Gonzaga dominates in 95-49 win over Pacific

The Gonzaga Bulldogs completely dominated Pacific Tigers en route to a 95-49 victory that thrilled all the cardboard cutouts in the stands.

Drew Timme was dominant in the first half and led all scorers with 22 points and 7 rebounds. Jalen Suggs came close to a triple double, finishing the night with 9 points, 11 rebounds, and 8 assists. Dominick Harris was a perfect 3-3 from the field and had 11 points and 3 rebounds off the bench. Corey Kispert chipped in 16 points and 7 rebounds.

The Tigers kept the game tight at 2-2 for nearly three minutes, but then the flood gates opened. Gonzaga applied the pressure on defense to force Pacific into a slew of turnovers that put 10 points on the board for the home team over the next 90 seconds and turned the game on its head.

A timeout didn’t slow down Gonzaga as the gap continued to balloon throughout the first half. Pacific had no answers for Gonzaga’s defensive pressure, and making a basket looked to be one of the most difficult tasks on the planet for the visitors for much of the night.

Meanwhile, Gonzaga’s offense was in full flow. All the features that make Gonzaga’s offense so appealing to watch and so difficult to defend were on display—spacing, vision, and commitment to sharing the ball. That Gonzaga’s offense found points so easy to come by against a Pacific team that endeavors to make scoring a chore for its opponents highlighted the brilliance of Gonzaga’s performance even more.

Gonzaga took a 52-21 lead into halftime, and then continued to put on a basketball clinic after the break with several breathtaking passes that put an exclamation point on the night.

After the Zags double up Pacific’s scoreline and continued to pour it in, attention turned to whether Suggs could complete his triple double—the second in program history just two weeks after the first. Suggs searched hard for the final basket and pair of assists that he needed to match Ayayi’s feat, but it wasn’t meant to be, and Mark Few rightfully sat him down for the last six minutes of the game to enjoy the rest of the show with his teammates.

The closing minutes saw flashes of Gonzaga’s future. Dominick Harris was at the controls of the offense, Julian Strawther was flying around, and Ben Gregg grabbed a few boards and splashed a three from the wing. That’s as successful and complete of a game as fans could have hoped for in a game that threatened to be a plodding snooze fest before tipoff.