Portland Pilot Preview

[ZagDad84]

Well, instead of having a game with BYU we get game #2 against Portland.

First, give all the credit in the world to the WCC, Portland and Gonzaga for making this happen. Season is running out and the time to make up games is quickly evaporating. For the WCC, Zags and Pilots to make this happen on short notice and freeing up a week in February to be free to possibly make up some of those games we missed is a win-win all around. Great job by all involved.

Portland has a good group of players but the Pilots go depending on how Andrews and Fowler go. Keep them in check and the odds of you winning go up significantly. The things the Lady Zags need to accomplish tomorrow include the following:

OFFENSE:
1. Value the Ball - Last two games Zags have been a little sloppy with the ball. Portland will make you pay if you turn the ball over.
2. Give me 4 solid quarters. Last two games, Gonzaga has come out a little flat in the 3rd quarter. Need to rev up that halftime speech CLF.
3. Last game we dominated in the paint. If they give us the paint, pound them in the paint.
4. Keep the shooting percentages right around average or a little better. If we score 65+ points, with our defense, odds are pretty good we win.

DEFENSE:
1. Keep the Pilots out of the key. Portland loves their lay-ups, make them shoot jumpers and they are not near as effective.
2. Dominate the boards, just like last time. Portland loves their second chance points, let's make sure we limit the 2nd chance points.
3. Hands in the face around the perimeter. Nobody likes to shoot 3s over the outstretched arms of a defender. No open 3s tomorrow.
4. Keep out of foul trouble. JW, LW and JT have occasionally had issues with having to spend time on the bench. No cheap fouls.
5. Do not lose track of Meek (coaches daughter). She can kill you from long range.
6. Give me 4 high effort, lock-down quarters. Feel free to use MK (if available) and YE liberally to keep up the intensity. If Portland wins, they would only be down 1 game in the loss column having split the season series. Portland has lots to play for if they want to stay in contention for the WCC championship.

Big game in the standings. If the Zags beat Portland, Gonzaga will be up 3 in the loss column and will have the tie breaker.

2nd go around in conference is always more difficult than the first game. CLF needs to be prepared to make in-game changes as necessary.

Zag Up Ladies,

ZagDad

[23dpg]

When is the game? Not listed on Yahoo for today.

[ZagDad84]

4:00 PM on Sunday.

Livestreamed on the WCCSports.

ZagDad

[SkipZag]

It was a good move to get a game in for these two teams...

Last year when the GU Women played in Portland, they had a very good game...
It will start with defense and control of the game. LW had what I feel was her best game of the year in that game. Hopefully the same this time...
If the guards play strong, making the 3, again good things will happen inside.

Have a game...

Go Zags!!

[ZAGS ATTACK BASKET]

Zags 46-25 at the half. Welcome back Melody nice shot off the backboard to beat the buzzer at halftime. Kayleigh is like money in the bank on 3 pointers. Jill on the other hand still can't hit the broadside of the barn from 3 point range. JT had 3 wide open 3s none of them close, one did not count because of a foul underneath. Telling you JT practice those 3 pointers, or else I'm going to drop off my extra set of glasses for you (LOL). Nice way to finish off the 2nd quarter strong 21 point lead at the half. Now lets do like the MBB and continue to lay down the hammer in the 2nd half, no let up.

Jill why should we let you shoot free throws for technicals if your going to miss them. Same problem rushing the first one not concentrating, focus girl.

Kayleigh rocking it last 2 games, 5-5 FG 1st half 14 points.

Looking good Lady Zags, lets go CLF pedal to the metal.

[Cavebear33]

Gonzaga, 46-25 at halftime. Kayleigh having a great first half with 14 points. Early 12 point lead that could have been more, but a lot of missed bunnies. Portland got it back within 4, but the Zags pulled away in the second quarter. Jennifer Mountain, former Zag, and assistant coach for Gonzaga, helping out with the play by play on the WCC stream. In the warm up I think I saw Kylee Griffen shagging balls for her teammates. She was wearing a mask, but I think it was her. Looked like physically she was okay. I'd sure like to know what's going on that keeps her on the sidelines.

[ZAGS ATTACK BASKET]

Zags 61-35 after 3 quarters. Ejim is awesome 3 quick baskets, definite starter next year.

[ZagDad84]

Very sloppy 4th quarter so far.

Throwing inbounds passes directly to Portland. Forcing passes to bigs who are double or triple teamed. Bigs not passing the ball out when they are double teamed.

Portland outworking the Zags on the boards in the 2nd half, tied at 29-29.

Come on ladies, buckle up and finish this one.

ZagDad

[ZagDad84]

Three turnovers in a row, two by CW and one by JW. Freshman mistakes by the seniors.

Portland on a 7-0 run, lead now down to 13.

Worst quarter of basketball in a very long time.

Now 4 turnovers in a row with one by JT.

ZagDad

[ZagDad84]

With 2 minutes to go, Portland outscoring the Zags in the 4th quarter 27-12.

Turnovers and bad defense.

Zags are better than this.

ZagDad

[ZAGS ATTACK BASKET]

Zags win 79-61. Have a lot of raspberries to hand out in the 2nd half. But let me start with the positives. We got to play another game and we won.

Jenn Wirth who came through at the end of the game (Crunch time) big time saved CLF a lot of embarrassment.

The best 2 dribblers on the court for the Zags the Truong sisters. To beat full court press have the Troungs both in the back court. Jill played a great 3rd quarter getting blocks, steals, and she is also good at bringing the ball up. Kayleigh had another great game.

Ejim looked good. Kaylynn deserves more playing time don't you think?

Shout out to Melody who had 9 points, it was great to have you back girl we missed you.

Eliza Hollingsworth good clean rebound and put back layup at the end of the game way to make your minutes count.

Ok here come the negative. Scanlon looks lost and is of totally no help in a full court press, should of had both Troungs in their.

Virjoghe whether attempting to rebound, or getting the ball to take a shot always holds the ball around her waist. This leads to the ball constantly being taken away or tied up by the opposing team. All Virjoghe has to do is hold the ball with both hands above her head she has lengthy arms, and then the opponent can't get constantly at the ball. When a 6'5" can't get a rebound theirs a problem, which was in full scale evidence tonight in her 6 minutes on the court. Oh and when your 6'5" and are also constantly getting tied up for jump ball theirs your clue.

This is hard to say but I saw a huge weakness in Cierra Wlaker tonight she cannot bring the ball up court under full court pressure.

Who ever the bigs coach teach Anamarie to rebound with her hands above her head and hold that position. Same goes for on offense for Anamarie never bring the ball down to you waist, hold it high above your head both arms stretched out.

Lastly if coach Mark Few was coaching the women teams tonight we would have been up by 50 points with his top players on the court, then with 5 minutes to go he would empty his bench and take all the starters out of the game.

CLF just does not learn from past mistakes, to totally put the opposing team away. She pulled JT before the 4th quarter and she did not plan on playing her in the 4th quarter. As usual CLF pulled the plug way to early. Then due to her poor substitutions in the 4th quarter Portland went off. O yeah then CLF was forced to bring in her starters back in the game, still not playing Kaylynn Troung why not is beyond me. Then Kayleigh might have hurt herself towards the end of the game because she has no help bringing the ball up court under full court pressure. Lets hope Kayleigh did not seriously hurt her knee.

CLF this should have been a wipeout just the MBB yesterday, but due to your poor coaching you once again gave a competing team confidence moving forward.

I like finishers lately Jenn Wirth always is stepping up at the end of the game. She did last year against Portland in the tournament at the end of the game also but we fell short no fault of hers.

The Zags are by far the more talented team just like the MBB.

From what I'm seeing on the court this year from these players I see 4 starters for next year. Kayleigh, Kaylynn, Melody, and Ejim. I do not see Abby as a starter, would look for our Britain (Esther) or Michigan (Bree) Freshman to get a shot at filling JT starting position for next year.

That being said I would encourage Lilly to work hard on working on dribbling the ball under full court pressure in practice, same for Cierra, you know its coming. Abby you have a lot of work to do getting tied up often is one issue, keep at it.

P.S. Jill great breakaway tonight and good on layups, blocks and steals. JT work on the jump shots, made one directly at the side of the rim. O and Jill shoot about 50-100 3 pointers every day, because your 3 point shooting is killing me and your teammates, it looks like they cringe when they see you open on the 3 point line and they look for someone else.

Thanks for another game all Lady Zags and coaches. Keep your guard up 24/7 against Covid and hope to see you play 2 more games next week.

[Cavebear33]

Zags pull it out 79-61. Portland outscored them 26-18 in the final quarter. Lots of turnovers for the Bulldogs shrunk the winning margin. Kayleigh Truong finished with 17, Jenn Wirth 14. Haylee Andrews had 25 for the Pilots.

[ZAGS ATTACK BASKET]

Hey if anyone heres anything about Kayleigh Troung let us know, it would nice not to be kept in the dark until next Thursday. Just looking for a heads up about her knee injury with about a minute left in the game. They called a injury timeout and said that she was going over to let a trainer look at it. Lets pray she is ok.

[ZagDad84]

Need to re-watch the game for a thorough analysis. Just a couple of thoughts.

In general, the Zags played a very good 3-1/3 or 3-1/2 good quarters of basketball. The first half or 2/3s of the 4th quarter were some of the worst basketball played by Gonzaga this season. It began with turnovers and finished with nobody playing defense as Portland got to the key time after time. The Lady Zags had 7 turnovers in the 4th quarter. I thought the vast majority of the turnovers were made by the starters and CLF was trying to stop the bleeding by changing out piece after piece. CW had two turnovers, JT had at least one, JW had at least one and the Truongs had at least 2 between them in the 4th quarter. Portland did not do something in the 4th quarter they had not done all night. In the first half, Gonzaga passed the ball before the double team got to the ball handler. The Zags passed the ball up the court to the wings and bigs on the other side of the 10 second line. In the 4th quarter, the ladies tried to handle it by themselves leading to double dribbles, offensive fouls, and bad passes. The Lady Zags definitely lost their way for 4-6 minutes.

Combined with all of the turnovers, was a total lack of stopping the ball handler outside the key. Portland made 8 shots in a row by making lay-up after lay-up mixed in with a couple of short jump shots. In Portland's 15-2 run, I believe their was only one 3 point shot. Andrews went absolutely crazy in the 4th quarter. Haylee ended up with 25 points on 7-16 shooting and 14 points from the free throw line. Drive to the hoop, get the call, make the free throw.

Here is an interesting stat. The Lady Zags went to the free throw line 18 times in the first half (only 4 in the second half) while Portland went to the charity stripe 20 times in the second half (only 3 times in the 1st half). Zags took it to the hoop continuously in the first half, forgot about the paint in the second half, while Portland could not find the key with a GPS location in the first half and the Lady Zags could not keep the Pilots out of the key in the second half.

Great job JW waking up in the last couple of minutes and taking charge of the offense to build up our lead.

Offensively, hard to argue with 79 points. Other than missing a bunch of bunnies and having 16 turnovers leading to 18 Pilot points, not too bad on the offensive side of the ball. Defensively, where most of the team took the first 4-6 minutes of the 4th quarter off and giving up 26 points in the 4th quarter, can't complain too much. We only outrebounded Portland by 3 after outrebounding them by double digits in the Kennel. We also allowed Portland to score 32 points in the paint which is way too many given our team. Need to tighten that defense up Lady Zags.

An 18 point victory, against one of the top teams in the WCC in their house is nothing to sneeze at. Things to work on for next week. Good lesson in what happens when you take your foot off the gas too early.

Rest up, stay Covid-free and be ready to take the trip to Central California next week.

ZagDad

[ZagDad84]

Hey if anyone heres anything about Kayleigh Troung let us know, it would nice not to be kept in the dark until next Thursday. Just looking for a heads up about her knee injury with about a minute left in the game. They called a injury timeout and said that she was going over to let a trainer look at it. Lets pray she is ok.

Both LW and K-11 got hurt today. LW, I believe, stepped on somebody's foot. Hopefully it is not too bad a sprain.

K-11 definitely hyper-extended her knee. No contact, entirely self-inflicted. Could be minor, could be major. Time will tell.

Don't expect CLF to give out any information before game time next week. No reason to give your opponent a heads up.

ZagDad

[SkipZag]

Tough win... when you loose a couple of your starters.

Hope for their best... and a quick heal.

This is why we are lucky that the bench has been getting as much playing time as they have.

Now for another road trip... mission on.

Go Zags!!

[ZagDad84]

Almost forgot.

Jill Townsend, welcome to the 1,000 point club.

Another member of great Lady Zag basketball players.

You embody what it means to be a Zag.

Proud of you. Congratulations.

ZagDad

[bigblahla]

Virjoghe needs to carry a basketball with her 24/7. Got serious fumble fingers like Big Rob his freshman year and Ballo now. Not much joy in watching her game, hope she can improve and be an asset instead of a warm body on the floor.

Go!! Las Zagas!!!

[ZAGS ATTACK BASKET]

LeeAnne Wirth ankle is find (no worries). Saw her standing for a huddle during a timeout, and she leaped off her chair when Eliza got the nice offensive rebound and put back. Also saw her walking around after the game and walking out with no limp she will be find for the coming weeks games.

As far as Kayleigh one of the announcers on the broadcast crew said she might have slightly hyper extended her knee. She went back to the training room and was not seen again, her injury happened at the 1:51 mark 4th quarter.

We can afford to rest Kayleigh for the 2 games this coming game if needed. Expect to get some clarification on the radio pregame interview with CLF on Thursday prior to the game. Keep Kayleigh in your prayers.

[ZAGS ATTACK BASKET]

Cause for concern the Lady Zags have no games scheduled for the first week in February. If this does not change we would have a full 11 day layoff between games of 30 Jan. and 11 Feb. 2021.

Looking at BYU and San Diego schedule they both look like they already have 2 games scheduled Thursday and Saturday of that week.

Maybe a game with BYU 1 Feb. Monday or 2 Feb. Tuesday might be the best option.