TV Take: Gonzaga and San Francisco bring effort, but lack entertainment in ‘sloppy’ game
If your excitement grade for a Gonzaga basketball game is predicated on how close the outcome is, then the Zags’ 77-72 key West Coast Conference home win over San Francisco probably graded pretty well. It certainly did for the ESPN2 crew of Dave Flemming and Sean Farnham on Thursday night.
But if your curve is based on offensive execution, excitement or electricity, then an “E” for effort is warranted – but the game’s overall grade might be one letter away.
What they saw …
• Yes, the game was close – USF led 31-30 at halftime – but this one was a grinder, highlighted – to use that term lightly – by turnovers, missed rebounding assignments and way too many blown point-blank shots.
Farnham, for his part, pointed out the multiple issues, telling his partner halfway through the first half he was watching “pretty sloppy play, really, on both ends of the court.”
And yet, as the teams headed to the locker room, we also heard him say the game had not disappointed. Except for basketball fans watching at home.
• Other than some small runs by both teams, fueled by key 3-pointers by Nolan Hickman (he finished with three of them and 11 points) and a couple of surprising San Francisco sources, the shooting by didn’t reach usual standards, especially for the Zags, who were under 37% at the half.
As the struggles in the McCarthey Athletic Center continued in the second half, Farnham acknowledged his incredulity at what he was seeing.
“I’m really surprised that, offensively, we haven’t seen a better flow for, really, either team yet,” he said with the game tied with about 8 minutes left. “You like to credit the defense, and it’s important to acknowledge that both teams are better defensively in a lot of ways … but offensively, neither team has been able to really execute with any kind of efficiency in consecutive possessions.”
What happened after that? The unranked Zags (14-5 overall, 5-1 in WCC play) started hitting shots, scored 17 of the next 21 points and finally gained an edge.
“In a night when we’ve seen no offensive rhythm, the Zags have just put on a clinic,” Farnham said as Gonzaga ended up building a 13-point lead.
“San Francisco’s offense has just disappeared,” Flemming added.
After the tough first half, the Bulldogs shot 58.3% in the second half, as they followed Farnham’s advice of feeding bigs Graham Ike (5 of 7 from the field, 19 points after halftime, 22 overall) and Anton Watson (5 of 6 from the field, 13, 15).
Despite those numbers, too many Gonzaga free-throw misses kept the Dons in the hunt. Watson and Ryan Nembhard each missed 3 of 4 late.
“The Dons not going quietly here,” Flemming said before Nembhard missed two with 46 seconds left. Finally, Watson hit his final one (he was 3 of 9 overall), USF turned it over, Ben Gregg and Ike were successful at the line and Gonzaga survived.
“This is the perfect encapsulation of the year,” Flemming said. “It’s just hasn’t been easy.”
Nothing was ever easy for San Francisco (15-6, 4-2), as the Dons never got untracked from the field, hitting less than a third of their shots after halftime. Leading scorer Jonathan Mogbo had just eight points as he only took six shots.
What we saw …
• You might have recognized the faces of Thursday night’s officials, without being able to put names with them. There’s a reason for that. The three don’t work Gonzaga games often, though not because they aren’t good enough. In fact, the trio may have the best collective resume of any group to work McCarthey.
How’s that? Well, Doug Shows, Terry Oglesby and Jeffrey Anderson, have worked multiple Final Fours, an honor reserved for the best – at least as the NCAA sees it.
In fact, Oglesby, who was the alternate during Gonzaga’s 2017 title game loss to North Carolina, and Anderson, known for his high-knees run, worked last year’s Final Four, with Oglesby on the title game between UConn and San Diego State.
“He’s the Roger Craig of officiating,” Farnham described Anderson in the first half, using a running back who last played in the NFL in 1993. “Jeffrey Anderson, you are 1 of 1 in the world of officials,” Farnham added a few minutes later.
And Shows? He’s “only” worked the final games three times, the last in 2019.
Flemming, however, wasn’t all that impressed.
“So many whistles in this game,” he said after another one with nearly 18 minutes left.
The Gonzaga fans weren’t impressed either, especially with Anderson, who called two fouls on GU in which replays showed little or no contact occurred. The last one gave USF three free throws with 9 seconds remaining.
• It’s nice to know, in a “they’re-just-like-us” way, the broadcast crew can have travel issues. Even when you are as well known in these parts as Farnham.
When he arrived at the Spokane airport Tuesday, Farnham was ticked to find out his reserved rental car was, well, not reserved.
How do we know? That afternoon he posted, on X (formerly Twitter), the Seinfeld video concerning rental car reservations. You know the one, with Jerry and Elaine at a rental car counter with the clerk telling him his midcar was not available. The rift on the difference between “taking” a reservation and “holding” one is a classic. Unlike most everything that happened in the game.