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00:00 Dan Dickell here, Gonzaga Nation.
00:03 Well, Gonzaga beats San Francisco at home.
00:08 77 to 72 moves them to five and one in conference.
00:13 They will head on the road Saturday to play at Pacific.
00:17 So would expect them to move to six and one,
00:20 but today's game against USF was about as to be expected,
00:25 a kind of barn burner back and forth.
00:28 The surprising thing was neither team
00:30 looked great offensively, other than about
00:34 probably a six, seven minute stretch for Gonzaga
00:36 deep in that second half where Watson
00:39 made some really nice plays, EK made some really nice plays.
00:42 And then it was up to Gonzaga just to kind of
00:44 finish things off the free throw line.
00:47 And they didn't finish it off too well
00:49 at the free throw line, that's for sure.
00:51 They shot 22 of 34 from the free throw line
00:54 and San Francisco kind of went to,
00:58 you use that term hack a shack,
01:01 but they went to fouling early.
01:04 I wanna say it was around the four and a half minute mark
01:08 when they had an opportunity to put
01:10 who they would have deemed a poor free throw shooter,
01:13 such as Anton Watson at the line, they fouled him.
01:16 And when you look at the numbers from the free throw line,
01:19 Anton was three of nine, Ryan Nemhart four of eight.
01:23 The guy who really came through at the free throw line,
01:25 including a couple of big ones down the stretch
01:28 in the last minute or so was Graham EK,
01:31 10 of 11 from the free throw line.
01:32 He finished with 22 points, seven rebounds.
01:36 Really interesting though, four fouls.
01:39 He picked up his fourth foul with around,
01:41 I wanna say six and a half, seven minutes left
01:45 and Coach Few decided to keep him in.
01:47 I thought that was the difference in the ball game
01:49 'cause it was a one or two possession game at that point.
01:52 And that's right when Gonzaga was starting
01:53 to make their run to kind of expand a lead out to,
01:57 I think they got it out to about eight or so
02:00 in the last few minutes before San Francisco
02:03 hit a few buckets, Gonzaga missed some free throws.
02:05 But at the end of the day, I think today's win
02:09 is a great gut check.
02:12 I mean, you're looking at a San Francisco team
02:13 that was, I believe, 54 in the net
02:16 coming into tonight's game.
02:17 They're obviously gonna drop there,
02:19 but it's a quad two win for Gonzaga.
02:23 And Gonzaga hasn't had as many quad one
02:26 and quad two wins as they've had in years past.
02:28 So that makes this important.
02:30 Now the big thing is, is can San Francisco
02:34 stay in that quad two kind of range?
02:39 Can Santa Clara by chance move up?
02:41 I don't think that's gonna be the case
02:42 because they're sitting around the 118 mark as of today.
02:46 But they've got a couple of big time opportunities
02:49 coming up with St. Mary's,
02:50 who's clearly quad one opportunities
02:53 both at home and on the road.
02:54 But a couple other things to look at.
02:57 I thought Nolan Hickman had a couple of nice stretches.
02:59 There was a pass late in that second half
03:03 where coming off a pick and roll to his left,
03:06 made a cross court one handed pass to Ben Gregg
03:09 who knocked down the three point shot.
03:11 I thought that was big.
03:13 That to me is a difference making type play for him.
03:19 If he can show the ability to make that,
03:21 that bodes well for his confidence.
03:24 And then it also puts things in the back
03:27 of the opposing coaches when they're putting together
03:30 scouting reports that he can make plays like that.
03:33 So that's really important.
03:35 All five starters in double figures, as I mentioned,
03:37 Grammy K22, Watson 15, Nembhardt 13,
03:41 Ben Gregg with 12, Nolan Hickman with 11.
03:45 Only two players getting in off the bench today.
03:47 Brayden Huff struggled over five for zero points
03:50 after being named WCC Freshman of the Week.
03:53 Dusty Stromer, four points,
03:55 knocked down a three in a free throw.
03:57 You know, that's the learning curve
03:59 for Brayden Huff right now,
04:01 is have a great week against a conference opponent.
04:06 You're focused on the opposing team's scouting report.
04:09 How are you going to respond?
04:10 How can you respond?
04:12 And again, San Francisco has a lot of bigs.
04:15 They have a lot of athleticism and length.
04:18 So they bothered him pretty well on there.
04:20 I thought Gonzaga defensively did a really good job
04:24 on Jonathan Mobo.
04:25 I mean, he's right now, I think he and Aiden Mahaney,
04:28 the front runners for players of the year in a conference,
04:31 Anton Watson is going to have, you know,
04:34 his name mentioned in those circles
04:36 if Gonzaga does ultimately win the league title.
04:39 But as of now, Mobo, you know,
04:41 he's averaging close to 19 and 10 on the season.
04:46 Gonzaga held him to eight points and 11 rebounds.
04:50 So good job there.
04:51 Marcus Williams got it going a little bit,
04:53 19 points, three assists, but four turnovers.
04:57 And that was one of the other stories for Gonzaga
04:59 is the fact that they forced 15 turnovers tonight
05:03 when they only committed seven.
05:05 And that was important because Gonzaga lost
05:07 the battle of the glass, which is not normal.
05:10 San Francisco won the battle of the glass by plus nine,
05:13 including 13 offensive rebounds.
05:15 So, you know, an interesting stat sheet to look at,
05:19 a flunky game at times to look at
05:21 'cause both teams struggled offensively.
05:24 But all in all, Gonzaga moves to five and one in conference,
05:27 San Francisco moves to four and two.
05:29 It'll be interesting to see how St. Mary's,
05:32 who played Pacific tonight, fares as well as Santa Clara,
05:36 'cause it's looking like a three team race at this point.
05:38 So for Gonzaga Nation, thanks for listening.
05:41 Look forward to watching the Zags in action
05:45 on Saturday at Pacific.