NCAA Tournament Recap: Zags' glimpse of brilliance falls flat against BYU

But it never feels good when your team goes out in this tournament. It’s alway abrupt and uber painful with lots of second guessing. All in all, I think this team showed some promising growth at the end of the season and this year was a success.

BYU had the star power and Gonzaga ultimately did not. Though the margin of defeat was large, it appeared as though it would have taken the Dream Team to stop the Jimmers on Saturday.

I think this year was the final page in a passing chapter for GU basketball. I believe our recruiting has grown to a level where we will have these game changing players on our roster. It’s true all the pundits were talking up GU and that is HUGE for us. Getting that much mind share on Thurs/Fri/Sat of opening weekend during the tourney, yes please?

I had to wait until today to write so that I could think straight:
1) The BYU coach said this was the best game the’y’d played all year. That was my feeling as well. Everything they threw up seemed to go in…especially in the 2nd half.
2) I didn’t feel Gonzaga played THAT bad…although in the 2nd half it was odvious that BYU was packing the paint so GU needed to hit some threes to open things up rather than constantly turning it over by trying to either feed the bigs down low or driving the lane (Steven)
3) Marquis Carter, if he misses his first couple of shots, tends to go into the tank.
4) Meech was the only one who handchecked Jimmer, and he didn’t like it. If Meech could have kept from making stupid fouls, things may have turned out differenty. My perception was that Jimmer didn’t score that much while Meech was guarding him.
5) I’m stoked for next year with the new incoming recruits we have coming in. Go Zags!

All I can say is 13 years straight in the tourney is a feat in itself no mater what conference you play in. I was amazed when the Zags turned it around late in the season and managed to make the tourney at all. Then the win over St. John’s gave me confidence and hope even if short lived. Thanks for the season guys. It had it’s ups and downs but the streak is still alive. Looking forward to next year. Steven, thanks for 4 years of entertainment and representing this university on and off the court like a class act. You will be missed.

Our season always seems to end this way, year after year. One year it’s a Steph, this year it’s a Jimmer. I would agree our team needs some rock-solid three poiint shooters. However, you can’t argue with 13 consecutive appearances in the tourney.! As one ESPN sportscaster mentioned, the Zags used to be the Cinderella team, and now they’re just expected to be there. I too always look forward to “next year”, and as always, I am most proud to be a Gonzaga fan. Thanks Zags for another exciting season.

Let’s be honest, we got beat and beat badly. I don’t have any solutions so I will not offer any.
I would like to make the point that the BYU fans, while loud and rowdy during game, were very gracious after the game. I was at the game and went into Denver after the game. Not once did I hear them make a comment towards me or any other GU fan about the loss.
You have to give them some credit. We all know SMC fans, or any other school, would not be like this.

But we just got beat. Badly.

Overall, I’m ok with how the year turned out (not only making the tournament, but winning a game in convincing fashion).

I really hope that somebody emerges as a big time, go to guy on offense next season. Harris slumped, and Sacre was solid but not outstanding offensively. Maybe GBJ will emerge as a go-to star in the next few years.

I was disappointed with the lost against BYU, as I thought we would play better. Give a lot of credit to BYU, they played an excellent game and took advantage of their strengths against us. It will be fun having them joining the WCC next season.

With that said, I wanted to thank the Zags for putting together a memorable season for all of us. There was a lot of adversity this year, and it would have been easy for this team to just "shut down" and take it as bad luck and let this season slide. The team didn’t do that, and they fought and clawed themselves back into contention in the WCC and won some big games in the process. Winning the WCC Tournament was great and we did it with grit and determination! I believe we would have been out of the NCAA tournament had we lost that final game with St. Mary’s. Congratulations to the team for an excellent year and one I will remember and cherish for a long time.

It’s also the end of an illustrious career for Steven Gray at Gonzaga. When he arrived at GU with Austin and Rob, it was apparent that these 3 young men were going to change the face of Gonzaga basketball. I would have loved to have seen Austin playing with us on Saturday against BYU. He would have been unstoppable his senior season. Steven has always been one of my favorite players. His tenacious defense and the ease of his offensive game really is a thing of beauty. I’m going to miss seeing him on the court and I wish him best of luck in his future endeavors. His contributions to the GU basketball program are immense and we’re all very proud of you!

I’m sure there will be a lot of talk about next year in the upcoming months. But, based on the recently completed season, I’m very optimistic for the future. I think Marquise and Meech will provide senior leadership and stability to the team in the backcourt. Our bigs are that "BIG" and we’ll be a force to contend with next season. I expect Rob to come back even better than this year and Elias will be literally unstoppable next season. I see Kelly and Sam developing into awesome players with the year of experience under their belts. My only concern is the play of Hoff, Keita, and Manny. These are 3 talented players who should be playing at a much higher level. If they make a commitment to the program, then to me the sky is the limit! Rest up guys! Congratulations and thanks, again, for a memorable season!

What a game BYU played against us! It was disheartening to see all those threes raining down on our team. We got trounced and trounced good.
Is there any team in the tournament that could overcome such an onslaught?
I can’t hardly believe that BYU could play another game that well. They could almost do no wrong. Even some of the the shots they missed bounced and went in.
4 more games. If they can do that four more times, they will be taking the trophy home. I’m rooting for them to go all the way. I’m from eastern WA and at this time of the year I root for any team this side of the Rockies. And against Big East and ACC.
Much as it pains me to say this, Go Cougars!

You would think some might learn something over the course of a season? Robbed in the big game’s, horrible refs and too high of an altitude, our guys are better than they are, they were just lucky with their shots? Rob and E to the NBA? KO the next Austin Daye? MM and MK stars of the future? Guard play solved with MC and Meech, with a little DS thrown in? Manny?

So here it is Zaggers. If KO, Rob, MC, DS, Meech, MM, MK don’t get any better on the defensive end before next season starts, look for the same results! I didn’t include Sam because he’s progressed evenly all year. I didn’t include Manny because I think he’s gone and why should I include Mike Hart? Let’s see what we have coming back………….

A post player with deer paws for hands, another 7 footer that is an average player at best and the poorest (toss up between him and E) “D” player on the team, a talented scoring 3/4 wing with zero defensive skills, 3 guards that would not start or even play alot for many good teams. A bench post player who might be the best overall player on the team and is developing, 2 obscure foreign players possibly waisting scholarships and a walk-on (best “D” player on the team?) and let’s not forget Manny, a player lost in space!

What a foundation! It is fixable, but limited based on the talent, or lack there of. As I said at the beginning of the year and say again now, you must have great guard play to advance outside our league. You must have a strong inside game to compete with the big boys in college. Finally, you must be fundementally sound on both ends of the court and mentally tough to overcome what we didn’t against BYU.

As much as I like ALL these players, the facts are most of them are not very good. Oh yes, they have some 1 dimensional talents but most are lacking the complete package. Our problem is they’re Zags and we have a tendency to overlook their flaws. Case in point………………..DS and Mike Hart (walk ons) playing much more time than scholarship players? Could you point out to me how many teams that are still in the NCAA tourney have that in their resume?

6 years ago, I saw a HS player that I thought would develop into the best combo guard ever to come out of the State of Wa. , Steven Gray! He got bigger just not better. Just shows how hard it is to pick players for scholarships as Soph’s and Juniors or even Seniors in HS. Well, I’m at it again. Gary Bell…………….is our best recruit ever! No one knows what’s in store for our future play but it’s quite obvious to me that a little better sifting of tallent pool is in order to avance.

Looking forward to next seson and will check back from time to time to see if there’s any news on new recruits or transfers, Lord willing. Stay safe and healthy, Zaggers!

as well as experienced sophmores in Dower & Stockton;

Seniors: Sacre, Goodson & Carter
Juniors: Harris & Olynick

players such as Arop & Manninghoff have time to grow.

Next season we do need that go-to outside shooter, Elias could be that guy, but he needs to get leaner, without giving up his strength, he needs a quicker first step.

Sacre needs to learn how to score inside without getting blocked from behind so much.

at the start of the second half, 3 of them in the first two minutes put the game out of reach for us against BYU.

and I do not think Gonzaga’s PG by committee will work [outside the WCC].

Goodson & Carter graduate next season, so hopefully that will be a factor in recruiting a top PG & SG. Stockton will be a reliable backup for hte next three seasons, and who knows as he gets stronger [maybe even grow a copule of inches…a.k.a. Mr. David Robinson grew 5 inches while in college, it could happen].

Front Court

&

Free Throw Shooting Percentage

weaknesses:

Perimeter defense, outside shooting, assist to turnover ratio.

we make great passes then make the moststupidest turnovers in consecutive possessions usually.

As a mere 16 year old Zag fan, I’m going to attempt to articulate my thoughts on the BYU game, as well at the season as a whole. I’ll keep it ACTUALLY short. BYU got hot, and you can’t guard four 3-pt shooters playing straight man, much less when you’re trying to do some sort of double-team shut down on a player. It was mentioned before, you can’t stop Jimmer from pulling up from 22 feet in transition. You can’t. If we had tried that, he would’ve had 20 points in layups from blowing by us. The kid is a shooting freak. He could shoot from Mars and drain it in the MAC. It’s so tough to stomach this loss, but hopefully our guys have some motivation for conference play next year against the newly named BYU Cougars (formally the Jimmers). With the probably return of everyone but Steve and Manny, this team looks to be one of the best in recent memory, and I’m ecstatic to see the results when the time comes.

Difficult loss, but still a great come back from January. I’m proud of the guys and the coaching staff. I’ll remember the St. John’s victory long after I forget about the BYU loss. Somehow beating a Big East team by a hefty margin on national TV felt good. I think most college basketball fans would recognize the hot hand Jimmer had Saturday night…and that most teams would not have an answer either. I think Mike from Squim was way too harsh about this years roster. No one likes to loose but we still had CHARACTER. So, to the team, and especially to our lone senior Steven Gray, thanks for a great season….you all made the winter months in Poulsbo just a little easier to get past. Have a great summer. Can’t wait ’till fall!
GO ZAGS!!!

A HUGE thanks to Zach and Max and Greg for their tireless work on this blog and their sense of fair play to allow all of the different opinions on specific topics, pro or con to even their posts! Thank you for your professionalism……………….that above all is why I enjoy this site vs the others.

Have a great Summer and keep us infrmed of players on the rise….thats for me so I can convince the Grump to go see them.

Mike and Jeanette

I feel a bit sorry for Few. He is obviously a very good recuiter. Despite what others have mentioned about our lack of talent on this team alone he signed a German national team player (E), two Canadian national team players (kelly and Rob), one of the best Highschool players in the state in 07 (SG), one of the best non D1 players in the country (MC)…That being said I really feel that talent is not the issue. The issue is that Few is just not a very good game coach. Probably not a very good practice coach either, but I have no proof of that except that he has been unable to devise a strategy to defend the 3. This cannot be overlooked. This is a SERIOUS flaw. The proof of game coaching errors are as simple as can be. Substitutions. Why take kelly out midway through the first half right when he hits 2 shots and the high low is seriously screwing with BYU inside! Why not take a timeout RIGHT AWAY to halt the run at the beginning of the second half! Is he saving the TOs until we are down by 15 or 20? Arrrhhhh!…there is so much more…but I want to forget about it because it is never going to change. ever.
Sad Zags fan, God Bless.

1.) Would Bol Kong have been huge this season/against? I know it’s hard to claim hypothetical advantages in sports, but when it comes to discussions of whether Mark Few could have done a better job with this team, we have to acknowledge the whole situation. He had a highly regarded recruit who was supposed to be a natural scorer. I for one thought Bol Kong was going to be a HUGE contributor as we really needed to have a solid 3 point shooter (which Hoff arguably is but couldn’t keep up in other areas). I honestly believe that a couple (literally, two or three more three point shots made) could have opened up the inside game more (helping us with those slightly short shots that seemed to just keep happening let alone keeping the game closer), helped shut down the rampant BYU fan base, and get the score close enough so that we wouldn’t have been forcing it so much in the last 10 minutes. Once we were down quite a bit with 10 minutes left I saw the offense change (or atleast Gray’s). Gray tried to put us on his back and that ended up putting BYU that much more ahead. Additionally, tough three point shots seem to feed off of momentum. A couple smooth Kong threes would have potentially swung the momentum.
So… if we’re going to discuss whether Few is the right coach for us, I think we have to acknowledge that he had recruited an arguably big time player who filled the EXACT hole that kept us from the sweet 16. It just happened to by Bol Kong had some thing that kept him from staying here. It may not have changed the outcome of the game, but it certainly shows that Few predicted and had a patch to fix one major problem for this team. Imagine if Gray could have had some solid backup from Bol, it might have totally changed the burden of being the (arguably) sole reliable guard to score. Look how much of a difference Marquise Carter’s offensive ability made when he got going.

2.) Great teams lose by a lot sometimes. The phrase I found myself saying way too many times this weekend was “Wow, they lost to WHO, by THAT much?” George Mason, Purdue, Illinois, or Notre Dame all had surprisingly large losses. I personally don’t think less of any of those times after a weekend like that and I hope that most college basketball fans don’t either. All of those teams had pretty awesome years and are still incredibly respected programs. If someone were to tell me that we were playing Purdue right off the bat next season, I’d still be stoked and nervous about playing such an intimidating program despite an “embarrassing” loss to VCU. People will think the same about us. Did the loss to BYU hurt this year? Totally. Does it mean we’re a lesser program that has less respect in the tournament? Not at all. Does it mean we’re a second tier basketball program? I certainly don’t think so.

3.) I LOVE LOVE LOVE cbssports.com. As a GU grad currently living in South Korea, watching the games on Justin.tv, the radio, pepperdine’s communications school, and gamecast was very frustrating to say the least. Being able to watch GU in HD, on a high quality connection with an international IP address was wholeheartedly amazing. I gotta give props where they are due.

Indeed it was a rollercoaster ride. Clearly they didn’t play up to their potential. Well, I take that back; They did – at times – but at more times they didn’t. Overall I’d give them a C+ on the season.

I think the main problem, early on, was lack of chemistry When Coach Few finally settled on a decent rotation it began to blossom. However, it was too little, too late.

I just hope this promising recruiting class fits in and gels. Not to sound like the die-hard Mariners fan I am, I’ll just say this: “Wait ’till next year.”

First, thanks to the men’s BB team for keeping things interesting all season (although did make me feel bi-polar all the way to the end). And thanks to the fans here. Always fun to follow the emotions of the season. And the ‘manniacs’ (what I call the most rabid Manny fans) – you guys really crack me up. (I do wish some people would lighten up a little on these kids that are playing a game.)
But this BYU game – both my wife and I disliked the BYU style of play – lots of slapping at the ball, lots of light pulls and pushes, and they seemed to be on the refs a lot for fouls called and not called. I know Rob and Jimmer were talked to durning the game, and on one timeout I saw a ref ‘herding’ players toward their benches (wondered if there had been some confrontations). From post game interviews I didn’t think GU was impressed with BYU and felt that the loss was from their own failure to execute. Both teams will have something to prove in their next matchup.

overall it was a good season as many here have already stated. The Zags ended up in the top 32 teams in the country and I think that is about right. (Not that I didn’t have them going further in my bracket) The Zags simply got lit up by BYU, plain and simple. That’s why they call it March Maddness. The Zags made it as far as Pitt, ND, Syracuse, Texas, UW, and many other very good programs. And further then many top 25 poll teams, L’ville! In March you need a little luck and BYU had it on Saturday night.
The streaks were kept alive 13 NCAA’s 11 WCC’s and I look forward to next years team too. I’m very proud of how this team turned the season around mid-year and won 10 in a row before Saturday. The St. John’s game was IMO the most dominate NCAA victory for the Zags ever. They handed it to St. John’s and that opened some eyes around the country. I’m sure a lot of HS kids saw that and will remember that come recruting time! And I’m sure Few will help them remember it.
The obvious main problem with this team at the end of the year was the same problem at the beginning of the year…the guard play. The Forwards were great (as a whole unit) all season. The guards were very up and down. 4 of the 5 best players on this team play the same position, PF or C (Rob, E, Sam, KO) so what does Few do for next year? I was not a fan of E at the 3 this year, but how can you keep Sam and KO both on the bench? MC looks like he settled in well at the 2 and that leaves the point spot open, (again). I know meech is a senior next year and I tought he really had some good moments this year, but he also had some low ones. GBJ said that Few told him he would put the ball in his hands as soon as he steped on the court and that was one of the major reasons he chose GU. So does Few go with the 3 guard line up and Sam on the bench? or does he go big and have Meech as a spark plug off the bench? Wow it should be an interesting summer. I would love to sit in on some open gyms and pre-season practices next year. Only how many days to the first game?!?! It’s ganna be a long summer!
Go Zags!

Statistics do not lie!

So here’s what we have to look forward too….

Another gauntlet in the Non Conference Schedule,
Gary Bell and Pangos, are either going to redshirt?
 Is Moninghoff, Kieta, Bell, going to be the new wing player?
Is Stockton going to start getting close to his Dad’s Height and Weight? (2" and 30 lbs to go)
Can Goodson develop an outside shot and distribute?
Both those questions will answer Pangos, Stockton, or Goodson at the point and if you redshirt Pangos?
Can any of the three do a drive and dish to the three.
Dower and Stockton the Malone and Stockton of the NCAA? (Note to Few: Have them two just do pick and roll, for hours and hours and hours. )
Can Sacre learn to pass out of a double team?
Can Olynyck play at the post or is he just a clumsy wing player?
Rebounding, Rebounding, Rebounding, improved over the year now will it maintain or even improve as we get through the Gauntlet.

Perimeter Defense: I don’ t know, i’ve watched a lot of back tape, and i don’t really think its Gonzaga’s fault, really I think its just catching the wrong team at the wrong time, but maybe we need to give up the lay in or foul and defend the three, maybe it will lessen the blow a little bit.

I will miss you Steven Gray, I thought you would have been maybe a touch better, but you enjoyed your college experience, but I feel a bit more wanting of your basketball career, but in the end I think your experience was the best for a college athlete and I can live with that. Thank you.

“It was all a dream just a moment ago. Don’t Let Me Fall.”

we were able to answer perimeter 3pt shooting, Dickau, Stepp, Morrison; even Ravio & Pargo could hit one in crunch time;

we need to either have that 3pt ace or play better D