‘They did a good job.’ Familiar script plays out for Gonzaga during second half of 88-77 victory over San Francisco

Chris Gerlufsen was pleased with the developments of the first five minutes of Thursday’s West Coast Conference game between his San Francisco Dons and the Gonzaga Bulldogs.

A few of the notable ones, from the vantage point of USF’s coach: three turnovers and zero points from standout Gonzaga forward Graham Ike; seven quick points for Dons guard Malik Thomas – who outscored the Zags for nearly seven minutes to start the game; and a 7-0 lead for the visitors at the first media timeout.

Gonzaga tied the game at 38 by halftime, but Gerlufsen was willing to live with it after limiting Ike to a four-point, four-turnover half and holding a slight advantage in a number of offensive categories, including field-goal percentage (46%-45%) and 3-pointers made (five to three).

“I thought all in all, first half we executed our game plan to a T,” Gerlufsen said. “I thought we had them a little bit on their heels, did a pretty good job on Graham in the first half, just kind of keeping them off-balance. Then to start the second half, defense went away from us.”

That script has been all too familiar in recent games between Gonzaga and USF, who traded places near the top of the West Coast Conference standings after the Zags won 88-77 Thursday, giving them sole possession of second place and a half-game lead on the Dons.

During the first of three meetings between the teams last season, the Dons led 31-30 at halftime before getting the best version of GU in the second half.

The Zags rode a 47-41 advantage in the second to a 77-72 victory.

When Gonzaga and USF met later in the season at the Chase Center, it was a 35-34 game at halftime, but GU’s one-point advantage ballooned to a 29-point Zags lead during an eventual 86-68 win.

Same story in the WCC Tournament, where the Zags and Dons met in a semifinal matchup, trading blows in the first half until GU edged ahead 38-37 at halftime. Gonzaga’s adjustments prevailed over USF’s and the Zags outscored the Dons 50-41 in the second half to win 89-77.

It played out in a similar fashion Thursday.

Ben Gregg set the tone with a three-point play on the first possession of the second half and Gonzaga opened on an 18-8 run.

The Zags established Ike and fellow forward Braden Huff in a way they couldn’t in the first half, getting 23 points from the low-post pairing.

GU’s scoring runs also coincided with USF foul trouble. Starting forward Junjie Wang fouled out with less than five minutes to play and five other Dons finished the game with either three or four fouls.

“They’re a really, really good team, so we’re not going to blow them out in the first half. That’s just not going to happen,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. “They’re an NCAA-caliber team, I think, so they’re just going to be hard-fought games like this and I think we got the pace going a little bit. That helped. We got out in transition, which kind of alleviated some of their pressure.”

After outscoring the Dons 50-39 in Thursday’s second half, Gonzaga is plus-45 in the second half of its past four games against USF – a stark contrast to the Zags’ plus-1 in the first half of those meetings.

“We were in a little bit of foul trouble, and I thought that maybe caused us to have a little bit less bite,” Gerlufsen said. “But they did a good job, obviously clearly tried to do some things to go directly into the paint in the second half. And 52 points in the paint is obviously way too much. We wanted to live with some contested 3s and just didn’t get help down there enough in the second half.

“They did a good job. All that being said, we still got the game into a manageable spot down six with three and change to play.”