🏀 Gonzaga Hoops Update
After missing Monday's game, I was able to tune in for the championship yesterday. Zags played their best in the matchup so far this season and ended up coming away with a 7-point win. The key change to the previous St. Mary's games was that Coach Few decided to start both Ike and Huff, and the Gaels didn't have the necessary post defenders to counter both players effectively. The stats for the game were still quite wild, though. Both teams combined to shoot 1-31 from behind the 3-point line. SMC had 18 turnovers, which was the real difference in the game despite outrebounding Gonzaga by almost 18. It simply didn't matter because Gonzaga was quite disruptive defensively and got a ton of runout layups.
Bonehead play of the game had to be Nembhard picking up a technical (and his third foul) while on the bench in the waning moments of the first half. I'm pretty sure that he was out at the time to protect him from picking up that third foul, and he still had to put everything on hard mode. Miraculously, SMC was never able to put any foul pressure on him in the second half, though. The guys he was guarding were not one-on-one specialists who could light him up.
This was a big hurdle for the team, and it gives me some additional optimism heading into the NCAA tournament next week. The talent has always been there, it's the execution and consistency that's let them down. Two more good games would get them to their tenth consecutive Sweet-16 and meet my expectations for the season; anything after that is just gravy.