Gonzaga 84, WSU 63: Quick Recap

In front of a raucous crowd that was hopeful for an upset, the Cougars barely showed up and were run off the floor by their neighbors to the north, looking like they had a point to prove in the mold of the Chris Petersen-era Huskies in an Apple Cup.

There’s really not much to say about the game flow here; WSU maintained contact for a bit, leading 8-2 after four minutes. A 9-0 Gonzaga run erased that and turned it into a 3-point lead — a lead they would never relinquish. It hovered between 5 and 8 points for a while, and a LeJuan Watts 3-pointer with 7:39 to go in the first half brought the Cougs to within four.

While WSU was sorta hanging around, there were some pretty bad warning signs. Gonzaga had missed all its 3s to that point, and WSU was having a terribly difficult time getting into the lane — only two of their eight buckets to that point came in the paint, and they’d made no trips to the free throw line.

One of those issues resolved itself, and not in the Cougs’ favor. Gonzaga started to hit 3s, WSU still couldn’t get in the lane, and beyond that, the modest resistance WSU was putting up around the rim wilted — and the avalanche came down:

• Watts’ 3 was followed by an 8-0 run that stretched the lead to 12 with 5:40 to play in the half.

• A pair of Watts FTs (the first of the game, 14:30 in) was followed by a 4-0 spurt that stretched the lead to 14 with 4:27 to go.

• A Tomas Thrastarson 3 was followed by a 12-0 run that stretched the lead to 23 with a minute to go.

Barttorvik.com says the Zags reached a “statistically safe” lead with four minutes to go in the game, but anyone watching already knew: This one was over when the teams went to the locker room.

In A Minute

• Cougfan recap by Friend of the Podcast Jamey Vinnick

• Stats

• Line o’ the night: LeJuan Watts with 19 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 blocks, 1 steal … and 6 turnovers.

• One stat to tell the tale: WSU shot just 15-of-34 on 2s (44%) and made just eight trips to the free throw line.

Video

Three Thoughts

1. Charmin soft

At this point, I think I’m just going to stop pulling punches: This team is unbelievably soft.

I’m typically reticent to say things like this (in public, anyway), just because I recognize how difficult the “job” of playing high level college athletics is, and I’m well aware that these folks aren’t full-fledged professional athletes. I do think they think they’re trying their best.

But, folks … they are not. They are not fighting back, and its an absolute embarrassment that they couldn’t come up with a better performance in front of the crowd that turned up last night.

These guys fold in the face of any kind of stiff resistance, as exemplified by not just last night’s game, but Saturday’s game against Saint Mary’s, too. Is the criticism fair? Those are two damn good defenses, no doubt. But I see an offense that is all too willing to stop really trying when things get hard and a defense that is perpetually undisciplined.

I see Nate Calmese give up trying to penetrate with purpose after getting blocked. I see Dane Erikstrup consistently fading away and getting pushed around. I see Ethan Price neglecting to be physical in the post. I see Isaiah Watts running around on defense, but repeatedly beat off the dribble.

Is some of this due to lack of athleticism? Surely. These guys are limited compared to Gonzaga’s 4- and 5-star players. However, you also can just see they’re not really fighting back, they’re not really fighting for position, they’re not doing the little things that require mental fortitude. Every time they get beat down the floor on defense and give up a fast break, that’s just mental weakness.

They can’t handle getting punched in the mouth, and the entire WCC knows it.

One guy who this criticism doesn’t apply to? LeJuan Watts. His six turnovers were bad, but he was the only starter willing to try and take the fight to the Zags. He used² 40% of the possessions as teammate after teammate deferred to him by repeatedly giving up the ball, and he would just say, OK, fine. I’ll do it.

Good on him for being willing — he was at 35% on Saturday at Saint Mary’s, too — but that’s also not a recipe for offensive success. It would be great if his teammates would follow his lead and start to show some heart, but I’m afraid at this point, we know who they are.

Which is why I have very little hope for the remainder of this season.

2. Two-point troubles

The on-court implication of WSU’s timidity is that the Cougars were bullied all over the floor. On the podcast, Jamey Vinnick and I talked about two big factors: Rebounding and turnovers.

• In the first half, Gonzaga rebounded six of their 15 misses (40%) and WSU rebounded five of their 22 misses (23%). Yuck.

• In the first half, Gonzaga turned it over 4 times in 36 possessions (11%), and WSU turned it over seven times (19%). Double yuck.

Those were both very bad, but as it turned out, I don’t think they actually were the driving force behind WSU’s futility. Gonzaga’s physicality took WSU out of everything they wanted to do offensively — the Bulldogs absolutely owned the paint on both ends of the floor. The Cougs struggled mightily to even penetrate the 3-point line most of the time, let alone get two feet in the paint.

David Riley’s offense is predicated on paint touches and getting at least easy-ish looks around the bucket. When that isn’t happening, his offense gets very, very ugly in a hurry. The Cougs shot just 33%¹ on 2s in the first half and many of those shots were jumpers and floaters; Gonzaga, meanwhile, shot 64% with dunks and layups.

3. The other guy who gave a shit

In addition to LeJuan Watts, Thrastarson played his ass off, scoring 12 points by making all of his shots and going 2-of-3 from the free throw line. Yes, it was mostly in garbage time (read: after halftime), but still, the freshman continues to show flashes of becoming a real interesting player.

I’m not here to throw Isaiah Watts under the bus, but I’m also not not here to do that — in his six games since coming back from a broken hand, he’s been pretty bad in four of them. He’s showing why he came of the bench to start the year: He’s just an extremely limited player whose sole contribution to the offense is jump shooting. A useful skill, but not as a starter.

He pushed Thrastarson out of the starting lineup when he returned, and I think it’s well past time to make that change and put the Viking back in the starting 5. I don’t think it will happen; if you watch the video above, you’ll see that Riley professes to be pretty committed to his guys.

But that’s a mistake. Make the change. DO SOMETHING.

Up Next: Santa Clara

Yet another game against a team in the top tier of the WCC. The Broncos embarrassed WSU in California, winning by 28, and while I’d like to say that should provide plenty of motivation to beat them at home, we have no evidence to suggest that this team has enough pride in itself to respond that way.

Kenpom gives the Cougars a 40% chance of winning. That seems awfully high if you ask me — the Cougs should be assumed to be finished until they do their part to show some sign of life.

1  Even after the brutal performance inside the arc over the last two games, WSU is still 13th nationally in 2-point percentage at 57.7%.

2  “Usage” is possessions that end with a particular player’s action — usually a shot or turning the ball over. An average player uses about 20% of a team’s possessions; high usage players approach 30%. Anything over 30% should be considered very high usage.