Zags @ USF: Postgame Thoughts, Analysis, Media

[Markburn1]

Not sure where Reborn is. Lost in the stream?

Anyhoo, here's a starter thread.

Sometimes when a team is in a game where they are looking to show poise they almost become lackadaisical trying to show that it "ain't no big deal" instead of coming out with an edge. I think that's what we saw in the first half.

Kispert and Ayayi reduced the effective pool of players available to Few to a scant four dudes in the first half. Way too nonchalant on defense and with the ball. Corey as an upperclassman has to show he wants to carry the team in the circumstances presented today. Corey had one FG attempt in the first half. The team needs him to be more assertive than that especially without Tillie as an outside threat.

The game plan was obviously designed to play through both the high and low posts. Too much so. This offense runs much better when everyone is involved and that wasn't the case in the first half.

Kispert asserted himself late in the second half. Ayayi was solid although still seemingly laissez faire.

It's a good win on the road. SF trip is a nightmare. With this win and a BYU win over St.Mary's tonight, Zags will have an almost insurmountable three game lead. Hopefully Tillie comes back and plays like he was playing in the two games prior to him getting injured.

On to next week.

[TexasZagFan]

Not sure where Reborn is. Lost in the stream?

Anyhoo, here's a starter thread.

Sometimes when a team is in a game where they are looking to show poise they almost become lackadaisical trying to show that it "ain't no big deal" instead of coming out with an edge. I think that's what we saw in the first half.

Kispert and Ayayi reduced the effective pool of players available to Few to a scant four dudes in the first half. Way too nonchalant on defense and with the ball. Corey as an upperclassman has to show he wants to carry the team in the circumstances presented today.

Kispert asserted himself late in the second half. Ayayi was solid although still seemingly laissez faire.

It's a good win on the road. SF trip is a nightmare. With this win and a BYU win over St.Mary's tonight, Zags will have an almost insurmountable three game lead. Hopefully Tillie comes back and plays like he was playing in the two games prior to him getting injured.

On to next week.

Thanks MB!

[RenoZag]

Thought Admon was our glue guy late in the game.

Mr. Timme continues to impress. Not afraid of the big moment.

[krozman]

a completely new and interesting gameplan, was smart. The problem was that we had so many turnovers any semblance of that plan looking good went out the window.

[RenoZag]

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...meId=401175264

Filip Petrusev had 23 points and 11 rebounds playing in foul trouble and Drew Timme scored 19 for the Zags (23-1, 9-0 WCC), who ran their West Coast Conference regular-season winning streak to 36 games for the longest such unbeaten run in the nation for a conference.

They had zero room for error at sold-out Memorial Gym, with a capacity crowd of close to 3,000 anxious until the very end. Once the buzzer finally sounded, the relieved Zags stood at mid-court and gave a wave to their loud cast of supporters in the upper bleachers.

[RenoZag]

https://www.slipperstillfits.com/gon...o-in-83-79-win

The Dons must have felt like they let an opportunity slip away by not putting a struggling Gonzaga squad away. The Zags cleaned up some of their defensive deficiencies in the second half with much better on-ball pressure and focused effort. At the other end of the floor, they continued to ride the duo of Petrusev and Timme before a pair of threes from Kispert midway through the half—his first two made field goals of the game—gave Gonzaga its first lead since the 18-minute mark in the first half.

[DZ]

Thought Admon was our glue guy late in the game.

Mr. Timme continues to impress. Not afraid of the big moment.

I agree on both, but especially Timmie. I always look for the guy who wants the ball late in the game, and for a Frosh to be "that guy" is amazing.

To his credit, Corey made up for a somewhat inexplicable 30 mins by being the guy late, too.

One thing is very apparent to me. We have fattened up on home games against bottom feeders. The top half of this conf. is a different deal than the bottom. Each road game will be tough, esp without Tillie, depending on how long he's out or slowed.

[Radbooks]

Couple of articles in the Spokesman tonight:

TV Take: Gonzaga outlasts upset-minded San Francisco in stop-and-go contest

Recap: No. 2 Gonzaga makes big plays down the stretch to win at San Francisco

[jazzdelmar]

Elimination game on the line, I want Gilder more than anyone with the ball in his hands or at the foul stripe. Incredibly clutch.

[DZ]

Making 25 out of 32 from the FT line in a small loud place like that is pretty darned impressive for a team that has really struggled and a team we have predicted might lose a game at the FT line. Today would've been a great candidate.\

BTW, terribly officiated on both ends. We had some just awful calls on our guys, and I saw some called against USF that made me wince.

[Birddog]

Zags were lackadaisical in first half and made several unforced TO's. The quickness of the USF back court seemed to surprise the Zags, esp that Shabazz kid he was a pest. Timme was a rock this afternoon, Few made a good but tough strategic move keeping Timme in instead of Petro down the stretch. Too many fouls called both ways, a lot went uncalled too.

[Zag365]

We had too many turnovers in the first half and we looked tentative (first time I've seen us play like that this season). To say it was because the team was lackadaisical is unfair speculation (we aren't in the locker room and don't know what the players were feeling). We hadn't played USF this season and weren't ready for quickness of their guards. It also overlooks the fact that the team knew it would have to be careful not to get into foul trouble, especially our bigs. With our roster being so thin, Kispert had to play out of position on short notice (and little or no practice), and we'd just come off a grinder at SCU less than 48 hours before.

Those circumstances left us playing the first half very cautiously. Plus, USF came out with a decent game plan and got some TOs and second-chance points because they were willing to gamble and play more aggressively. I think we played a bit of rope-a-dope.

As it turned out, we did just enough the first-half -- scoring, rotating minutes, and staying out of foul trouble -- to enable the team to play more aggressively the second half. Hats off to the coaches and players. They had a plan for covering our weaknesses as much as possible and they made it work.

Let's hope KT has a short recovery.

[ZagNative]

Zag365, that's a really smart post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[GonzagasaurusFlex]

Timme! Dude is growing up and shining right before our eyes. Huge performance on the road for the freshman.

I spent much of the game wondering why Kispert was letting himself disappear. He showed up in clutch time.

Go Zags!

[v13311]

Way too many chest passes today from our guards especially. Four or five of them were picked off. Hold the ball up high, Zags, and use your wrists to snap it to get some velocity on the pass.

[MDABE80]

We won this game with 2nd half defense. One of those games where offense sputters more so in the first half but 12 down at the half. Few and staff changed defenses at the half and got the team interested in defense. It worked. 6 man team for the huge majority of the game. We need more...2 more going forward. Lots of courage from this team digging in the 2nd half. I was thinking that with a fast paced game like this one was, exhaustion would set it. Not so. This is a steadily improving team. With any luck, and if Tillie and someone gets skillfull minutes, we should be ok going to the tournaments. I love this team which wasn't supposed to be much with all the departures. Making FT's matters.

[FloridaZagFan]

78% from the FT line is the game in a nutshell. Without that we loose.
I had always thought this would be a tough game. USF has a ton of good players but little athleticism in the low block.
The officiating was less than perfect but that happens! Don's had plenty of fouls to give and fortunately the Zags showed up at the FT line.
Golden knew Timme & Petro would go off! Without atletic bigs you cant stop those 2. The fouls hurt USF more on the offensive side, hack a shack was his game plan no question unfortunately for the Don's his bigs picked up bad fouls and Zags shot 78% from the line.
Survive and advance!

[Hoopaholic]

After watching it a second time I truly believe we played first half to get to second half and that caused tentativeness-especially on the defensive end
In addition we were struggling with the high ball pressure junk defense where you rarely see hard constant doubles with weakside hard rotation up the three line......second half we saw the adjustment and started taking it off dribble with some of the wide open lanes and this caused USF to go away from the junk defense and suddenly we got open good 3 looks hitting 4 out of 4 in second half

the game plan to pound it inside was good strategy and worked out with their bigs in foul trouble all night long and thus ineffective and TIMME stepped up big time

we shot well, we defended their three well, especially second half they ended up shooting 25%

I dont think I can recall a college player who was asked to play so many different integral roles and kispert did tonight...played his normal 3 spot, rotated into the 4 spot for the bigs to get rest and then when woolridge was in foul trouble, suddenly he was asked to be point guard, bring ball up start offense then move into the 4 spot......tough ask

and we hit fouls shots.......

get some rest, refocus

[katman50]

After watching it a second time I truly believe we played first half to get to second half and that caused tentativeness-especially on the defensive end
In addition we were struggling with the high ball pressure junk defense where you rarely see hard constant doubles with weakside hard rotation up the three line......second half we saw the adjustment and started taking it off dribble with some of the wide open lanes and this caused USF to go away from the junk defense and suddenly we got open good 3 looks hitting 4 out of 4 in second half

the game plan to pound it inside was good strategy and worked out with their bigs in foul trouble all night long and thus ineffective and TIMME stepped up big time

we shot well, we defended their three well, especially second half they ended up shooting 25%

I dont think I can recall a college player who was asked to play so many different integral roles and kispert did tonight...played his normal 3 spot, rotated into the 4 spot for the bigs to get rest and then when woolridge was in foul trouble, suddenly he was asked to be point guard, bring ball up start offense then move into the 4 spot......tough ask

and we hit fouls shots.......

get some rest, refocus

Well put.

[sheps001]

what is a high ball pressure junk defense? Thanks

[Hoopaholic]

what is a high ball pressure junk defense? Thanks

they were doubling on all ball passes and especially on the high pick and roll with the weakside defender playing mid level zone with hard rotation to the off side zag rotation creating a weakside one man zone with the off post when we were in double post setting, when not in double post
combination of hard man with trap with weakside guard only zone rotation to anticipate what we normally use for ball rotation to get the high low look

I call it junk defense because it is not a normally deployed defense nor typical of what we have historically seen....specific design against zags particular offense
*would not have been effective with tille as he can stretch and shoot unlike petruseve and timme who are not shooters

[HenneZag]

We need to play in these grind out games. Timme grew up even more today and this will be a big confidence boost moving forward. I liked our fight in the 2nd half, this was the game I expected to see.

[FloridaZagFan]

We had too many turnovers in the first half and we looked tentative (first time I've seen us play like that this season). To say it was because the team was lackadaisical is unfair speculation (we aren't in the locker room and don't know what the players were feeling). We hadn't played USF this season and weren't ready for quickness of their guards. It also overlooks the fact that the team knew it would have to be careful not to get into foul trouble, especially our bigs. With our roster being so thin, Kispert had to play out of position on short notice (and little or no practice), and we'd just come off a grinder at SCU less than 48 hours before.

Those circumstances left us playing the first half very cautiously. Plus, USF came out with a decent game plan and got some TOs and second-chance points because they were willing to gamble and play more aggressively. I think we played a bit of rope-a-dope.

As it turned out, we did just enough the first-half -- scoring, rotating minutes, and staying out of foul trouble -- to enable the team to play more aggressively the second half. Hats off to the coaches and players. They had a plan for covering our weaknesses as much as possible and they made it work.

Let's hope KT has a short recovery.

Don's have multiple guards that are quick skilled upperclassmen. This is the first game that our passing looked tenitive. I dont think we were lax I just dont think we were prepared for that speed on the perimeter.
Really missed a 6'10 guy that can shoot and would have been a impossible match up behind the arc.
Without Anton, Tille cant be out long or we are going to really struggle.

[katman50]

I realize Corey was somewhat absent the first half. The second half he came through. The guy is turning into a leader. And to think we get to watch him next year as well.

[SorenTodd45]

Now that I have had time to de-compress (if you can call it that), my take on the game.

This could not have been a ROOT sports production; they did not have their usual graphics. And Kate Scott, what college did she get her broadcasting degree from? Clown college, more than likely. The fact that she is a female is irrelevant; she was absolutely abysmal. And Dan Belluomini (the analyst) was hardly an improvement. He kept mixing up Drew Timme and Killian Tillie during the whole game (even though Killian was on the bench the entire time with an injured ankle). Dude, go back to the Pac-10 (that's where I remember him from) and take your clown college degree with you.

As to the officiating? Oy vey! I know the home team is going to get some of the breaks, but this was pathetic. Time after time the Zags got hosed with either a phantom call or a call that went against them that should not have. It's as if the refs were on the take the entire game. How we won without our best player and the deck stacked against us, I'll never know. But a win is a win and I will take anything at this point.

Thank God that almost all of the remaining Zags games are on ESPN; even Bill Walton would be an upgrade from those two nincompoops who called today's game.