Gonzaga’s Nigel Wiliams-Goss lets his steady play do the talking

Gonzaga had another memorable evening in The Kennel, roughing up Washington 98-71 in the first nontournament showing between the cross-state rivals in a decade.

For Nigel Wiliams-Goss, GU’s rout of the West coast “Dawgs” brought about some old memories on the court. Williams-Goss played in Seattle for the Huskies for the first two years of his college career before trading up his purple jersey for a redshirt start at Gonzaga last year.

During his sophomore year at UW, Williams-Goss created a buzz around campus when he was looking into leaving the college court to enter the NBA draft. But the Huskies, and UW coach Lorenzo Romar, were blindsided when Williams-Goss decided to not just leave Washington, but to play for the regional powerhouse right down the street.

“Romar was definitely surprised. But I never thought that I was going to transfer, so it just kind of played out the way it did,” Williams-Goss said. “It was just a personal decision for me. I thought it was best for me to move on.”

Head coach Mark Few counted Williams-Goss’ night against his former team as just another great game played by one of GU’s standout athletes.

“Everybody is just trying to make a big deal about it and Nigel just stayed how Nigel is,” Few said. “He’s steady. Look at that stat sheet, he did what he always does. He fills up all the buckets on the stat sheet.”

Williams-Goss led the red and blue with a season-high 23 points in 32 minutes, shooting 69 percent (9 of 13) from the field and hitting all four of his shots at the free-throw line.