Robert Sacre put up sixteen shots tonight against Pepperdine. Eight of them were from the floor and eight of them were from the free throw line. He didn't miss once. The junior center finished with a career high 24 points this evening against the Waves of Pepperdine as Gonzaga cruised to a 17 point victory tonight in Spokane.
Sacre's performance was not the only outstanding effort turned in by a Bulldog. Senior guard Steven Gray and sophomore forward Elias Harris each added 19 points int the rout. Harris was trying to do his best Sacre imitation but fell just short, finishing 8-9 from the floor. He was, however, perfect from beyond the arc (3-3). Gray delivered the first big blow to the Waves, who were in Spokane without head coach Tom Asbury who had to leave the team to be with family. Steven delivered a couple quick threes to begin the game and you just got the feeling that if he wanted to, he could go for 40 against Pepperdine. Instead, he filled up the rest of the columns of his stat sheet. Gray ended the game with nine assists vs. one turnover and five steals to go along with his 19 points.
Gray got this team into an offensive flow early and I thought he did an absolutely marvelous job understanding when he needed to score and when to get his teammates involved. He made a couple nice kick out's to the open three point shooter and also fed Rob Sacre and Elias Harris a number of times. Couldn't have been more impressed with the game Steven played.
Leading up to this game, and leading up to conference play in general, it was quite obvious that the West Coast Conference would really struggle to match up with Gonzaga's size in the post. Now, I'm not saying to expect more games where Rob and Elias combined to go 16-17 from the floor, but I can say that there aren't a whole lot of WCC post players that I can see really holding these two down. Rob's offensive game is still very much a day to day operation. It was great, however, to see what kind of touch from the field he can have. By my count, Rob had one dunk and a two layups. With the rest of his five field goals, he made a couple of nice short jumpers, jump hooks, and he even knocked down a shot from the free throw line extended. His actual post moves are still a work in progress. It is still a bit of a broken record when he gets the ball into the paint as you can usually close your eyes and guess the move but against a team like Pepperdine, he flashed some great improvements around the rim.
Outside of Gray, Sacre, and Harris; there really isn't much else to discuss from tonight's game in Spokane. Mark Few's team improves to 12-5 on the 2010-11 season and are riding an eight game win streak into a relatively smooth part of the schedule. On Saturday the Zags welcome in Loyola Marymount to the Kennel before heading down to the Bay Area to take on Santa Clara and San Francisco next week. These games all lead up to the first of two regular season showdowns between Gonzaga and Saint Mary's on the 27th of January in Spokane.