“Iron was sharpening every single day:” Gonzaga’s Graham Ike, Braden Huff push each other to improve

Gonzaga has several days to rest and prepare for the Battle 4 Atlantis and Wednesday’s opener against West Virginia in the Bahamas.

Coaches frown on projected tournament matchups, but the third-ranked Zags potentially could run into No. 16 Indiana and former GU big man Oumar Ballo in the second round and No. 17 Arizona, led by former Gonzaga assistant Tommy Lloyd.

“Fun, exciting matchups, physical matchups,” senior post Graham Ike said of the bigs who could line up against Gonzaga. “It’s something that we don’t shy away from. We look forward to those because it’s only going to make us better at the end of the day.”

Sort of like Gonzaga practices.

Kansas 7-foot-2 center Hunter Dickinson, Auburn’s 6-10 Johni Broome and 7-1 Ryan Kalkbrenner – GU point guard Ryan Nembhard’s former teammate at Creighton – receive most of the national publicity, but few teams boast a pair of bigs like Ike and Braden Huff.

The duo combines for 28.6 points and 10 rebounds per game. Both shoot better than 50% from the field and they’re solid at the free-throw line. Huff made two 3-pointers – his first of the season – against San Diego State and Ike swished his first 3 of the year against Long Beach State.

Ask Ike why they make an effective tandem and he’ll point to Huff, who points back at Ike when quizzed about his defensive improvement.

“I think we’ve gotten here just because of how hard we were going at each other this summer and in the fall,” Ike said following GU’s 84-41 win over Long Beach State on Wednesday. “The iron was sharpening every single day. Like I said after (San Diego State), you’re not getting a break when he subs in or if I sub right back in for him.”

Gonzaga wing Dusty Stromer, during an amusing postgame media session early last season, noted that Huff’s high school team played zone defense exclusively, prompting Huff to sheepishly admit, “That’s why the defense is a little bit of a work in progress still.”

Still is, but the 6-10 Huff is clearly better on defense as a redshirt sophomore.

“It’s huge, just from a confidence standpoint (the growth from last year to this season). You’ve seen everything, you kind of know what you’re in for,” Huff said. “There’s that and going against this guy (Ike) all summer on the defensive end and offensively has been huge. A lot of physicality, lot of good battles. That’s helped me a ton. Iron sharpens iron.”

Huff’s offense has been pretty sharp in 41 career games. He was 13th nationally a year ago in shooting percentage (70) inside the arc. He’s at 63.6% in that category this season and his free-throw accuracy has climbed from 55.4% to 85.7%. Ike paced GU last year at 16.5 points and he’s first this season at 14.6.

Ike and Huff combined for 27 points in 31 minutes against Long Beach State.

“You’ve got two guys that are different but similar in a lot of ways,” Long Beach State coach Chris Acker said. “You’ve got two guys on the left block that can get to that right shoulder and make shots. Then you’ve got two guys – Ike hit a 3 (Wednesday) so he’s trending to be a really good shooter and then Huff obviously can knock down 3s.

“Both of them have very high basketball IQs, but their size and physicality – when you’re subbing a guy in like Huff off the bench, he can start anywhere in the country. The fact he’s willing to come off the bench and play his role in that standpoint says a lot about the character that he is and the type of program that coach (Mark) Few has.”

Few routinely fields questions about GU’s depth and was asked again after Wednesday’s win.

“We’ve got a lot of guys and they’re all kind of bunched together,” he said. “It’s obviously really nice to rest our guards and here comes Dusty Stromer, who is a very good player and I consider him a starter. Obviously, Braden was able to do that (provide offense) a lot last year but he’s playing better defensively. Last year we had to sub for him a lot because of defensive matchups or lapses.”

GU’s four bigs – Huff, Ike, Ben Gregg and Michael Ajayi – are averaging between 16 and 22 minutes. The backcourt is logging heavier minutes, led by Ryan Nembhard (32 minutes), Nolan Hickman (29.2), Khalif Battle (27.4) and Stromer (21.2).

“We’ve got a lot of dudes,” Huff said. “Not just the bigs, but the guards, too.”