Gonzaga Bulletin: Veteran roster tackles rigorous schedule

[ZagNative]

Geez! I don't remember Friday night stories being this plentifull normally this time of year. We must be pretty good, huh? From the Bulletin:

Ben Pearson
Issue date: 11/7/08

With Mark Few as head coach, Gonzaga has won eight straight regular-season WCC championships and made the NCAA tournament every year. Few has coached three All-Americans in Dan Dickau, Blake Stepp and Adam Morrison, and a Gonzaga player has taken home WCC Player of the Year honors for the past eight seasons.

But Coach Few has never had as much talent as he does this year.

Gonzaga opens the season ranked No. 10 in the AP poll and with a roster stacked with athleticism, versatility and experience, the Bulldogs are poised to make their deepest run in March since they reached the Elite Eight in 1999.

“The strength of the team is that we a have a lot of different guys who can score in different ways,” Few said after Midnight Madness on Oct. 17.

Pargo reinforces GU’s tradition as “Guard U,” and he will be joined in the backcourt by junior Matt Bouldin and sophomore Steven Gray. Both players are talented combo guards who can pass effectively and knock down outside shots. Bouldin led the team in scoring last year (12.6 per game) and Gray led the team in three-point percentage, connecting on 46 percent of his three-point field goals.

With the arrival of freshman guard Demetri “Meech” Goodson, the Bulldogs have the true backup point guard they lacked last year.

“Meech is the fastest point guard I have seen in a long time and always puts the team first, making everyone around him better,” assistant coach Ray Giacoletti said.

Giacoletti says Goodson has a “bulldog approach” on defense and says he will take the pressure off Pargo by guarding opponents’ better players, specifically Saint Mary’s Patty Mills.

Read the rest of the story here.

[MickMick]

Meech guarding Patty Mills.

Everyone stop and ponder this epic contest for a moment. The coaches have already envisioned it as described in the original post.

Defense is a simple concept. Plant your feet in a position to stop the opponent from advancing the ball toward the basket. The further the opponent is from the basket, the lower the percentage that the opponent will score.

Elite quickness allows a player to set his feet in a desired spot quicker. The chance to draw fouls while playing defense increases dramatically as well.

In Mills case it will simply be two extremely quick players competing at an elite level. The effect is that the Meech will get beaten less often than that of a slower player. This frees up defensive help to concentrate on their defensive assignment as opposed to being distracted by the speed threat of Mills. The threat will certainly still be there, but it will be somewhat mitigated.

It isn't just the Gaels that will find that this Zag team is a little different from last year. There will also be some additional burden on the referees to determine if Meech's feet are set before Mills makes offensive contact. I wouldn't be surprised if coach Few points this out to them in pre game warmups.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that for everywhere you see the name Mills, you could replace it with Brandon Johnson or dare I say.....UNC's Ty Lawson? This is why I have long believed that Meech could play a large, large role in March.

[MickMick]

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