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Gonzaga Basketball

Following 28-day hiatus from Kennel, No. 13 Gonzaga returns home for nonleague test against Nicholls State

Gonzaga Bulldogs forward Braden Huff (34) reacts after falling to the Connecticut Huskies during the second half of a college basketball game on Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024, at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Connecticut Huskies won the game 77-71.  (Tyler Tjomsland / The Spokesman-Review)

There’s no place like home – and perhaps no better time to be back there for Gonzaga’s basketball team.

Four weeks ago on Nov. 20, the Zags closed out a convincing 84-41 win over Long Beach State at McCarthey Athletic Center, improving their overall record to 5-0 while ensuring they’d retain their position at No. 3 in the AP Top 25 rankings before opening play at the Battle 4 Atlantis.

The team returning to the Kennel roughly one month later to face Nicholls State (7-4) on Wednesday has dropped three of its past five games, plummeted to No. 13 in the national rankings and identified at least a few dozen areas where it’ll look to improve going forward.

The Zags set a dangerously high bar early, throttling Baylor 101-63 in a season opener at the Arena before picking up an impressive home win against an Arizona State team collecting Top 25 votes and going on the road to beat San Diego State, now ranked No. 23 in the AP poll.

With only those data points available, multiple voters placed Gonzaga atop their weekly AP rankings, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi penciled the Bulldogs in as a projected No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed and various sportsbooks listed Mark Few’s team as one of three or four favorites to bring home a national championship.

As for the verdict on Gonzaga now, after playing five consecutive games outside of its ZIP code – a stretch that included an 86-78 overtime loss to West Virginia in the Bahamas, a 90-89 overtime loss to Kentucky at Climate Pledge Arena and a 77-71 loss to Connecticut on Saturday at Madison Square Garden?

“I think we’re kind of finding our identity still,” point guard Ryan Nembhard said. “We’re figuring it out and I think we’ve had some good tests and we fell short on a couple, but we’re not disheartened by that. We know we can win all these three games. … We’ve got to clean up some things on both sides of the ball and it’s a long season.

“We’re going to do that and we’re going to take care of business. We’re going to get better day by day.”

Final exams ended Friday, but basketball-related homework continues to pile up for a Gonzaga team that’s struggled at times with offensive execution, particularly in the second half of games against quality opponents.

In each of their three losses, the Zags were on track to reach their season scoring average of 88 points after the first half, scoring 39 points against WVU, 50 against Kentucky and 40 against UConn – an average of 44 points.

Somewhat inexplicably, Gonzaga’s high-functioning offense has gone dry in the second half. The Bulldogs put up 32 points against WVU, 29 against Kentucky and 31 against UConn, making 11 field goals in the second half of all three losses while shooting 33 of 83 (39%) from the field, compared to 46 of 92 (50%) in the first half.

The same issues also surfaced in one of GU’s wins. After scoring 57 first-half points and making 21 field goals against Indiana, the Zags settled for 32 points on 10 makes in the second half of an 89-73 win.

Improvement may not necessarily be measured by what the Zags do in their next two games, Wednesday against Nicholls State, ranked No. 242 at KenPom.com, and Friday against No. 260 Bucknell. But a pair of wins could restore confidence before GU players scatter for the holidays and return to prepare for another marquee nonconference test against a Quad 1 opponent in UCLA.

Nicholls State, a Southland Conference team based in Thibodeaux, Louisiana, won’t be lacking confidence, arriving to Spokane with a five-game winning streak that’s improved Tevon Saddler’s team to 7-4 on the season.

Saddler, the youngest active coach in Division I at 29 years old, recorded the most wins (20) in program history by a first-year coach in 2023-24, and managed to retain three of his top four scorers from a year ago.

Byron Ireland, a senior guard who began his career at Maine, is leading the Colonels at 13.2 points per game. Robert Brown III (11.4) and Jamal West Jr. (10.4) are two other double-digit scorers who played on last year’s team. Ireland didn’t play in the team’s last game, a 110-68 victory against Southern University at New Orleans, but traveled to Spokane for Wednesday’s contest.

The Colonels have been a defensive-minded team, with numbers that suggest they’re equipped to keep opponents off the 3-point line and/or force bad looks from behind the arc. Nicholls State ranks No. 33 nationally in field-goal percentage defense, limiting opponents to 38.8%, and the Colonels are holding teams to 27% from the 3-point line, placing them 13th in the country.

Gonzaga might have success establishing Graham Ike after the senior forward was held to three points – matching his lowest total for Mark Few’s program – on Saturday against UConn. The Colonels lean smaller, with nobody on the roster standing taller than 6-foot-8.

Saddler has used a variety of starting lineups, with 11 players registering at least one start. West is the only player to have started in all 11 games for Nicholls State and one of just four players to have appeared in every game.