Gonzaga Annihilates Loyola Marymount, 88-43

Well, sometimes the way it looks on paper is a good indication of how it is going to turn out in real life. When comparing Loyola Marymount and Gonzaga, it was pretty clear on paper that the Lions would not have enough defense to slow down the Zags and that came to fruition as Mark Few's squad had their way with LMU all night long and moved to 20-2 with a dominating 88-43 victory.

Dominating may actually be a vast understatement for what exactly occurred tonight in Los Angeles. Loyola Marymount is a lost program under Max Good and you really have to think that the clock is ticking on his tenure as head coach. A 45-point conference victory is honestly unheard of and is typically reserved for when the staff decides to schedule some NAIA team and even those rarely get to 40 points. While this was a very solid performance tonight by Mark Few's club, in my opinion it was more of an indictment on the overall ineptitude of the 2012-13 West Coast Conference. While various media outlets and talking heads will tell you that this is an improving conference, I don't think there is any empirical evidence to show that the conference as a whole is improving.

With that said, it was an impressive offensive and defensive display tonight for Gonzaga. First and foremost, it was an absolute pleasure seeing Gary Bell Jr. get hot and drain from deep. The sophomore guard who has been in a bit of a slump for a good chunk of the year hit five three-point attempts in the first half tonight which accounted for all of his points. Over the past few games, it has been clear that Few has been urging Bell to keep shooting in an attempt to get him out of his slump and hopefully this is the start of a trend upwards for the talented guard.

There were a number of other solid performances tonight. Kelly Olynyk was stellar with 15 points, Drew Barham drilled four three-pointers, and Sam Dower went 5-6 from the floor and finished with 13 points. While all the individual numbers are great, some of the total team stats are about as overwhelming as I've seen in some time. Take a look: Gonzaga shot 54% from the floor, LMU was 25%. Gonzaga was 62% from deep, LMU was 31%. Gonzaga had 38 rebounds and 24 assists compared to LMU's 25 and 7. In every facet of the game, for virtually all 40 minutes, this was a completely one-sided affair.