Former Gonzaga All-American Dan Dickau breaks down the Bulldogs' 89-85 win over the Wildcats and how it impacts their 2024 NCAA Tournament hopes.
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00:00 What's happening, everybody. Christian Pedersen joined as always, but you're here for Dan,
00:03 not me. So Dan Dick out as joined by the court jester, Christian Pedersen,
00:07 welcoming you back to another episode of Gonzaga nation. And I promise no,
00:11 oh, there might be a little teeny bit of net ranking, um, but no conference realignment,
00:16 no doom and gloom, no, no net rate. Like we just get to talk about Gonzaga being out there,
00:22 whooping, but winning big games, playing good basketball, they beat Kentucky.
00:27 And I'm maybe a little bit hyperbolic and over correcting from the doom and gloom of earlier
00:31 in this season. But Dan, it feels like everything that you prophesied about, if the team does these
00:37 couple of things, it'll look good. And also just if the team stays the course throughout all the
00:41 ups and downs of the first half of the season. So what does this win mean in the, in the micro
00:47 short term, if you want to break down like how it's gonna, uh, a tier one winner loss and break
00:52 up like the rankings, but also what does this mean just in the big term is this Gonzaga is back.
00:57 Well, I think what it shows you is the team finally closed out a game and, you know, they,
01:03 they did it in a, uh, tough environment and Rupp arena. I mean, over 20,000 people, the crowd looked
01:10 like it was juiced energized throughout the whole game. They did it against a very talented team,
01:15 a team that's very athletic, um, that has great size and they, they played with poise, um, and
01:23 they executed down the stretch. I believe that the stat was after the last 12 minutes of the game,
01:30 other than four turnovers, I believe is what it was. Gonzaga scored on all but two possessions.
01:37 So, uh, I mean, they, they executed down the stretch. Obviously they went to a lot of that
01:44 high middle ball screen, tried to force a switch or create spacing that they liked,
01:49 and then dump the ball down in the post, whether it was Graham E.K. or Brayden Huff, who finally,
01:54 and I don't like saying it finally, you know, in a negative way, I finally, in regards to,
02:00 you know, it was there, uh, came up clutch in, in big game, uh, against good opponents. I mean,
02:07 he had 12 points in 15 minutes and I would imagine 10 of those were in the second half. Uh, you know,
02:14 he, he had the typical left-hand, uh, jump hook that he has, but he also showed a counter where
02:20 he went to the middle over his left shoulder with his right. So, um, he showed tremendous growth.
02:25 But I thought Nembhard, even though he didn't score it, controlled the pace of the game,
02:30 got them where they needed to be. Anton was Anton, making big plays. Um, you know,
02:35 all in all, I thought it was a terrific performance. Was this more of a, and I'm
02:42 sure you're going to give me a 50/50 little mix of the both, but if I had to ask you to,
02:45 you know, give us some content, fall into one of two categories,
02:49 was this an X's and O's win or was this a gutty toughness win?
02:53 A little bit of both. Um, you know, I think the, the guttiness was, you know, hanging in there
03:02 after Kentucky made a 12-0 run early in that first half, or sorry, early in that second half.
03:07 Reed Shepard made a couple of really big buckets. Uh, Thiero was as active as they can be on the
03:13 offensive glass. I think Kentucky had four putback tip dunks. Um, you know, so that's not typical.
03:18 And when those plays happen, um, you know, it can energize and juice a crowd and get them going.
03:25 And I think, you know, for Gonzaga to, you know, weather the storm of some of those big plays and
03:30 then weather the excitement of that crowd, uh, you know, I think was a definite movement in the
03:38 right direction for this team. And it shows you that they can play against those long athletic
03:43 teams and execute. Uh, and then, you know, obviously we've seen them being able to take
03:48 care of business against everybody, um, you know, in the WCC outside of St. Mary's, which we all
03:54 know. And then obviously that, that, that rare outlier loss against Santa Clara, which, you know,
03:59 Santa Clara has struggled as of late since that win. So, um, you know, I think Gonzaga is really
04:06 starting to put it together. I think the nice thing is, is they've, uh, they don't have the
04:12 bull's eye on their back right now to use kind of a term coach few has used for years. They're not
04:18 the hunted right now. They're the hunter and, you know, Gonzaga, the program was built by guys that
04:24 had that approach. And I'm not saying guys on this team don't have that approach, but they,
04:29 they being the program hasn't had to have that approach in quite some time because they've been
04:34 battling for a one seed at this point of the year, as opposed to battling to get in. So,
04:39 you know, the, the response over the weekend was tremendous. Now you just can't, uh, take a step
04:44 back. You gotta be ready to go, uh, Thursday at LMU and then Saturday at home against Pacific.
04:49 Well, let's move. If there's nothing else then on the Kentucky game, because we had tons of great
04:54 coverage from Cole Ford, men are journalists and photographers. Everyone all over that game.
04:59 So I'm sure you guys got inundated with it, but there's nothing else to talk about that. Then
05:02 let's talk about the bigger picture. You mentioned the rest of the WCC schedule. Gonzaga does not get
05:08 to just play this game and then be like, cool. That was the big one. Like when's the, when's the
05:14 league? Like they still have to turn it on. They still have very little wiggle room, but does this,
05:19 you know, is this a nice little accelerator pad to give them momentum into the back half of the
05:25 season? Does this check a certain box of like, you saw the transformation there? Like you mentioned
05:30 the road games have not like Gonzaga hasn't had a ton of signature road wins. They have one now.
05:35 Does this help this team? Like, what does this win maybe just do to set up the rest of WCC play
05:40 when Gonzaga is still in a little bit of a dog fight for that top spot? Well, I think it's one
05:46 of those things where now you can rely upon knowing that you've been there, done that by
05:53 winning a road game in a tough, difficult environment. You know, the difficult road
05:59 games that they've had so far this year, be it either neutral or a true road game, you know,
06:04 they've struggled in. You know, the U-Dub game comes to mind where, you know, they missed
06:08 shot after shot down the stretch where they could have closed it. You know, the Purdue game
06:14 was one of those things where they missed 16 straight threes in the second half, you know,
06:22 and it's just in athletics, you always want to know that you've been there, you've done that.
06:30 And many times that first breakthrough is very difficult. Once you can rely upon that experience
06:35 and that know-how, you can keep going back to that and play with confidence and play with joy
06:42 and play with a knowledge that you've already done it. You just have to go back and do it again.
06:46 And I think that's one thing that this team has been lacking a little bit of in regards to being
06:52 able to say, "Hey, you know what? We've already done this. We've already made it. I've made a big
06:56 play in this stretch. That teammate's made a big play in this type of moment." So collectively now,
07:02 I think they can look across the room in the locker room and know that, "Hey, guys have all
07:07 stepped up in big games." And that's important. All right, six games left in the WCC schedule for
07:14 Gonzaga. I don't necessarily want to go like line by line through all six because we don't need to
07:20 feed people content three or four weeks in advance, but knowing big picture, six games left.
07:25 Every one of these a must win, I'm assuming? Yes?
07:29 Well, yeah. I mean, right now, Gonzaga, if you look at all these bracketologists, I'd say
07:37 unfortunately, the majority of them still have Gonzaga in that first four or next four out
07:44 category. And I don't get it. I mean, I know if you're just looking at quad one wins, that is what
07:50 many times people kind of look at and determine. But if you look at the totality of their analytical
07:57 numbers and different things, and the fact that they are still beating the teams they need to,
08:07 you would think they're in. Now, that being said, you can't have any slip ups these last
08:13 six conference games. So I believe that I believe if they win out, they're clearly in.
08:24 If they win the conference tournament, there's no doubt, obviously, that's the automatic bid.
08:28 But if they win these next six, that would give them two more quad one wins, San Francisco
08:34 and St. Mary's. I believe that would be enough in three as long as Gonzaga made it to that
08:38 conference tournament. But the thing is, is you don't want to leave it up to the selection
08:43 committee. And the way you do that is just continue to improve, play good basketball these
08:48 next three, four weeks, and then you wipe away any of that concern, any of that worry, and you
08:54 control your own fate. How do you avoid trap game if your coach few organs, Agad coaching staff or
09:01 players going from bull till at Rupp Arena? We got to spend all of our bullets here to LMU Pacific
09:07 being that next week. And again, we hit on some of these teams where it's like they are on paper,
09:13 not necessarily the same as Kentucky, but we can't disrespect them because Gonzaga is going to get
09:19 everybody's best shot. And, you know, any given Sunday we've seen like this can happen. So how
09:25 does Gonzaga avoid LMU and Pacific being trap games? You know, I think you you avoid these
09:31 being quote trap games. And I think that's a fair question to ask. But I think it's also an overused
09:37 term in sports is, you know, you look at LMU. Gonzaga played really well against them at home.
09:45 I think they won by 28 maybe. They took away Dom Harris from the start. It was a game where I think
09:51 Gonzaga really started turning the corner in kind of putting their imprint on what they can be in
09:58 league. You know, they played well on both ends of the ball. Now, can they do that and have that
10:04 same type of effort against the same team on the road? That's the that's the question there. You
10:10 know, in regards to Pacific, Pacific's always played Gonzaga tough in Stockton, whatever reason,
10:15 it's hard to say, maybe style of play, environment, energy in the building, who knows. But now,
10:21 Pacific returns that game up here in Spokane where Gonzaga's dominated that one. So really,
10:26 what you want to see this week after a huge Kentucky win is just a professional approach,
10:33 task at hand, take care of it, improve individually, collectively, get ready for the
10:39 following week because the next game is big if you take care of the one at hand. And I think
10:45 that's going to be the message from Coach Pugh and staff is they're all big ones from here on out,
10:50 but they're not going to be big anymore if we let one slip. There you go. Take care of business.
10:55 Don't let things slip. Speaking of taking care of business to prove to you how hard Dan Dickout
11:00 works, he quite literally has to hit the eject button right now to go record an even better,
11:04 more important podcast. And you want to give the people a teaser about who is banging down.
11:08 Literally, you could turn your computer around and the guy's banging right now on the studio door.
11:13 Who we got? Well, we got two recordings this morning. First one's going to be assistant
11:17 coach Steven Gentry. And the second one with talking Zags, Adam Morrison and I,
11:21 J3, Jonathan Williams back in town after his professional career,
11:27 professional season has ended. So we'll have both of those episodes up on the website soon.
11:33 Check out all that stuff and more at the website. Follow us on social at Fan Nation Zags and
11:37 everywhere in between. We've got you covered for all things Gonzaga. Until next time, we'll say
11:41 goodbye and go Zags. Thanks Dan. Perfect. Good stuff. Talk soon.