Former Gonzaga All-Americans Dan Dickau and Adam Morrison break down what went wrong for the Bulldogs in their loss to the Broncos
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 Talking Zags, episode 14, Dan Dickow and Adam Morrison. A little bit different setup this week.
00:06 We've been in studio every time this season up till now. Holiday morning here on the January 15th,
00:16 but not in studio. We still wanted to bring you some content. Adam was at the game calling it
00:22 against Santa Clara on radio with Tom Hudson. I watched it after a broadcast of my own that night.
00:30 I've got some thoughts, I'm sure Adam's got some thoughts, but big picture, I don't think it's
00:34 time to get too concerned yet because Santa Clara, in my eyes, is a lot better than people realize.
00:40 So Mo, welcome, thanks for joining. And yeah, what did you see?
00:45 I thought it was, you know, I agree with your sentiment on Santa Clara being better than what
00:54 their record showed or what their net showed. They had a good record, 10 and 6 coming into
00:58 the game, but there was a 103 net. Anytime a team's around 100, they're not terrible,
01:05 but they're also, it's not, you know, top 64 or 68. So they're kind of an outside looking in,
01:11 in theory. But, you know, fantastic guard play with the ball a kid. The big kids inside were good.
01:19 The atmosphere is always tough to play in, in the last few years, besides that,
01:26 you know, that 40 piece we put on them a couple of years, it's been a closer game than people would
01:30 imagine. But I thought our energy was actually really bad to start the basketball game. And we
01:39 were lucky to only be down 9 to 2 after the first media timeout. But we just lacked any balance,
01:44 any depth, any energy, any emotional energy, not prepared to play on the road. And so,
01:52 you know, I was shocked by the end result. And we'll get into the second half here in a second,
01:58 but I just thought how we came out to play was terrible, to be honest.
02:04 Yeah, I watched the game and that start was rough. Is this team in your eyes lacking kind of a
02:13 verbal leader? Because I know Anton, I see it as a leader, but it's a kind of a set,
02:20 the example by how hard I play leadership. You know, a lot of good Gonzaga teams have
02:28 had that vocal leadership in the past. Is that something that you think is missing?
02:32 Yeah, I mean, it's got to be addressed in some, you know, Ryan Nemhard would be a candidate to
02:39 be a leader. But he's only been here half the season, obviously Nolan Hickman, but he's
02:44 a quiet kid. And that's not a knock, but he's quiet like Anton. Graham VK would be another.
02:50 Candidate, but he's only been here half the season. So I think when you come out and you
02:55 play flat like that, because I know that the coaching staff prepares them. We go to the
03:01 scouting reports and obviously you and I play there. So we know that they're prepared.
03:05 You have to question some of their, I guess, want to or understanding of what it takes to win on the
03:13 road. You know, and that's just not saying even if we won the game, I'd be saying the same thing.
03:17 Like the start was just terrible. First half we got out rebounded by 18, which is insane. I mean,
03:24 that's just like Gonzaga usually does that to the opponent, not the other way around.
03:28 Yeah, I mean, but 18 is a wild number at any stage of the game. But in one half,
03:33 we were out rebounded by 18. Obviously didn't shoot the basketball very well,
03:38 but the overall energy wasn't great. Only to be down six at halftime was a blessing. I mean,
03:46 it could have been 15. I said that numerous times on the radio broadcast. Yeah, I was just
03:51 disappointed with the effort. You know, we can understand losses and, you know, maybe some talent
03:58 discrepancies in certain areas like shooting. We've talked about that a ton, but your effort
04:03 should always be there. And it was lacking for most of that game. So how does that be addressed?
04:11 Because, you know, as much as we like the non-conference schedule, you play great opponents.
04:17 They're mostly neutral site games. I mean, the only true road game before league play was
04:23 University of Washington. They played good for 30 minutes-ish in that game. So this Santa Clara
04:29 game was only the second true road game. They've got a chance to ride it this week with two road
04:34 games at San Diego and at Pepperdine, but those aren't tough environments by any stretch. Is
04:39 there any way you can work on it or is it just kind of how do you work on that? Yeah, I think
04:46 it just has to get addressed. It has to be from within the locker room, not outside. You know,
04:51 as far as the coaching staff, it has to be the guys need to take a little bit more pride.
04:56 Obviously, this is a skilled group. We've had a decent non-conference schedule, but they need
05:02 to understand that you're going to get everybody's best shot and you just can't come out flat. Now,
05:08 when I say this, if you play hard and you attack the glass and you do all the little things and
05:15 you lose, I'd come on here and say, "Hey, man, that was a tough one." But like I said, minus 18
05:20 in the first half on the glass and just no effort, no physicality was kind of just on full display
05:29 there in that first half. We obviously made a run in the second half to have a chance to win the
05:33 basketball game, but you can't. We're not talented enough as years pass to kind of sleepwalk through
05:40 a half and then blow a team out in the second. So, I was just disappointed in that aspect.
05:45 Now, is there room to get better on that? Absolutely. It's just, you know, as a group,
05:50 you got to make it more of a concerted effort to have more effort. But now you got to start
05:58 thinking if you're Coach Q, do you play June a little bit more? Do you put Ben Gray in more?
06:06 You know what I mean? You start moving maybe some minutes for certain guys just so there's a wake
06:12 up call. So, it'll be interesting to see how we respond this week with the two games coming up.
06:17 But I was just disappointed with the effort. I mean, you watched the game,
06:21 would you think the same thing that the effort was just lacking?
06:24 Yeah, I mean, a slow start. And I mean, it could be attributed to a lot of things. You know,
06:29 sometimes if you're offensively focused and you miss your first shot or two,
06:34 then it sometimes takes a little bit to jumpstart yourself defensively. And that can never be the
06:40 case. I know you and I weren't necessarily great defenders, but we gave it an effort. At least,
06:45 I'd like to think we did. You know, we're in the right spots, you know, help side, get a hand in
06:49 lane, gap things to make things look like they're not there. And that's a lot of it is important. I
06:59 think, you know, sometimes a bad turnover and a point guard, you can't have bad body language
07:08 after a turnover, especially if it's not your fault. If you dribble it off your foot, or if
07:14 you make a pass and you throw it out of bounds, or you get it stolen, you got to quickly move on to
07:18 the next play. And you got to show the rest of your guys on the team that, "Hey, you know what,
07:23 next play mentality, it's okay, I'm going to get the next one." If as a point guard, and there's
07:28 not one specific play that comes to mind, but I know there were a couple or there have been a
07:32 couple throughout the course of the year so far that I remember one of the point guards, Nolan or
07:38 Ryan, makes a turnover. And they don't necessarily point and blame, but it's like you can see the
07:44 slumping of the shoulders, you can see a little bit of the head. And even if it's only a split
07:48 second, which it usually is, and I'm not saying they pout or anything like that, but even the
07:54 quick head dang, like, you know, showing a frustration with teammate, that can set the
07:59 tone and many times, as weird as it sounds, it can take a few minutes stretch to break out of a bad
08:06 possession or two. Because maybe the next time a guy rushes a shot instead of shooting it with
08:12 confidence, or you don't set the screen or space with as much energy or correct angle as you need
08:19 to. So sometimes those things can fester for a possession or two, and a one bad possession can
08:24 turn into three or four or five. And you got to cut that off as quickly as possible.
08:28 Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's a chemistry issue. I think there's a
08:33 mutual understanding of how hard you have to play on the road, I guess is the best way to put it.
08:42 And, you know, obviously, you mentioned the UW game, we, you know, had a chance to win that
08:46 basketball game, but didn't play, you know, solid for 10 minutes, mental errors. And then the same
08:51 thing happened in this game, we gave up too many wide open threes, we overhelped on a couple
08:56 possessions. I remember Stromer had one in the second half, and he didn't play the rest of the
09:01 game, but he overhelped on a driver. Number 10, the Caffasso kid that does transfer from Virginia
09:08 is just a screener, big guy, good player, but he's not a, you know, an offensive threat.
09:12 Overhelps, they hit the kid in the corner, wide open corner three, things like that.
09:17 You know, those are adding up and become more evident this year because of the lack of,
09:24 you know, shooting prowess that we've talked about at length and offensive ability. That's a little
09:30 bit down. Obviously, we're still good. We're not, you know, super elite, we have been in the past,
09:35 but we're still in the, you know, upper echelon. But you make those type of mistakes and you have
09:40 those bad body language, it comes to fruition that it becomes a problem this year. So, I mean,
09:48 it's not the end of the world, obviously, you know, two and one in conference play is not
09:52 terrible. Obviously, Santa Clara is now three and oh, so, you know, in theory, we're going to be
09:56 chasing them and we watch them to see who they play coming up next. I think it's St. Mary's,
10:01 so that'll be a big one for us. But I think the start of the game just really put us in a bind and
10:10 set the tone energy wise and wasn't a good tone. So, Anton, Nolan, and Ryan Nemhardt all played
10:16 40 minutes and we've talked about depth. You've touched on finding a way to get June some minutes.
10:21 You know, the injury to Steele Ventures, we've talked about it. We don't need to get into that
10:26 again. But the injury to Luka Kranjovic, you know, he was supposed to be out four to six weeks. I
10:32 think we're right now at the four-week mark, so we should have an update, I'm guessing, fairly soon.
10:36 Finding ways to get him when he's back a four-minute stretch, let him play through a
10:41 mistake or two. Finding ways to get June a four-minute stretch in the first half, just to
10:47 get some rest and see if they can provide a punch that night. You've seen this in the NBA where a
10:53 lot of times you'll sandwich around a media timeout. You'll sub a guy in a minute before a
10:58 media timeout and then maybe leave him in another minute after a media timeout just to get your
11:03 starter or your kind of, you know, key guys an extra little bit of break. But it also gives,
11:10 you know, the guy that's coming in that maybe needs a little bit more experience with your
11:14 starting type group a chance to play without as much pressure. Do you think that's something
11:21 you'd like to see and is that something you think we will start seeing a little bit of,
11:24 especially when Kranovich is back? Well, I think it's not really a question of,
11:29 you know, what you and I want to see. I think it's a necessity right now. There's so many minutes
11:35 being played. Anton tied his career high, kept us in the game, was fantastic first half,
11:41 great in the second half, but he looked exhausted the last, you know, three, four minutes of that
11:49 game and it was crunch time. You didn't make mistakes, but you could tell he was really tired.
11:53 He hasn't played 40 minutes probably since his prep days, the third play in 32, right?
11:57 And that's not a knock on him, but, you know, that's where June or like you said,
12:03 Luca, when he comes back, it's going to have to steal two and a half minutes a half. I think
12:07 that's fine. You can either sub Ryan or Nolan Hickman. And then, so they're not playing the
12:15 full 40. Now it's not as simple as just getting those guys rest. June has to show that he can
12:21 defend at this level and not make the simple mistakes defensively. Now I'm not saying you
12:27 have to pitch a shout out against your guy, but the play that comes to mind that really
12:31 hampered his ability to continue playing minutes was that you dub game. He helped on the strong
12:39 side. The guy who was garden back cut, dunk, few, we didn't play in the rest of the game,
12:44 that game. And it kind of, but it's, it's simple stuff like that. Like you don't need to help on
12:48 the big from the strong side, go double team a bit. Like it just doesn't, you can't do those
12:53 type of things because it's such an easy outlet pass. So I wouldn't mind if he got more minutes
12:59 just from a rest standpoint, but he's got also got to show that he can do those things during games
13:06 to say what you were saying. Now he's got to get an opportunity. So it goes both ways. It's not just,
13:12 he has to be perfect out there. If you, he's got to throw them out there, but we also have to
13:15 remember, you know, big time programs, you earn your stuff during practice. We don't know what
13:20 we're seeing in practice too. So that's always the caveat to when people are hugging, this guy
13:25 doesn't play well, we don't know what he's doing every single day in live action during practice.
13:32 So I wouldn't be surprised if June gets another opportunity to kind of earn eight minutes a night,
13:38 12 minutes a night and mix those around to give other guys a break. But it's definitely something
13:45 that's be concerned with, like you said, 40 minutes for three guys, that's a ton and that
13:48 starts that up. Yeah, last question in regards to the previous game, and then we'll quickly touch
13:55 on this weekend's games on the road. But Braden Huff, I thought, I don't want to say finally,
14:01 but I thought he played well against good competition with size because Santa Clara is big,
14:06 and you're gonna need something from him. His numbers don't necessarily jump out at you,
14:11 but I thought he was good this time on the road against good competition.
14:14 Yeah, I mean, he went, let's see, let's take a quick look. He was six for 10, he had 14 points
14:20 and under under 20 minutes. So I thought he was fantastic. He was part of that group that made
14:25 that run to take the lead with the last five minutes to go and then they went back to EK,
14:30 which I totally understand. But he had a good game in a hostile environment, he needed to have it.
14:36 He's another guy that I think you need to uptake his minutes just for rest purposes,
14:40 for Anton, put Ben Gregg in Anton's spot when you know what I mean, and then you can mix match those.
14:48 So yeah, it was just one of those games of the lack of energy. I thought Braden brought some
14:53 off the bench. But just the start, it's always hard to flip the switch, what everybody says.
15:01 We don't have that type of group. So you have to come out kind of piss and vinegar right away.
15:06 If you don't, it's gonna be hard to make that up. And that's what's most disappointing for me.
15:12 We even talked about three point shooting two for 20. Obviously, that's an issue.
15:16 But if you get your butt kicked by 13 on the glass, you know, and you don't make plays down
15:22 the stretch, you don't deserve the win. So the shooting part to me was obviously concerned,
15:26 but it wasn't the catalyst for the loss. Yeah, I agree with that. And you know,
15:30 quite frankly, the two previous games, granted, they were at home one on at the arena one and
15:34 McCarthy, they did shoot it better. So they're showing progress. But I thought they were taking
15:39 the right shots that allowed them to shoot a better percentage. When you look at now two more
15:44 road games, granted, they're against two of the teams that are towards the bottom of the league,
15:48 Pepperdine and San Diego, you just beat them at home, you should have the recipe to success.
15:53 Now it's a chance in my eyes, you know what it takes to beat them. Now go do it on the road in
16:00 an environment where you're not sleeping in your own bed, you're not used to the exact routine
16:06 at home that you're comfortable with. What are you looking to see out of this team and growth
16:10 wise this next two games on the road? Well, just a better mentality for the road. I mean,
16:15 as simple as that, it sounds, you know, so cliche, but we got to be more of the, you know,
16:22 next man, the guy playing for the next guy and all those things, but it shows up on the road. I mean,
16:28 and when we played, it was something that was stressed and I'm not saying these guys don't care.
16:33 They just need to understand that you can't make as many mistakes and come out flat on the road,
16:40 especially in conference play. So I think the recipe obviously is there, you know, against
16:45 Pepperdine, you just got to understand that Millette can get going. And then the Porter kid
16:49 is an NBA prospect. We gave him problems, but it was his first game back. So we got to understand
16:54 that, you know, he has the ability to score in bunches and then San Diego is going to play 12,
16:58 13 guys and kind of, you know, just play as hard as they can and shoot a lot of threes.
17:03 So we understand how to beat them, but it is different on the road, like you said. So
17:08 hopefully the road mentality is there and we can get back on the right track,
17:12 get into the winning column and start playing better basketball. Awesome. Well, I appreciate
17:16 it, Adam. I know you're traveling to call the games on the road with Tom Hudson, which you
17:21 always do a great job. We will be back in studio, I'm sure next Monday, just with the holiday and
17:28 travel. It wasn't going to work for us to be in person. So we'll continue back next week with
17:34 a guest and look forward to it, Adam. Yeah. Thanks for having me on.