I'm not sure what the Washington State Cougars did to Kevin Pangos, but he sure loves to pour it on them as he led the Gonzaga Bulldogs to a win on Thursday, 90-74.
Pangos paced the Zags with 27 points, as another three-point shooting onslaught buried their opponent rather quickly. The Cougars made a push to get back into the game in the second half, cutting the lead to single digits. Just as quickly, the Zags responded and made this one a laugher.
I wasn't able to watch the game (only caught the final ten minutes on radio), so I'm not going to make up much analysis. But going off the box score, big games around from a lot of people. David Stockton finished with a career high nine assists, Przemek Karnowski tied his career low of zero fouls (yay!) and once again, another role player stepped up in a big way. Drew Barham logged 31 minutes due to Sam Dower foul trouble and rewarded Mark Few with a stacked stat line -- 17 points, eight rebounds and five threes.
Barham's minutes came at the expense of Gerard Coleman's, and this is a bit disconcerting. The game moved into out-of-hand mode with around 12 minutes to play, and still Coleman didn't see much of the floor. The winger had five minutes total, two of those minutes coming in the garbage time to close out the game when he was joined on the floor with Luke Meikle and Connor Griffin. I don't think Coleman has done anything to play his way out of the rotation, he had 31 points in 31 minutes in his first two games. Come Maui, Gonzaga will need a sharp Coleman, and Few isn't giving him that opportunity right now. (EDIT: as pointed out in the comments below - turnovers. I was seeing red over the minutes I didn't even notice them)
Onto the box score.
Onto the game flow.
And finally, onto the post game interviews.