Blood in the water: Gonzaga throttles Kansas in second half to win 89-68, advance to ninth straight Sweet 16

SALT LAKE CITY – With strips of gauze wedged up both nostrils and red smears on the March Madness towel hanging over his neck, Anton Watson wrapped up a radio interview and acknowledged the group of Gonzaga fans that waited around after the final buzzer sounded at the Delta Center.

The gauze was gone, but the bloody towel was still draped over Watson’s neck by the time the longest-tenured Zag met with reporters in the locker room approximately 40 minutes later.

“We’ve got dogs on this team and it doesn’t matter if we’re banged up, we’re going to give it our all,” Watson said. “It could be the last game of the season, but we didn’t want it to be the last game of the season, so we left it all on the court.”

Figuratively and literally, the Zags were tasting blood during the second half of Saturday’s NCAA Tournament second-round matchup against Kansas.

After both teams rocketed out to quick offensive starts, only one of them seemed interested in picking up where it left off after halftime. The back-and-forth action effectively stopped once the second half started and Gonzaga scored 37 of the first 43 points coming out of the break to build a game-high 27-point lead in an 89-68 thumping of Kansas in Salt Lake City.

Gonzaga’s 2023-24 season wasn’t always guaranteed to culminate in a 25th consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament, but now it’ll resume in a familiar place. Saturday’s win extended Gonzaga’s streak of consecutive Sweet 16 appearances to nine, tying Duke for the second most, behind North Carolina (13, 1981-93).

The Bulldogs (27-7) will pick up on Friday in Detroit against the winner of Sunday’s game between top-seeded Purdue (30-4) and eighth-seeded Utah State (28-6). A tipoff time and television details will be announced on Sunday.

“The Sweet 16 thing, we don’t take it for granted at all,” Gonzaga’s Mark Few said. “… Probably even better than that is being able to take your groups through it. … Mid-December or late December, this was looking like hey, maybe it wasn’t going to happen.”

It probably isn’t wise to set any limits or place any ceilings on what the Zags can accomplish in this tournament if they continue to dominate both ends of the floor the way they did in each of their games at the Delta Center this week.

Gonzaga led by 35 points during an 86-65 victory over McNeese State on Thursday, but considering the tight nature of Saturday’s first half, and the steady shot-making of Kansas, it didn’t feel like the Bulldogs would pull away from the Jayhawks, especially after Nick Timberlake knocked down a 3-pointer just 28 seconds into the second half to give Kansas a 47-43 advantage.

But the lead vanished when Graham Ike converted a baseline floater over Hunter Dickinson and Kansas’ offense followed with a disappearing act, going scoreless for the next 4 minutes, 37 seconds. With contributions from four of Gonzaga’s five starters, the Bulldogs went on a 13-0 run during Kansas’ cold stretch to extend the lead to 63-49.

“I think just going into halftime, we all know that first half wasn’t our best defense, and we knew that they were going to get tired eventually of us applying pressure and us sticking to our plan,” Watson said.

“We started rebounding, we started getting stops, and that created that momentum and got us some runs.”

Dickinson broke the Jayhawks out of the slump with a second-chance layup, but opportunities to cut into the lead were sparse for a fatigued Kansas team against an inspired Gonzaga group that made all the necessary defensive tweaks without regressing on the offensive end.

“I mean, my guys were gassed,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “I hadn’t had very many times where you take a guy out and he’s setting through a 3-minute timeout and I say go back in, and he says, ‘I need a little bit more time.’ ”

Gonzaga made 11 of its first 13 shots coming out of halftime – including seven straight to open the half – and the Bulldogs’ second-half field-goal percentage climbed to 85.7% after Dusty Stromer converted on a corner 3-pointer that grew the lead to 74-53.

Kansas, meanwhile, encountered one skid after another. The Jayhawks missed 23 of their first 27 shots in the second half and endured a 7:07 scoring drought just minutes after their 4:37 slump ended.

“We talked at halftime. We had to bear down here and start getting some stops,” Few said. “Our offense was clicking really, really well. To their credit, not only did they get the stops we needed, but we also shored up the glass, which was a problem in the first half.”

Ryan Nembhard steered Gonzaga’s offense as well as he has this season, dishing out nine assists before scoring his first point and matching his career high with 12 assists.

Watson was GU’s top scorer with 21 points and one of five Zags to finish in double figures. Nolan Hickman had 17 points on 3-of-4 shooting from the 3-point line, Ike and Ben Gregg each had 15 points and nine rebounds, and Braden Huff had 11 valuable points off the bench, all in the first half while Ike sat with foul trouble.

“What these guys have been able to do, especially in lieu of where we were earlier in the year, but all the ones that came before them that set this thing up, it’s a testament to all the great players that came through this program,” Few said.