Former Gonzaga All-American Dan Dickau breaks down the Bulldogs' road game in Stockton, California, against Pacific.
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00:00 Gonzaga Nation here. I'm your host Dan Dickow talking about the previewing the game against Pacific Saturday, January 27th, which would be another opportunity for Gonzaga to not lose any ground in the race for a league title with Santa Clara as well as St. Mary's after just having beat San Francisco at home.
00:21 But they go on the road to Stockton, California, play Pacific, which is honestly one of the most difficult places to play because there is very little energy in the building.
00:33 Pacific traditionally has not been very good.
00:36 They had a couple of years of good play under Damon Stoudemire before he left to go back to the NBA to coach who's now in college at Georgia Tech.
00:45 But it's been a rough go the last year and a half, two years at Pacific, finding any bright spots.
00:52 But Pacific on the season six and five, six and 15 overall, 0 and 6 in league, 358 in the net out of 362 teams.
01:03 Coming off of a really bad loss, to be honest, against St. Mary's, maybe even call it worse than that, a brutal loss.
01:11 St. Mary's won at home in Moraga 76 to 28.
01:16 When you look at. The Pacific side of things, we don't need to get into St. Mary's, but the Pacific side of things, 20 percent from the field, not a single player in double figures.
01:27 They were beat by 27 on the glass, and that is just not a recipe for success.
01:34 Three of 17 from the three point line.
01:37 So they're coming off of a game in which they can't shoot it or rebound it any worse than they did.
01:43 So I'm imagining there's going to be a focus for them to rebound against Gonzaga.
01:48 And you would expect them to shoot a little bit better from the field than they did against St.
01:52 Mary's, seeing that they're at home as well in Stockton at their home arena.
01:58 But they have a balanced attack.
02:00 They play 11 guys, 10 minutes or more.
02:03 So that's going to be important for Gonzaga and their players to understand scouting report.
02:09 Yes, you got to understand concepts and sets and actions that they want to have.
02:13 But more importantly, when a team plays that many guys, you have to be locked in on your personnel scout as far as strengths and weaknesses for each guy.
02:22 And I think when you look at strengths and weaknesses, you know, a season ago, they shot a lot of threes.
02:27 They still shoot a lot of threes, but they don't shoot them at the same clip that they did a season ago.
02:34 Field goal percentage on the year, 42 percent, 31 percent from three, which is not what they were last year.
02:41 They were upper 30s for most of the season a year ago.
02:45 So big picture, what I'm looking for for Gonzaga is they got to get off to a good start to take away any kind of energy that might be in the building by a crowd.
02:57 This this arena has had sellouts before against Gonzaga.
03:02 Now, when you look at what Gonzaga draws on the road this year, as opposed to in years past, the environments aren't as daunting or aren't as crazy.
03:12 You know, there were open seats at San Diego.
03:14 There were open seats in different places, but at Pepperdine.
03:22 But I would expect that to be the case again.
03:24 I don't think it's going to be a full sellout, but it's still it's another chance for Gonzaga to learn how to prepare and learn to execute on the road.
03:32 Because they're going to have a couple of difficult road games coming up.
03:36 Yeah, they're at LMU, they're at Portland, but more importantly, they're at San Francisco, albeit in the Chase Center.
03:44 And they're at St. Mary's later on in the final weekend of the regular season.
03:49 But I think for Gonzaga, the keys are get off to a good start, take any type of crowd out of it that might be there, take away any type of confidence that might have a chance to build for Pacific.
03:59 And then they must rebound.
04:02 Gonzaga's been a really good rebounding team.
04:05 St. Mary's gave the blueprint by absolutely dominating Pacific on the glass again by 27 in their win earlier this week.
04:13 And I think you've got to take away threes.
04:16 You can't let them get hot from the three point line, which they've had multiple games this year where they've made over 10 threes.
04:22 And many times that can be the great equalizer.
04:24 So rebound, get off to a great start, rebound and take away the three point line for Pacific.
04:31 And if they do that, I think Gonzaga should sail with with a I don't want to say easy, but fairly easy victory on the road, which will continue to help them keep pace with St.
04:43 Mary's in Santa Clara for another league title.