Gonzaga vs WVU Post game thoughts.

[MDABE80]

The kids showed toughness as a team and as individuals... especially Suggs. Remarkable comeback against a defensive group who is ranked. Now we must beat Baylor. We can but I hope we do. Need further progress from Ballo who looked tons better tonight. Our team is a classic!

[CB4]

Slow start for our man Anton... He will turn it around though... Lots of time... should get some easy reps in the WCC to build confidence and find his place on the court... He will figure it out no need to worry in my view.

[ZagNick]

Slow start for our man Anton... He will turn it around though... Lots of time... should get some easy reps in the WCC to build confidence and find his place on the court... He will figure it out no need to worry in my view.

He is no threat ...has not made a shot over 3 feet ...less than 50% on give me's ....

What happened to the to the guy from GU Prep ....I fear it is more than confidence ...form is all wrong ....

Hope you are right!!

[Zagricultural]

Watson just doesn't have that competitive edge. If he had Arlauskas' motor he'd be incredible. The 4 is our weak link until that changes. Ayayi played really big. Go back and watch many of his rebounds.

[HenneZag]

Nembhard and Ayayi were smooth and steady tonight, they played beautiful ball. Timme and Kispert had slow starts but showed poise to keep at it the 2nd half. I like what I saw from Ballo, still small sample size but small victories. I hope I dont offend anyone but im pretty surprised from the overall production of Watson. I figured he would have a much more advanced offensive game.

[TacomaZAG]

A few thoughts on tonight's win:

1. Absolutely terrible shot selection in the 1st half. Kispert was 5th on the team in 3-point attempts in the 1st half. That can't ever happen again.
2. No transition game in the first half. I know Huggy put an emphasis on stopping it but the guys have some say in it as well. Got it going big in the 2nd half, outscored WVU something like 27-2 overall in transition.
3. Timme seemed intimidated in the 1st half, but got it back in the 2nd half. Stayed out of foul trouble for most of the game, when WVU had two bigs foul out and a third with 4 fouls.
4. Ballo had some decent minutes tonight against quality bigs. Liked it a lot, the guys are going to need him in the Dance. He should get tons of minutes in WCC play.
5. Nembhard really stepped up, although behind the arc is not his game. Great slasher and passer. Getting more comfortable every game.
6. Ayayi stepped up again, does the dirty work, stuffs the stat sheet.

Good win in an "ugly it up" game. Scored 52 in the 2nd half, made good adjustments at halftime.

Go ZAGS

[Reborn]

Zags showed heart in the second half and played through the physical play of WVU. Great win and even better learning experience

I agree, LIZF. Zags played a great second half, scoring 53 points on 67% shooting. The refs kept WV in the game the second half as they were awarded 23 free throws and made 17 of them. They were 27-33 for the game. It seemed like WV was at the line the whole second half. Zags on the other hand were 15-21 from the line. Zags were fortunate to get Suggs back into the game after he sprained an ankle the first half. It looked like a terrible sprain, and maybe a break. He couldn't really walk on it. But to my total surprise he came back and and stayed in even though he was really hampered by that ankle. But his presence on the court seemed to settle the Zags down, and he did make a few real good passes and played good.

After Suggs went down, I felt like the Zags might lose. But to my amazement, Nembhard really stepped up and took over on offense at the point and ran the team really well and made some really really nice shots. And he played excellent defense on WV's really good guard and kind of shut him down the 2nd half. Nembhard also made 6 assists and each was a piece of art. And suddenly the Zags settled down on offense the second half and really played great. All of the guys played great. Kispert and Timme who struggled the first half ended up with 19 and 17. Ayayi finished with a game high 21 (also a career high). He had some great rebounds and put backs at the offensive end which were huge baskets in the last 2 minutes.

It was good to see Timme play much much better the second half. I believe he was 1-9 the first half and looked terrible. WV's size down low, and every time he'd try to drive there was a double or triple team and he just couldn't get loose. He was indeed frustrated and so was I. But he definitely came back the second half and looked like the Timme we all know.

The Zags took a big hit by West Virginia who almost knocked us out the first half. The Zags were stunned and could only score 34 points in the first half and were down by 5. I definitely was questioning their toughness at the half, and I wonder if the coaches were as well. They definitely proved me wrong, and got tough. The Zags came out of halftime and looked like their old selves. As I said earlier they scored 53 second half points on 67% shooting and looked really good.

I understand the concern about Watson. I don't like how he's playing at all. I mean 1 point and 4 boards, and he looked horrible on the boards and down low on defense. He plays totally timid in my opinion. And I also feel that Cook is a problem too. He did absolutely nothing on either offense or defense. The guard that he was guarding was scoring on him at will. For some reason Few put him in in the closing seconds of the first half and sure enough. that guard hits a 3 to close the half and put WV up by 5. I really don't like his demeanor on the court. I wish Few would give Harris a shot at playing. From what I remember in Kraziness, Harris was playing real good D. He shot a lot, and missed most but he wouldn't do play that way with these guys.

I've been waiting for Nembhard to show what an All-American high school player plays like. He showed me tonight. Wow! He had some slick moves to the hoop for sure. He played every bit as good as Suggs has played I thought. In every way. It sure is nice to have two point guards of this caliber. I believe Few moved Suggs to the 3, Kispert to the 4 and Timme at the five the second half. Ayayi and Nemb were the guards. That five seemed to really work.

Looking forward to a great game Saturday.

Go Zags!

[willandi]

What do I think?


I love the OOC schedule, so far, but hate the times. I normally close my store at 5:30, and shut the doors at 5:15 tonight. Still...driving home to Deer Park, stopping to get Zips fish dinner, it was 6:30 before I could turn the game on.
When I got in my car, the channel was on 700am which had the Zags game on. I heard the announcer say something about being able to walk on it and had no idea what he was talking about. I changed the station immediately.

Gritty win by the Zags. I swooned (well not really, a literary thing) when Suggs went down. The men came together. Nembhart played a great game, as did Ayayi. Timme and Kispert played great second halves.
Interestingly, if you do a by-the-minute average, Ballo outplayed Timme. He was 1-1 from the floor and 4-5 from the line, with 3 boards in 10 minutes. Extrapolated to the 30 minutes Timme played, he matched him in points, out rebounded him and had no turn overs. I know...apples and tangerines, just Ballo can be a player.

Loved the terror inducing win. I never doubted it for a moment.

[zagzilla]

This is exactly why we want to schedule WVU. You need a rock fight like that because that is what you will face in an S16/E8 type matchup. Props to Huggins for initiating this game.

Thoughts about the action:

1. Nembhard steadied us when things looked bleak following Suggs injury. The rest of the team was visibly shaken. WVU immediately went on a run
2. Ballo can hit free throws! He is getting a little better each game.
3. Ayayi is the new Mike Hart. Classic glue guy but more elite.
4. Foul trouble down the stretch changed the game. Some bad calls both ways-Ayayi had 2 called on him that stank. Tshiebwe committed a couple of dumb ones and his team needed him.
5. Timme was getting punked in the first half. Good chance for him to experience and overcome which he did in the second half.
6. I thought we had seen the last of Suggs as a Zag for a moment there. Eager to hear more about his injury. Can't question his toughness.

Baylor looked great vs Illinois. We will have our hands full Saturday.

ZZ

[ZaGrad]

I know Aaron Cook got into foul trouble, but how many minutes do we see him realistically getting going forward? Kind of feel bad for him with the Nembhard unexpected waiver. He's got a ton of energy and skill, there's just not much room for him.

[White lightning]

Did Timme actually get better or did WV having their two big's on the bench / in foul trouble change the 2nd half?

This is why I question people saying he's possibly heading to the NBA after this season. He's not physically ready to play with bigger stronger players. He might after a couple more years of development. He's has to develop a consistent deep ball and be stronger in the paint with much improved rebounding.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[Irish_eliZAG]

Timme can develop in NBA as well, they draft on potencial. I honestly think he is gone after this season.

[FloridaZagFan]

Very fortunate!
WV did what the do, they hit us in the mouth. They are big, big, big, big in the ffrontcourt.Not only are they big but fast and deep. Not a fan of that style of ball because its ugly but WV is good.
Nembhard & Joel were awesome. I was glad to see Watson take a couple of 3's, he needs to keep shooting when he's open he is going to get a lot of open looks, more than capable of knocking those down. At this stage in the year I dont think he is going to create anything going downhill. I thought he was a little more springy last year it looks like he put on some weight, still think he will be fine.

[tempe85]

I think this game should remind people that we're not an unbeatable juggernaut. We're a really good team with some flaws that we will need to work through. I think we will be able to work through some of our issues after the Baylor game when we have a few easier opponents, which should give us an opportunity to see how some of the bench guys do. West Virginia is not the best matchup for us because one of our few weaknesses, especially early in the season is our inexperience and depth in the frontcourt. I think Ballo showed some good things today and come March might be able to play a bigger role, but right now it's asking a lot. Timme is not a very physical player and he was matched up against a collection of physical bigs. Watson is going to have to play better or he's going to be on the bench pretty soon because I fully expect someone in the trio of Harris, Strawther or Arlauskas to step up (or possibly even Ballo) and I know Few isn't scared of going with a three guard lineup. There just isn't a place on the court in modern basketball if you don't score and don't make up for that by being absurdly good at something else (elite rebounder/defender). If Watson averages 4 points per game then other teams will slack off him and constantly double Timme without much fear of being punished.

The other thing that is concerning is I think we're going to continue to be a pretty lousy 3 point shooting team. Nembhard is a career 32% 3P shooter, Watson seems to have the confidence to shoot them but he's like 1-13 so far, Ayayi is around 32% like Nembhard, Suggs shot 15 total 3 point attempts in 23 games in high school last year and was awful on team USA from deep, Cook is around 35-36% career so he's decent, and Timme has literally only attempted 6 3's so far in his college career. Kispert is elite from deep. But we're going to have to see some big improvements from some of the other guys just to be ok from deep. Strawther shot like 23% from 3 for Puerto Rico's national team on something like an absurd 6 attempts per game. Harris looks like he had pretty good success from deep in high school but wasn't able to find all the numbers.

I'm not trying to be 'doom and gloom' about this either. I don't think we need to be good from deep to thump teams and win a championship. I just think we're probably going to have to be ok from 3. College players improve all the time and 3 games is hardly a good sample size so the young guys might end up performing a lot better than they have in the past. Few seems to be ok with people like Watson, Timme and Suggs launching it from deep so they must be doing ok in practice. It's also worth pointing out that a lot of these guys used to be the only offense for their previous teams and hardly ever got a nice open set 3 pointer to shoot, which is a heck of a lot different from shooting some Harden-esque step-back 3. Maybe we're going to need Kispert to attempt 10 3's a game.

[jazzdelmar]

*Kispert just has to shoot more threes. As said above, he’s our only threat by, well, the distance of a three. He pump fakes for no reason, it’s almost a tell that he’s driving. Shoot the dam ball Corey!
*In any other year we’d be praising Nembhard as the next big thing in point guards. Ok, he’s not Suggsy, especially as a scorer, but there flashes yesterday he was Suggsian in passing, handling, driving.
*Myself included, it’s time to cherish Joel more. He’s surely a fourth member of our big four. Maybe the most clutch player on the team.
*Don’t beguile yourself, Tims woke up after the WV bigs got into foul trouble. Those were good bigs, not Florida State bigs and certainly not Final Four bigs. Drew took a step back yesterday. Bilas called him the best big in the country, that’s dangerous thinking.
*Kispert has to shoot more.
*Sorry, I still don’t see anything in Ballo, at best he’s a year away. True his foul shooting is pleasant to watch.
*Watson is disappointing. Maybe this is the real him, not the first few minutes of last year. Enough said.
*This schedule has been a joy. It’s over soon and the succession of Hostess Twinkies begins. Talk about painful games.
*Kispert has to.....he’s strong enough and springy enough to shoot through pressure.

[Birddog]

Early on I thought Nembhard was trying to do too much, esp inre to his 3 pt shot selection. As the game progressed he figured out the angles both for drives and passing. I wonder just how much practice time he has spent running the point. He plays like a veteran Zag.

[SorenTodd45]

This schedule has been a joy. It’s over soon and the succession of Hostess Twinkies begins. Talk about painful games.

That's okay, I enjoy watching the cupcake games. Last night, my heart was pounding all through the 2nd half. Not sure I can endure that night after night. And next week we have 4 games in 7 days. That's like an NBA schedule.

Anyways, great win for the boys last night, they surely earned it.

[jazzdelmar]

That's okay, I enjoy watching the cupcake games. Last night, my heart was pounding all through the 2nd half. Not sure I can endure that night after night. And next week we have 4 games in 7 days. That's like an NBA schedule.

Anyways, great win for the boys last night, they surely earned it.

Ok, ST, just watch your caloric intake.

[gonzagafan62]

I think you’re in the minority. Count me as a fan of Huggins and his team. I thought they played well enough to win.

Agree 100%. Nothing but respect for Huggy and co

[GeorgiaZagFan]

Suggs is a stud...

how many potential #1 picks come back in that game??

I agree, I could just hear Sugg's future agents all screaming to stay out and take 2-3 games off to make sure, no need to risk your future pro career ...and my commission!!!

[Ladyzag12]

Overall a good win yesterday. I think the team was thrown off yesterday after Jalen got hurt. Nembhard is amazing, but his lack of a jumper is super concerning. I was glad to see Ballo look much better yesterday than he did against Auburn or Kansas. I think this game exposed Timme against size and athleticism and should quash any concerns about him leaving for the NBA. He just isn't an NBA player. I actually thought Watson looked much better yesterday than he did the previous two games. His body doesn't look good and he looks stiff, let alone his skill issues. We have to remember though that he had a massive shoulder surgery and then basically was isolated all spring and summer. Under those conditions I don't think we can expect to see a major jump talent wise, and hopefully he can play himself into shape as the season goes on.

[ZAG 4 LIFE]

Slow start for our man Anton... He will turn it around though... Lots of time... should get some easy reps in the WCC to build confidence and find his place on the court... He will figure it out no need to worry in my view.

THIS!
Anton is a very talented player, who is obviously not where he, or we, want him to be... yet.
I want the Watson who had 18 boards against Izzo’s Spartans in last year’s “secret” scrimmage.
So does Coach Few I would bet. He will figure it out. Maybe after this 4-game gauntlet, he will
Relax, and find some offensive rhythm, and get back to being the solid rebounder and uber-versatile
Defender we know he is.

[zaguarxj]

*Kispert just has to shoot more threes. As said above, he’s our only threat by, well, the distance of a three. He pump fakes for no reason, it’s almost a tell that he’s driving. Shoot the dam ball Corey!
*In any other year we’d be praising Nembhard as the next big thing in point guards. Ok, he’s not Suggsy, especially as a scorer, but there flashes yesterday he was Suggsian in passing, handling, driving.
*Myself included, it’s time to cherish Joel more. He’s surely a fourth member of our big four. Maybe the most clutch player on the team.
*Don’t beguile yourself, Tims woke up after the WV bigs got into foul trouble. Those were good bigs, not Florida State bigs and certainly not Final Four bigs. Drew took a step back yesterday. Bilas called him the best big in the country, that’s dangerous thinking.
*Kispert has to shoot more.
*Sorry, I still don’t see anything in Ballo, at best he’s a year away. True his foul shooting is pleasant to watch.
*Watson is disappointing. Maybe this is the real him, not the first few minutes of last year. Enough said.
*This schedule has been a joy. It’s over soon and the succession of Hostess Twinkies begins. Talk about painful games.
*Kispert has to.....he’s strong enough and springy enough to shoot through pressure.

Glad to see you've come around on Ayayi. Seems you're always willing to let a player change your mind with excellent play. Good on you for that.

[vandalzag]

If Martynas had played AAU ball with Few's kid instead of Anton .....

Good lord what an inciteful post...please tell us more.

[vandalzag]

*Kispert just has to shoot more threes. As said above, he’s our only threat by, well, the distance of a three. He pump fakes for no reason, it’s almost a tell that he’s driving. Shoot the dam ball Corey!
*In any other year we’d be praising Nembhard as the next big thing in point guards. Ok, he’s not Suggsy, especially as a scorer, but there flashes yesterday he was Suggsian in passing, handling, driving.
*Myself included, it’s time to cherish Joel more. He’s surely a fourth member of our big four. Maybe the most clutch player on the team.
*Don’t beguile yourself, Tims woke up after the WV bigs got into foul trouble. Those were good bigs, not Florida State bigs and certainly not Final Four bigs. Drew took a step back yesterday. Bilas called him the best big in the country, that’s dangerous thinking.
*Kispert has to shoot more.
*Sorry, I still don’t see anything in Ballo, at best he’s a year away. True his foul shooting is pleasant to watch.
*Watson is disappointing. Maybe this is the real him, not the first few minutes of last year. Enough said.
*This schedule has been a joy. It’s over soon and the succession of Hostess Twinkies begins. Talk about painful games.
*Kispert has to.....he’s strong enough and springy enough to shoot through pressure.

Don't write off Watson just yet. Too much there and needs to figure out his role on the team. Just needs to get his mojo back. These games have been stellar. I am afraid they will not face a test other than boredom following Baylor.