Former Gonzaga All-American Dan Dickau breaks down what's at stake for the Bulldogs as they wrap up WCC action and much more.
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00:00 What's happening, Gonzaga fans? We hope you guys are doing well.
00:02 Christian Pedersen joined as always by Dan Dickow.
00:04 Dan, look, I think that there's one thing that has been consistent,
00:10 two things that have been consistent about this podcast.
00:12 We've tried to avoid conference realignment talks all regular season
00:15 because we beat that horse to death last season and that I am a wildly erratic,
00:21 emotionally unstable fan who bounces from one polar opposite to the other.
00:26 And this week you're catching me on a
00:29 Gonzaga is going to win the national championship because our offense can't be stopped week.
00:33 So I want to read off for everybody since the loss to St. Mary's.
00:37 Let's pull it up right here.
00:40 Gonzaga has scored 96 points.
00:43 Eighty nine points on the road at Kentucky, 91 points
00:48 and one oh two in their most recent outing against Pacific.
00:51 Dan, this seems to me like we talked a lot in the beginning of the season
00:54 about a little bit of a new group, no Drew Timmy, no anchor, no true identity.
01:00 Seems like this team maybe kind of has its identity figured out finally.
01:03 Like they know they seem to be knowing how to move the ball
01:06 better than at any point in the season.
01:08 They seem to be playing cohesive, good, confident basketball
01:11 that makes you watch the product on the screen and go, yes, I recognize that.
01:15 Agree, disagree, where where am I falling on the on where should I be rationally
01:21 irrationally confident or do I need to dial it back a little?
01:25 No, I agree to to a certain extent with a lot of that.
01:29 The offense has definitely figured some things out.
01:31 Not that it was ever bad.
01:33 I think the biggest issue is no identity.
01:36 Well, at times they didn't shoot the ball well from the three point line
01:40 in conference play, Ryan Nembhard is upper 40s from three.
01:44 Nolan Hickman is upper 40s from three.
01:46 You look at it now.
01:48 Nolan Hickman is hovering right around 40% from the three point line on the season.
01:52 So that is a sign of a good shooter.
01:54 I think there were just some games that the team in general
01:59 shot so poorly from the three point line, it got the glaring focus.
02:02 And rightfully so, because over 16 stretch in the second half against
02:06 Purdue, a bad stretch against U-Dub, a couple other games
02:10 where they needed to make a big perimeter jump shot
02:13 and they just couldn't get it to drop.
02:15 But I think what you're seeing in the numbers you're alluding to
02:19 is showing, you know, how this team is becoming cohesive
02:24 on that end of the floor.
02:25 Coach Pugh and Gonzaga has always
02:27 hung their hat on the on the offensive end of the floor.
02:31 I mean, if you could pick a skilled offensive player or a physical
02:35 tough nose defender who can't score on themselves
02:39 when they're locked in a gym with no one else in the gym,
02:42 he's going to choose the offensive player every single time.
02:45 And you know, what that is created at times is
02:49 expectations for outsiders offensively that when you're in the 20
02:54 top 25 ish range for offense, people think what's wrong with you?
02:59 Because historically they've been in the top five
03:02 efficiency wise on offense.
03:04 If you look at the numbers right now in pen palm, you know,
03:07 they're 11th most efficient offense and they're sitting at 52, I believe,
03:13 53 on the defensive end of the floor.
03:16 Gonzaga has led offensive efficiency, I think, four of the last five seasons.
03:21 So when you're talking about, man, our offense just isn't isn't there.
03:26 You're talking compared to historically great college
03:30 basketball teams on the offensive end.
03:31 So you got to give them a little bit of slack.
03:34 If you're 11th best on the offensive end, you're going to be in basketball games.
03:39 And now they're figuring some things out on the defensive end,
03:41 you know, and then they're figuring out how to close games,
03:45 in particular because of the Kentucky game.
03:48 So all signs are definitely pointing the right direction right now.
03:51 I'll push back a little bit.
03:52 And I will say that it is not unfair to judge this team against historically
03:56 great college offenses, because that's the.
03:58 That's the cult, man, you sign up for Mark
04:02 feud to to be the patron saint of being really good at basketball all the time,
04:05 like you don't come into this to be like,
04:07 oh, we're going to have one good year and pat ourselves on the back.
04:09 But I hear what you're saying.
04:11 I hear what you're saying.
04:11 A lot of really good talent over those last couple of years.
04:14 If you had to say, though.
04:16 X, Y or Z, we still need to tighten this up, check this box,
04:20 do a little something, something here for me to be is Dan Dick,
04:22 I to be confident that this Gonzaga team
04:24 is about to roll into the WCC tournament and whoops a mess.
04:27 Don't know if I can say that on the podcast.
04:30 Yeah, no, you're good with Santa.
04:31 I mean, I really, to be honest with you, there's nothing glaring right now
04:36 because they're shooting the ball better from the printer
04:38 than in the best case world, not even glaring just in a if you had to say,
04:41 let's not get complacent, let's do one more thing.
04:44 What is it?
04:45 That's that is a tough question because they're shooting it better
04:49 from the three point line, as we've talked about.
04:51 They're having tremendous interior presence lately with Grammy.
04:54 Can we shoot?
04:55 He was nine of nine from the field against Pacific the other day.
04:58 They're getting other guys to step up and make plays.
05:02 Be it one night. It's been great.
05:05 One night, it's Ryan Emhart scoring it.
05:07 And we know he's been terrific.
05:08 He leads the conference and assists.
05:10 He leads the conference and assists turnover.
05:12 Nolan Hickman's been really good lately, 24 and 22 in the two matchups against LMU.
05:17 He's been really solid in pick and roll reads.
05:20 And then we haven't even touched on Anton Watson yet.
05:23 He's he's just doing all of the little things to kind of make it go.
05:26 I will go back to answer your question without dodging it.
05:31 I think that the next thing that really needs to happen is we need to get
05:35 there needs to be a
05:40 a jump in production, and it doesn't have to be going
05:44 from averaging three points to seven points down the stretch.
05:47 It just needs to, you know, be even one of those unseen things in the numbers.
05:52 But maybe you see it in your eyes is is Coach
05:55 you finding that that trust factor?
05:57 I believe in Luka Krinovich.
05:59 It looks like he's jumped over June
06:02 in the in the rotations for minutes, which makes sense to me
06:06 because they need a ball handler to give Nemhart and Hickman
06:10 hopefully a couple minute break on each in each half.
06:13 So, you know, I think that's the biggest thing right now is get Krinovich
06:17 to to where he, as well as everyone else,
06:20 is comfortable with him at least getting eight minutes a game.
06:24 You know, I'd like to see it in the 12 range, you know,
06:27 but because he missed so much time
06:29 and you don't want to kind of flip things too much, I think getting him to 12
06:33 would be a little bit of a stretch.
06:36 But if you can get him comfortable for eight minutes, ish a game,
06:39 I think that's really going to help Gonzaga because, again, he doesn't have to score.
06:43 He just has to go where he comes in the game.
06:45 He's not making mistakes defensively, and he keeps them in a flow
06:49 on the offensive end.
06:50 And I've seen bright spots from him these last couple of weeks.
06:53 Yeah, easy peasy.
06:54 You didn't that wasn't I know you had to dodge the question a little bit,
06:57 but you nailed it. You nailed it.
06:58 Ten out of ten. OK, so Dan.
07:01 Four games left in the regular season, and I'm going to assume that
07:03 if we had to look at like ranking, which is the bigger of the weeks
07:06 next week with San Francisco and St.
07:09 Mary's is the little bit bigger set of matchups.
07:11 And I will say that you and Cole Forsman have been producing great
07:15 individual game by game previews.
07:17 So I don't want to necessarily bog people down right now and like, give us USF.
07:21 Give us Santa Clara. Let's get into the numbers.
07:23 Let me ask maybe then bigger picture at this point in the season.
07:27 Two weeks left to go and the conference tournament.
07:30 Is there any degree of scoreboard washing the Gonzaga fans need to do
07:34 to start putting permutations of if,
07:36 you know, if Marquette beats Florida State or are you doing any of that
07:41 right now at this point, or is this still just blinders on?
07:43 We got to win the WCC tournament and just let the chips fall where they may.
07:46 No, you need to win the WCC conference tournament
07:50 just so you don't have that concern in your mind, but this week is enormous
07:55 simply for the fact that if they want to win a regular league title
07:59 or have a chance that final game of the regular season in Moraga,
08:02 if San Francisco can beat St.
08:04 Mary's on Tuesday, that would allow Gonzaga to tie.
08:08 If they went out, including that last game in Moraga,
08:12 that would allow them to tie for the conference tournament.
08:14 So that is a huge one to watch.
08:17 But I think, you know, scoreboard watching across the country,
08:20 Purdue and UConn, you know, they're they're locked in as top
08:24 five, top four teams right now in the country.
08:28 I would imagine just like the bracket show revealed, they are one seeds.
08:31 At this point, I don't see any slippage from either of them.
08:34 One of them would have to absolutely tank for them to not be a one seed.
08:37 But you want to root for the other teams right now
08:41 that have beaten Gonzaga and or the teams that you beat
08:46 that you thought would be better.
08:47 So when you talk about that, you want San Diego State
08:50 to finish strong in the Mountain West.
08:52 You want U-Dub to get some big wins down the stretch.
08:57 U-Dub to pick up a couple of big wins down the stretch of league.
09:01 You want Yale, who unfortunately lost to Princeton
09:06 in the big matchup in the Ivy League.
09:07 You want them to stay on a path of winning
09:11 because then that would keep that as a quad two win.
09:14 You want Santa Clara to at least beat everyone below them
09:19 in the standings the rest of the way out.
09:22 You know, and same with San Francisco.
09:25 But I think the things is you really got to look at USC, UCLA
09:30 and Kentucky are being and Syracuse to a certain extent as being.
09:35 USC, UCLA are those quad twos.
09:38 Don't want them to slide into the squad threes.
09:42 You want to keep them in that quad two.
09:44 So you want those teams to keep winning.
09:46 And then for Kentucky, you know, they were on a slide.
09:51 Gonzaga gave them their third loss in a row at Rupp,
09:53 but they had a huge win against Auburn this past weekend.
09:56 And that analytically is really going to help Gonzaga because Auburn was,
10:00 I think, 13 in the AP, one in Kentucky was 22.
10:04 Kentucky went on the road and won.
10:06 So that is an enormous win.
10:07 That should really kind of solidify them, I would imagine,
10:10 without any major slip ups or slides this last two, three weeks
10:14 that that is going to stay as a big time quad one win.
10:17 Yeah, well, it will, simply because it was a road win.
10:20 But, you know, their metrics in and of itself will impact on Vega
10:24 firmly as a as a tier one win or quad one win.
10:27 You are always the most polite and courteous of people to gently include
10:31 Syracuse as a basketball program still and say, yes, you're.
10:34 Well, I mean, you look at it, they're still I think last I checked,
10:37 they were 83 in the net, maybe.
10:41 So, you know, it still falls in that
10:44 neutral quad two category.
10:47 So you just don't want them to slide down the stretch of the season.
10:51 Yeah. And they're they're they're the person hanging on by their fingernails
10:54 about to fall off the cliff.
10:57 It's it's it's a yeah, it's about to get her
11:00 some his dad about to get pushed off by scar into the beasts.
11:05 So it's a weird, like you said, going to have to cheer for teams,
11:09 not really scoreboard watch.
11:11 We got a big week coming up for potentially time for a WCC
11:14 regular season title.
11:16 What hasn't been talked about?
11:17 Like what is left on the Gonzaga basketball checklist?
11:20 World news and highlights that people need to know about this week.
11:23 Is there any somebody who's getting a little bit healthier?
11:26 Is there any this, that or the other that just little minutiae
11:28 and other business that we need to discuss?
11:30 Well, we touched on Luca a little bit, I think he's
11:35 an intriguing, possible, important piece.
11:39 You look at the depth of,
11:43 you know, Gonzaga has been questioned at times.
11:46 And again, Gonzaga many times has played six guys.
11:50 Stromer, I like I think Stromer needs to find his confidence
11:55 in his outside shooting ability down the stretch because he's
11:58 he's definitely a better shooter than his numbers show.
12:01 I think he's improved in certain aspects defensively
12:05 over the course of the season,
12:08 but it hasn't resulted in a game where the fans are going to be like, wow,
12:12 he's back 12 points or anything like that.
12:14 But he's he has had some nice stretches in games recently.
12:19 But you want to see that confidence continue to build.
12:22 And Braden Huff, same thing.
12:23 You know, he's made the most of some of his opportunities this season,
12:27 in particular, that Kentucky game lately.
12:30 So, you know, those three freshmen off the bench,
12:33 I think are important to keep an eye on.
12:36 I'm not as worried about Huff as maybe the other two.
12:40 But you got to get Kronovich or Stromer
12:43 continuing to improve, which which I think they will.
12:46 You know, they're both guys that that care about it.
12:49 They both are high IQ, and they both really kind of
12:53 from what I've heard, put in the work.
12:56 This is not on our show notes, so apologies if you don't.
12:59 You're allowed to duck this one if you don't have an answer for it.
13:01 But you talk about these couple of freshmen making strides at different paces
13:06 and but all contributing and growing in their own right this season.
13:10 If you had to zoom back a little bit and go a couple of years out,
13:14 do you like the base right now that Gonzaga is building toward the future with?
13:18 I mean, is this a solid freshman class that will be a couple of years
13:21 of contributors or is Gonzaga need somebody behind them to to maintain?
13:26 Yeah, no, I do.
13:28 I mean, college basketball is unique right now in the fact that the transfer portal
13:31 has really kind of upended high school recruiting.
13:34 It's lessened the importance of it.
13:37 You're a lot of times looking for hidden gems that you feel can be
13:42 foundational program guys, guys that are going to be in your program for three,
13:46 four years.
13:46 They're not going to bolt when things get difficult or they're cut.
13:49 Their minutes aren't what they were hoping for.
13:51 And I see that in the three freshmen we've talked about, Huff, Stromer
13:55 and Cronovich.
13:57 I think they're going to be guys that are going to be here for multiple years.
14:00 At least I hope so.
14:02 But, you know, it is the nature of college basketball is, you know,
14:06 do you want a 22, 23 year old going against an 18 or 19 year old?
14:10 Usually you're going to pick the 22, 23 year old with experience
14:13 in big games and making plays in moments
14:16 and, you know, not as affected by going through
14:21 the rigors of a conference tournament race.
14:24 But when you look at it, I do see those three as being great foundational pieces.
14:28 You know, the thing is, though, for Gonzaga,
14:32 Anton Watson's the only senior that is 100 percent gone after this season.
14:37 You know, EK could come back.
14:40 I hope he does. I feel like he will.
14:42 Steele Venters, who's been out with injury this year.
14:45 He has another year of eligibility.
14:48 And so does Ben Gregg, Ryan Nemhart, Nolan Hickman.
14:52 So if they can keep this core together,
14:55 you're only talking about replacing one guy in Anton Watson.
15:00 And granted, that's a huge piece because, you know, he does all of the little things.
15:04 But I think there's a tremendous foundation that's set.
15:09 But in this day and age of college basketball, how many times
15:13 are you able to return your top seven, eight guys?
15:15 Not all that often anymore,
15:18 but I would hope that that would be the case this offseason.
15:20 Yeah. And again, that was not a question that we had prepped in any way,
15:24 shape or form for the viewers to know.
15:25 I just kind of I heard Dan talking freshman.
15:28 Let's see what his outlook is for the next couple of years.
15:30 And I agree with you that the transfer portal has.
15:33 I mean, you talked about Steel Ventures.
15:34 Steel Ventures was someone that came in via the transfer portal
15:36 with a lot of Gonzaga hopes to be an actual steadfast contributor.
15:40 Injuries aside, like those happen.
15:42 He was projected out to be a big guy that they like a big get in that portal piece.
15:46 Dan, appreciate you squeezing us in.
15:49 I know you got a ton of content always coming out.
15:52 You are headed to the studio almost immediately after this,
15:54 if I am understanding correctly.
15:56 What are the people got on tap this week coming out of the studio with you guys?
15:59 Well, being that this is a President's Day morning,
16:02 I'm actually not headed into the studio.
16:04 We got our in-person interview done over the weekend.
16:07 So Andrew Nembhardt with the Indiana Pacers
16:12 was in town to watch Gonzaga and his little brother Ryan.
16:15 And he stopped by the studio for half hour or so on Saturday.
16:19 So we have a one one on one interview myself and Andrew Nembhardt.
16:24 All things Gonzaga, all things NBA, all things basketball
16:27 that will be coming out later this week.
16:30 So we got a lot of good stuff coming up.
16:32 That's for sure.
16:34 Mo and I will be back recording next week in studio.
16:37 And we're waiting to hear back from a couple of guys in regards to
16:41 who will be our guest.
16:42 I don't want to put the names out there just yet, but we've got three invites.
16:45 Guys are just having to check the calendars, check their schedules
16:49 and see who's able to work with us on the following Monday.
16:52 So we've got a few more great weeks of guests
16:55 and we're trying to finish out strong.
16:58 Something tells me that this isn't going to stop, though, when the season stops.
17:01 That studio is too nice.
17:02 And you and Adam look like you guys are having way too much fun using it.
17:05 So I think that there will I'm assuming there'll be some great summer content.
17:07 Like I mentioned, though, also, Dan is doing game previews with Cole Forsman
17:11 that are awesome, really in depth, like you can crush it on your way
17:15 to on the drive from your house to the stadium.
17:18 It's the perfect way to get there. Get yourself hyped.
17:21 I listen to it even when I'm not driving to the stadium,
17:23 because I think the stadium drive for me would be like two days.
17:26 So I would have a lot of fun on loop, just put on a repeat over and over again.
17:31 I just do that for my podcast.
17:34 That's the level of narcissism you need to be a podcaster in this day and age.
17:37 No, but seriously, though, Dan has like put
17:40 this man is still doing all of his normal jobs of traveling around
17:43 and being a broadcaster and a dad and all of this amazing stuff.
17:46 But he's doing you guys a favor of really putting in the extra hours
17:49 to produce a lot of great content.
17:50 So make sure you follow on social fan nation's eggs and check out
17:53 that podcast on our website.
17:55 Guys, talk to you next time.
17:56 Good stuff.