Ryan Nembhard’s passing clinic in paradise and four other takeaways from Gonzaga’s trip to the Battle 4 Atlantis
PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas – After three games, the grand total came to 98 minutes, 48 seconds.
Gonzaga was in control of the lead for nearly 100 minutes this week at the Battle 4 Atlantis, running up a double-digit lead in each of its three games against West Virginia, Indiana and Davidson.
Those teams, meanwhile, combined to lead for a total of 18 minutes, 10 seconds against Gonzaga, with WVU accounting for most of that during Wednesday’s opener at Imperial Arena.
That either makes a fifth-place finish in Atlantis harder to swallow, or provides confirmation that Gonzaga, with the exception of a few late-game execution issues and defensive blunders, is operating at a high level and right where it needs to be after eight games.
We take a deeper look at Gonzaga’s showing on Paradise Island this week, with five takeaways from the Battle 4 Atlantis.
Passing clinic in paradise
Before players starting taking questions at the postgame news conference late Friday evening, a sports information official listed off the tournament records Ryan Nembhard claimed during the team’s stay on Paradise Island.
By the end, Ben Gregg, seated three chairs down from Nembhard, let out a long “Sheeeesh,” and another teammate, Graham Ike, responded with a concise “Wow.”
Thirty-nine total assists from Nembhard gave Gonzaga’s point guard the Battle 4 Atlantis record, shattering the previous mark of 32 set by Michigan’s Zavier Simpson in 2019.
With 12 assists in the opener against West Virginia, Nembhard tied the tournament single-game record, then took sole ownership roughly 24 hours later when he delivered 13 against Indiana.
That record lasted all of one day.
Nembhard put on another masterful passing display against Davidson, dishing out a career-high 14 assists with just two turnovers in a 25-point win.
“There was a quote, one of our managers puts together like a media report, so we see all of the highlights and the quotes from press conferences throughout the year, and coach (Mark) Few called him a wizard in the ball screen and that’s exactly what he is,” Davidson coach Matt McKillop said. “So when he got to the paint, we have to be thinking about not playing our gaps as much as getting close to our man, because he’s going to find them if there’s a sliver to deliver that pass.”
Nembhard had 45 assists through the first eight games of his junior season at Gonzaga – one that culminated with him breaking the school’s single-season assist record. Through eight games this season, he’s cleared that number with ease, totaling 86 assists while maintaining an NCAA-leading 10.8 assists per game.
“They run great ball screen actions for him, they have great talent setting and rolling on those ball screens and then maybe the best in the country in terms of playing in the ball screens and delivering passes,” McKillop said. “… So, I think there’s a reason why he’s probably the best passer in the country and probably one of the best point guards, if not the best.”
More data needed?
Through roughly one-quarter of the regular season, it’s still difficult to get a feel for Gonzaga on the defensive end of the floor.
Are the Zags good? Great? Just a shade better than last year’s group that finished 51st in KenPom’s defensive efficiency?
A month in, there are data points that could probably support arguments for all three.
A 96-90 exhibition loss to USC at Acrisure Arena raised initial concerns about Gonzaga’s defense, and there be a few more after the Trojans were limited to 36 points by GU’s top West Coast Conference rival, Saint Mary’s, on Friday at the same venue in Palm Desert, California.
Gonzaga regrouped in its first regular-season game, putting the clamps on Baylor in a 101-63 blowout, but more defensive holes were exposed six days later in an 88-80 victory against Arizona State.
The Zags held up well on the road against a shorthanded San Diego State team, but old issues returned in their next game against a quality opponent in West Virginia.
GU couldn’t come up with the defensive stops it needed to hold off the Mountaineers in Wednesday’s Battle 4 Atlantis opener.
“We just weren’t tight all game with our kind of switching and what we like to do there, our communication and executing our plan,” Few said. “I didn’t feel great, even in the first half when our defensive number was pretty good, I thought we left some guys (open) we shouldn’t have left, then we had stretches when we changed our coverage it was very good, and then again we just made some mistakes at the end that cost us at the end.”
Gonzaga made the necessary fixes and fared well against Indiana, which struggled to produce on the offensive end when former Zag Oumar Ballo wasn’t converting down low.
In the tournament finale, Gonzaga held Davidson to 14 points less than its season scoring average and limited the Wildcats to their lowest offensive output of the season.
“Defensively, we executed the plan,” Few said.
The Zags rank No. 76 nationally in scoring defense, allowing 66.1 points per game, but they’re up to No. 17 in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency.
More crucial data points are coming for Gonzaga, which plays Kentucky, UConn and UCLA at neutral venues before the new year.
Bigs chow down
The term “Feast Week,” coined by ESPN, applies to the broader slate of college basketball games that coincides with the Thanksgiving holiday, but it’s also an apt way to describe the play of Gonzaga’s big men over the last three days.
Sometimes it was Ike, other times it was Braden Huff and Gregg, and on the final day of the Battle 4 Atlantis, it was all three bigs trading turns against Davidson, which had no counter for Gonzaga’s frontcourt as the Bulldogs mounted a 56-24 advantage in paint points.
Ike’s shooting was spotty early, but the senior forward eventually found the scoring groove fans got so accustomed to seeing last season, posting 18 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field while pulling down 10 rebounds.
The preseason third-team All-American never got going against WVU, scoring just five points on 1-of-6 shooting from the field, and battled through frustrating moments in the team’s second game against Indiana.
Early in the game, Ike and Mackenzie Mgbako both received flagrant fouls when the Gonzaga big man threw his body into his Indiana counterpart while boxing out for a rebound.
Mgbako reacted by tossing his right elbow into the back of Ike’s skull.
Ike overcame that and the foul trouble that followed him throughout the game, finishing with 14 points and seven rebounds.
“I responded well, we responded well as a team,” Ike said. “Ultimately, we were tested in the first game and in the second game, we were faced with some adversity and ultimately, we’re judged off our response. I’m proud of myself and I’m proud of this team.”
In Ike’s place, Huff delivered for the Zags on Wednesday, going on an 8-0 personal run down the stretch while scoring a game-high 19 points in 30 minutes.
Huff was quieter against Indiana, but the Zags got productive minutes out of Gregg, who had 13 points off the bench and played a handful of minutes at the “5” – a task that required him to match up against Ballo, his former GU teammate.
Together, Gregg (24), Ike (18) and Huff (14) combined for 56 of Gonzaga’s 90 points and 22 rebounds in the tournament finale against Davidson.
“When (Ike) gets a little bit tired, they go off the bench with guys like Ben Gregg and Braden Huff,” McKillop said.
“You’re talking about two guys coming off the bench that go 15 for 21 from the field, six assists, zero turnovers, 12 rebounds between the two of them. There’s a physicality piece – these are grown men, fifth and sixth years in college, so you can game plan to double team them, but they catch the ball so deep a double team doesn’t even matter at that point.”
Free-throw frequency
Khalif Battle’s knack for getting to the free-throw line, and making foul shots at a high clip, appears to have rubbed off on his Gonzaga teammates through the first eight games of the season.
Gonzaga got plenty of opportunities at the foul line in a tournament where fouls were handed out liberally. The Bulldogs didn’t let many of them go to waste, converting on 54 of 59 of their free throws to lead the Battle 4 Atlantis field at 91.5%.
It wasn’t just a three-game phenomenon, either.
Gonzaga’s getting to the free-throw line 18.1 times per game this season. The Bulldogs rank third in the country, making 82.4% of their free throws. They’re one of only 17 teams making 80% or better.
The team’s eight primary rotation players are shooting at a higher clip of 84.3%.
The Zags are led by Battle, who made 140 consecutive free throws during practice, according to multiple reports from WCC Media Day, and still hasn’t missed in a game this season, making his first 28 attempts.
Nolan Hickman is still perfect from the line, albeit on just four attempts, while Nembhard, Huff and Dusty Stromer are all making 85.7% of their attempts.
Last year’s group averaged just 13.6 attempts, converting 72.1% . Since 2017-18, the Zags haven’t had a team get to the free-throw line more than 16.5 times per game, or had one shoot better than 75%.
Hickman hits 1K
Hickman caught much of the blame for the late turnover that allowed West Virginia to force overtime on Wednesday, but the senior shooting guard was solid otherwise and scored his 1,000th career point against the Mountaineers.
Coming into the Battle 4 Atlantis, Hickman needed seven points to reach the milestone. He got there midway through the first half, making a 3-pointer that extended Gonzaga’s lead to 20-16.
The Seattle native is averaging 11.5 points for Gonzaga and shooting 46.2% from the 3-point line on 4.9 attempts per game .
Hickman, who has 1,029 points, becomes the fourth member of Gonzaga’s roster to join the 1,000-point club, but the only one to do it while scoring all of his points in a Bulldogs uniform.
Battle has scored 1,451 points at four schools, previously playing at Butler, Temple and Arkansas. Ike (1,464) and Nembhard (1,279) both reached the milestone last year at Gonzaga, but most of their production came while playing at Wyoming and Creighton, respectively.
Gonzaga guard Ryan Nembhard drives into the paint against Davidson’s Connor Kochera during the first half of Friday’s Battle 4 Atlantis game in the Bahamas.