That’s what is on my wishlist. I think losing Manny hurts more than we thought. He has given a good spark off the bench as an inside/out presence.

Working with what we’ve got, we have to establish an offensive presence inside, and Bouldin has to move better without the ball to get open for the three. The ball movement was atrocious last night, particularly when it became evident that we were going to settle for keeping it around the perimeter and take forced shots, or simply turn the ball over.

I would also wish to have the Zags in San Jose at this point since Spokane is completely out of the picture. I guess that might be wishful thinking at this point, but with few good teams out west, wouldn’t the NCAA want to keep somebody on the west coast that will draw? You can’t send Cal, St Mary’s, GU, Utah State, maybe UW, maybe SDSU, etc… all away, can you?

But I would say the main issue we need to fix is getting Elias some better looks. Whenever he is not being double-teamed, he can make a shot from anywhere on the court. Unless a shooter like Matt or Steve is stroking it that night, Elias should be our first option every time down the floor. Unlike Sacre, he can actually pass out of a double-team in the post to find an open shooter (as long as Meech isn’t in) on the perimeter

I would also love to see Bol more involved with the offense now that Manny is down. Remember that stellar performance he had against LMU? He didn’t get one shot in 13 minutes of work last night. Obviously I’m not asking for 12 points a game from Bol but it would be nice to see him have Manny-like effectiveness: 15-20 minutes, 6-9 points, and 3-5 rebounds.

1) Getting back to dominating the first 10 minutes of the second half
2) Getting the ball to Harris, but be smart about it (doesn’t do anybody good when he already has a double team on the block as he gets the ball)
3) Run the team through Bouldin – except he seems tired and pressing. Over the past 3 or 4 games, I’ve started to wonder if Few told him to hold back or something – its like watching a totally different player. The offense is run through Gray a lot more, with Bouldin as the spot shooter. Maybe few just finally figured out a rotation for the bench guys to just mix around who’s the alpha.

Random assortment of thoughts:
-today still sucks
-I’m still rather confident in this team. Last year, once the brackets were announced, it was like rooting for a strawman. UNC was a buzzsaw and everybody saw it coming. This year, they play good defense (have they played better, as a team, in the past five or six years? Not looking at stats, but I can’t remember them having done so), and while they press and have a difficult time figuring out defense sometimes, they have three solid options and up until last night, have proven adaptable.
-having said that, they’re young. They played better than I thought this year, and it’s been incredible to follow. If they lose, they lose and Bouldin leaves and everyone else is, hopefully, back with another year of experience.

Two words: floor spacing.

I would like to see a better gameplan/adjustments in the game. It is obvious that Few struggles (to put lightly) to adjust to what opponents do well during the game to stop Gonzaga.

I would like to see a sense of urgency, a team that refuses to lose. Last night when Gonzaga started falling apart, it just seemed like they didnt care or that the whole team just knew they were going to come back.

Play from your heart, play like Turiuf and they just may advance in the tourn.

Even if we go one and done, if we at least do so by giving it our all I will be happy. Bmd23red is right, this season has exceeded our expectations in many respects and we should look at it as a good year. That being said, the Zags have shown a lot of weaknesses the last few games. I could speculate as to whether that is because of the coaching or the players, injuries or just plain being tired, but I won’t. All that matters now is taking it one game at a time and making sure you leave everything on the floor. I was fortunate (or unfortunate depending on how you see it) enough to be in Vegas for the games and the only thing worse than watching St. Mary’s storm the floor was thinking that we could have put so much more into that game, could have played so much better. But we didn’t, so we move on.

And honestly, whether we play in Spokane or not, we still have to beat good teams to advance. We still have to show up and give it our all to compete, and at least if we do that then we aren’t left with any “what-ifs” or “if-only’s” or “God dammit that bald asshole ref Ken Ditty literally got every single call wrong tonight, I bet him and Omar HamSammich are gonna meet up at Chippendales later to celebrate.”

Ok i’m done. Go Zags.

1. Get the major wounds healed
2. Get the minor injuries healed
3. Focus on winning every possession
4. Show no mercy

“Conan! What is best in life?

Losing Manny was big. But early in the season he hardly touched the court. Matt has vanished as the leader and I don’t understand why I see Steven taking the ball up the court. Kelly had a ton of productive minutes early on but now he is a ghost. The defense is completely on or off game to game. Where is any consistency? At this point in the season the rotation should be solid. The defense should be set in stone. Every game I watch is a different lineup and strategy. We have all the talent in the world but the guidance seems inconsistant. Early in the season we had sets to free up Elias for his one on one shakedowns. Why did that go away when it worked so well. Why is Rob the primary option now? Meech has too many minutes when the offense flows much better through Matt. I love watching each and every one of these players but my god, the consistency sucks. There seems to be nothing solid. We are 10X better than we are playing.

The good news is the league is over, and the Zags haven’t lost two in a row, this team has exceeded all expectations of any sane person, and as the article stated, the sun rose over all of Zagdom. My wife, after attending every home game since McCarthey opened, is getting to the point that I do not like watching games the Zags lose with her. Granted they have been few and far between, but she, like a lot of Zagealots, think that the Zags should never lose, and never, never get blown out. I on the other hand, have never personally played D1 basketball. I have never coached D1 basketball. I never watch college basketball until I went to college. I ended up at the University of Wyoming in time to see the Cowboys win the former WAC twice in three years. We had a guy named Charles Bradley who schooled a guy named Danny Ainge on how to win championships. When I first started watching the Zags Bradley was coaching LMU. It fired me up about college basketball. I end up in Spokane, and became friends with a GU professor who would take me to games in the Martin Center. All of us had to stand up the entire game because on the north side, the students stood the whole game and you could not see the north side of the floor. It was better then because the Zags were not on TV and the games had a natural flow, rather than all of timeouts we have now. I sympathize with the coaches on how to try to influence the momentum of the games because of the disruptions. Anyways, I think the upcoming tournament is going to be a lot of fun to watch. Will Bouldin rise to the occaision? Will Gray continue to Sacrefice his body for the team? Will Kong be forced to rise to a higher level? Will Meech just say “piss on it” and take over a portion of a game?
Peace and God Bless

Hey ZB, where’s EDZ? Always looking forward to a comment from him. Is he allright? At the risk of starting a bloodfest, I wish GU had Austin. Off to the Tacoma Dome!

…I think we all gotta remember that the Zags were not expected to do well at all with this year’s “rebuilding team”…started out being ranked about 144th in the rpi & in the course of the season hit the top-ten twice (then lost) in the other polls. GU, in the past, has always done their best as a cinderella team…that was the Maui Tourney this year. The opposing coaches didn’t have a grip on this new Zag team and weren’t prepared for us…hence, we did well early-on. As the season progressed, opponents got somewhat a grip on this young team & figured us out…kudos to Coach K & Randy Bennett :( Also, we seem to do well after a silly loss…so now, here we sit: the “team that is flailing” without anyone’s expectations (spells ‘cinderella’ to me) & coming offa big loss (spells ‘big-win’ to me). I see next week Matt gets on track, Stephen stays hot & Elias goes ballistic, Few counters these other coaches…and the Zags surprise once again with a coupla wins in the Dance.

And please…don’t berate a very talented St. Mary’s team. Instead, pray for them to make a run in the Tourney…it only makes the Zags look that much better, but most of all the WCC, whom everyone thinks a weak conference…hence the ridiculous SOS of the Zags this year, despite a very tough non-conference schedule. St. Mary’s can kick-butt & if they play anyone with the intensity of the other night, no one can beat them…so go easy on them…they’re our brothers in arms.

So, to make a long post even longer, heh heh, here’s my big wish:

Gonzaga & St. Mary’s meet up in the Final 4 & amaze the whole friggin’ country…GO ZAGS! Im a dreamer, I know…but don’t give up the faith.

What kind of sportsman is Randy Bennett, allowing Samham to not shack hands prior to each of there games. We know Samham is a hot headed kid, whats up with the coach, I’m sure there is no requirement to do so, but what kind of statement do we want to send in this conference? Now we know. Can’t wait till next season, go ZAGS

I wish the best for the zags (naturally!) but also hope Saint Mary’s does really well. Despite my avid hatred for Omar “The Most Hated Man in Spokane” Samhan, I would LOVE to see him drop 35 points on some higher seeded team and get past the first round. As a person I don’t like him at all, but I would love to see the WCC get some more credit in March.

by Gonzaga fans and teammates. That being said, I am confident Bouyldin & Co. will step come March Madness. tZags just wasn’t as hungry as St. Mary’s and it was obvious.
They didn’t tank they just got beat, and were beat up by LMU the night before it showed.
Gonzaga will be well rested by the time the tournament starts.

Three key items of note:
1) Selection Committe does not put much credence into the conference tourneys, save automatic bids and elimination of teams. This is at least true of major programs and regular season champions of major conferences. I figure we will soon find out if the committee considers Gonzaga a major program now instead of simply the best/most consistent of mid-major programs.

2) As I have posted before and others, Gonzaga plays to the level of competition, beta themselves more often than being defeated by opponents, Gonzaga plays excellent on nuetral courts and no team is more battle-proven on the road than the Gonzaga Bulldogs, so whether we are ranked 5th -7th, I know Gonzaga will reach the Sweet Sixteen and beyond, in fact I would rather Gonzaga be ranked 6th or 7th as that would mean facing the 2 or 3 seed rather than the 1st seed early on as the 4th or 5th seed does.

3) This season gonzaga has never lost two in a row, in fact they always rebounded with a vengance, I fear for the sake of Gonzaga’s next opponent in the first round, as they will be dominated, part of me is hoping, (not as much as Elias, Bouldin, & Co. though) it will be Wake Forest.

side note: there was one positive silver lining to Gonzaga as I recall, Gonzaga will get some revenue from St. Mary’s entering the tournament, just as all WCC teams get a divided share of each round advanced by in conference teams.

as well as all of the WCC teams for both Gonzaga and St. Mary’s to reach the Sweet Sixteen. It woould give more credibility to future wins, RPI scores/rankings, TV, SOS, etc…
There may come a season where the Zags will need the WCC conference to look strong in order to get into the dance,
Not Next Year though as #11 consecutive titles will be Gonzaga’s with Gray (Sr), Harri (So), Sacre(Jr), Meech(Jr), Arop(So), Kong(Jr), Olynyk(So), Villarino(So), Gibbs(So) with the full season of experience thay have under their belt, playing together, and the influx of talent coming in.

For now though focus on books, exams, research papers, & practice for the Tournament is about to begin!