Gonzaga

Will Gonzaga's Zach Collins Go To The Nba

... mold. “He’s not just a seven footer, he’s an athletic seven footer,” said Rice. Mark Few’s best bench player just so happens to be the team’s most promising NBA prospect, projected by some as a lottery pick in this year’s draft. As a result, Mike Collins has been a busy man. “It’s something that’s very omnipresent if you will, it’s something that I’m involved with probably on almost a daily basis and it’s pretty intense,” he explained. While Zach focuses on his present, his father has carried the burden of the future. “I keep Zach completely insulated from all of it and that’s my request that we keep him insulated from that because first and foremost it’s about Gonzaga and until that’s done Zach doesn’t even need to think about any of it,” said his father. But with the arrival of March comes the realization that before long, the ...

No. 1 Gonzaga, No. 2 Arizona Headline Stacked West Region In 2017 Ncaa Tournament

... met eight times since 2000 in Tucson, Spokane, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Seattle, San Diego and Los Angeles. Most of those have been close ones, like the 2003 double over time second round battle in Utah, the five point UA win in Phoenix in 2008 or the over time Arizona triumph in 2014 when No. 3 UA survived at home against the No. 9 Zags when the visitors missed three free throws with 3.3 seconds left. Sure, UA has won six of those games but Gonzaga beat the Wildcats 69-62 in the Staples Center in December, helping the Bulldogs get the No. 1 seed. Then again, UA was missing Alonzo Trier and Parker Jackson-Cartwright. Then again, Miller is only 3-3 against the Zags…it goes on and on. Plus while the Final Four is in the Great State of Arizona for the first time, the West’s Elite Eight will be in San Jose, about halfway between Spokane and Tucson. “Our fans have done a great job all year of showing support no matter where we play,” said Jackson-Cartwright at the UA’s Wednesday press conference. “So us being in the west we know they’re going to come out and show a lot of support.”. With both the Zags and Wildcats in the running for the No. 1 seed in ...

Four Reasons Why Gonzaga Can Make Final Four

... percent shooting and just 30 percent beyond the 3-point line. “We have decent length and decent athleticism on the perimeter so we’re able to stick on shooters tighter,” Lloyd said. “But all of that is predicated on if we get beat we have somebody at the rim to contest the shot.”. Three-point defense has gone from troublesome to team strength. “Years ago, if we had to take a deeper look we were prone to being upset and it seemed like the No. 1 thing was the 3-point shot,” Lloyd said. “Teams were able to get 10, 11, 12 made 3 s and it’s hard to win when you give up that many. We looked back at how we were teaching it, changed some things and we’ve grown teaching it over the years.”. A finisher. Williams-Goss has been a reliable option in Gonzaga’s rare close games. He torched San Francisco for 36 points and BYU for 33. He had big buckets against Iowa State and Arizona. His 3-pointer inside the final two minutes gave GU breathing room against Santa Clara in the WCC semifinals. “At the end of those close games, it’s hard to keep throwing the ball inside. It’s hard to run a perfect play,” Lloyd said. “Sometimes it takes a guard ...

Transfers Makenlee Williams, Chandler Smith Have Found Right Fit With Gonzaga Women

... was knocking down 3-pointers and heading for a standout basketball career at Utah State. Chandler Smith was a senior at Brewster High School, dreaming of playing at Nebraska and returning with a degree in agribusiness. Fittingly, they sat next to each other as Gonzaga’s name appeared on the television screen. All the detours, the injuries, the second-guessing didn’t matter on Monday. Both were in the right place, preparing for a first-round NCAA Tournament date with Oklahoma on Saturday at American Airlines Arena. “That makes it all worth it,” said Williams, a senior who gave up a year of eligibility to play for a champion. Now her career will end on the big stage. Smith, a redshirt sophomore, will be back for two more years, happy to be closer to home. Growing up in a cattle ranch ...

How Far Will No. 1 Gonzaga Advance

... looks like perhaps the most talented and together squad that Mark Few has had. Not only did this team steamroll the rest of the WCC, winning by an average of 23 points per game, it also knocked off Florida, Iowa State, and Arizona in the non-conference portion of its schedule. Gonzaga’s only loss came late in the season, at the hands of BYU. The ‘Zags dominated St. Mary’s, its only other real competition since early December, in three meetings, including beating the Gaels 74-56 in the West Coast Conference championship game. This is a high-scoring bunch that put up 84.6 points per game, 13 th-best in the nation. 6-3 Nigel Williams-Goss, the conference player of the year, led the Bulldogs in scoring at 16.9 per, while Przemek Karnowski, a 7-1, 300-pound load underneath, contributed 12.6 ppg and 6 boards per game. They’ve got a capable three-point shooter in Jordan Matthews, and two other guys (Jordan Collins and Johnathan Williams) who average in double figures in scoring. Is this the year Gonzaga finally breaks through and reaches the Final Four. It’s going to be tough. Notre Dame, which is much more battle-tested and can score with the ...

Gonzaga Basketball Has Second Home With Mccartheys In Salt Lake City

... having one-and-dones at Gonzaga is kind of preposterous. I think the young people that come understand Gonzaga is a little bit different. It’s still co-curricular. The idea of taking the basketball players and putting them off someplace, and nobody gets to talk to them, they in turn get to have real roommates and classmates. It’s the one thing we all insist on.”. The Mc Cartheys make between five and 10 trips to GU games each season, although they wish big-name programs like Duke and Kentucky would be willing to meet the Zags on their home court, if only for the experience. There is an empty space reserved in the middle of Phil Mc Carthey’s mansion mantle for an autographed ball from a GU team that wins a national championship. He would love to fill it, and has played a small but important role in making that a possibility. He and his brother have helped change the face of GU basketball. But he does not want to change what GU basketball represents. “I say with all sincerity that the day winning basketball games becomes more important than our total mission, then we’re all ...

Gonzaga 32-1, West No. 1

... of the year for the job he did not only in leading the Zags to a nearly undefeated season, but also for mixing together a blend of international players, transfers and freshmen. Gonzaga also proved itself before West Coast Conference play by running the table through a nonconference schedule that included Florida, Iowa State, Tennessee and Arizona (though UA was without guards Allonzo Trier and Parker Jackson-Cartwright for that Dec. 3 game). The knock on the Zags, of course, is even tougher than the rep Arizona has taken for losing in four straight Elite Eight appearances: Gonzaga has reached 18 straight NCAA Tournaments but has never reached a Final Four. And Salt Lake City, where Gonzaga will open play along with Arizona on Thursday, may be among the Zags’ worst memories: In 2013, they were seeded ...

Iowa State, Nevada Trash Talk As Cyclones Lead

... is playing in its fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament and is 23-20 in NCAA play since 1990. — Mark Long reporting from Orlando, Florida. 8:40 p.m. Defending champion and top overall seed Villanova has opened the second half on a 21-6 run after playing from behind for much of the first half to No. 16 seed Mount Saint Mary's. The Wildcats are up by 13 points with 9 minutes left in the game. 8:20 p.m. Vermont senior Kurt Steidl has left the Catamounts' game against Purdue with a left leg injury. Steidl went down after he jumped out to defend a 3-point attempt with about two minutes left in the first half. A trainer worked on his leg for a short while before the swingman was helped to the locker room, walking on his own, but with a pronounced limp. Vermont trailed No. 4 seed Purdue 37-36 at halftime. — Jay Cohen reporting from Milwaukee. 8:05 ...

Other Teams To Watch In The West Region

... five times in the last 10 years. Each tournament win makes the conference look stronger, so Zag fans have reason to cheer for the Gaels. Of course that would all end if the Zags and the Gaels were both to make it to the Elite Eight, where they would play for the fourth time. GU has won all three meetings this season 79-56 and 74-64 in the regular season, and 74-56 in the WCC Championship game. The likelihood of that happening is slim, as the 7-seeded Gaels would have to get past three rounds of action to meet up with the Zags. The Zags have clashed with the Wildcats once this season, in a 69-62 GU win at the Staples Center. The Wildcats played that game without star guard and leading scorer Allonzo Trier, who was serving a 19-game suspension for performance enhancing drugs. Trier is averaging 17.3 points a game. ...

Gonzaga Has Faced Plenty Of Behemoths In Past Ncaa Tournaments

... that way at the time. Or even now. Hey, a game plan is still just a game plan. But the Zags of ’99, in just the school’s second NCAA Tournament appearance, were very much in not-just-happy-to-be-here mode. If no one could possibly anticipate the Elite Eight run that would birth the best college basketball story of the millennium, sights were set high. Beating Minnesota in the first round, then, wasn’t just doable – it was demanded. Even before the Gophers suspended two starters and two subs on tournament eve for academic vice, Gonzaga had settled on a strategy to shut down Minnesota’s Quincy Lewis, a 23-point-a-game wonder with an inside-out style. The 6-foot-7 Lewis had put up 36 on Bobby Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers; that sort of thing would be poison in the tournament. So the Zags stuck their own “Q,” 5-8 Quentin Hall, on Lewis, and played a diamond zone with their other four players. Mike Nilson spelled Hall, but the enduring image was Little Q alternately yapping at Big Q and then tying him ...