday’s game I think we all know that this team is and inside first team.

4. Conference
Someone said it earlier and I couldn’t agree more. If Gonzaga wants to be a FF or Championship Team they need a new conference. They don’t need Football to be in a big conference. Notre Dame is a Best East basketball only team. Why couldn’t the Zags be a basketball only Pac-10 team? Or Mountain West team? They need a better conference to get more respect from the NCAA comittee to get better seeding. (And yes the selection comittee did a horrible job seeding this year.) Don’t tell me Richmond had a better resume than the Zags or Xavier for that matter. But they got a better seed than the Zags.

Overall I am pleased with this years Zags. They were young and played like a young team. They had some up’s and downs, but I still love my Zags. I am excitted to see what happens in the off-season and am looking forward to next season.

Thanks to Matty B, Big Will, and P-Magg for everything!

Go Zags