GONZAGA 59 @ WASHINGTON STATE 81
Before we get started, it was great to see old Seattle Supersonic play-by-play guy, Kevin Calabro calling this game for FSN. Calabro, calls a great game with great monikers and he'll always get big integrity props by staying in the Great Northwest once the SuperSonics became the ZombieSonics (as Bill Simmons call them) when they moved to Oklahoma City. Calab's and color commentator, Marques Johnson call a great game ala their old school days in the late '90's.
Alright, enough deflecting......sorry Paulsen, it must be said......The Zag's are rebuilding right now. They lost more, in graduating guard Matt Bouldin last year, then most people realized. At best, Gonzaga may pick it up once their WCC schedule starts, when hopefully they find their identity. The loss of the ball handling skills in Bouldin, have left the Bulldogs point guards look like their playing Marco Polo rather then lead the offense.
Soph. Forward, Elias Harris and Sr. Guard, Steven Gray are the focal points in Gonzaga's scoring, but they need that missing point guard to deliver them the rock. Instead, both Harris and Gray are needed to handle the ball which takes away from their strengths, and hence they seem just as lost as the whole team vs. Wazoo's zone tonight.
Gonzaga did make a game of it at half, by being down by 6 after chipping away a 19 point Washington State lead early in the 1st half. But as soon as they chipped away, Wazoo built the lead back to the 18-25 point lead they held throughout the 2nd half. Without the presence of a ball handler to deliver the rock to any cutters within Wazoo's zone tonight, there was no leadership coming from Gonzaga. The Zags were too bunched together on offense, making it easy for the Washington State zone defense to double-team a Zag post without any threat of a kick-out pass.
Speaking of posts, Jr. Center, Robert Sacre continues to start alright in the first half of games and then slowly implode in the 2nd half with soft post moves and slow reads on defense. Gonzaga Head Coach, Mark Few further demonstrated his search for an identity tonight, playing 10 players over 14 minutes. This is not uncommon when you're down by 20 points throughout the game, but there were many combinations of offensive looks, that Few seemed like he was grasping at straws trying to find any combination that would work.
Redshirt Freshman, David Stockton did demonstrate some quicks as did Paulsen and Adolph favorite, Kelly Olynyk. These 2 players should definitely make some appearances in a starting line-up or 2 before the WCC schedule starts after Christmas.
Right now, Gonzaga looks like it's set to relinquish their decade long dominance of the WCC, but as much as they're struggling to find an identity, they do have 10-11 players that Coach Few could mold into a threatening rotation.
WASHINGTON STATE
Wazoo will go as far as 6-6 guard-wing Klay Thompson will take them. He had over 20 points in the second half today as he was a threat on the wing of Wazoo's zone as well as en fuego from down town. But Washinton State played well during their non-conference sked last year and imploded in the Pac-10 schedule. So we'll wait and see if Wazoo is for real come January.
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