‘Answered the call and then some.’ Saint Mary’s freshman Mikey Lewis burns Gonzaga again, scores 18 points in 74-67 win

Mikey Lewis may still be coming off the bench two weeks from now at the West Coast Conference Tournament, but the Saint Mary’s freshman is likely to climb a few more spots on Gonzaga’s scouting report if the longtime rivals find themselves in another high-stakes matchup in Las Vegas.

During his first encounter with Gonzaga on Feb. 1, Lewis scored 16 points and delivered a handful of big shots in key moments down the stretch of a 62-58 victory for Saint Mary’s at UCU Pavilion.

In many ways, it was similar on Gonzaga’s home court Saturday evening.

The Zags struggled with the Lewis assignment for the second time in as many meetings, letting the guard get loose for a team-high 18 points off the bench. All five of Lewis’ field goals came from the 3-point line on a night that saw him finish 5 of 9 from the field, 5 of 7 from distance and 3 of 3 from the free-throw line.

Lewis scored 12 points in the second half, helping to carry Saint Mary’s to the victory at McCarthey Athletic Center while helping the Gaels secure a regular-season WCC title with two games remaining before the conference tournament.

“I was telling our guys, this is the hardest place to play that we play,” Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett said after the team’s 74-67 win. “BYU is really tough, but Gonzaga is probably the toughest place in the western United States to play. I was telling our guys, shoot we’ve had guys come up here for a year or two years and didn’t score a point. That ended up being good players, I don’t want to say their names. But that’s happened. Guys are all-conference their freshman year, they couldn’t draw blood anywhere, and for Mikey to do that, I know how hard it is to play here for a young guy.

“He answered the call and then some.”

With the backing of a home crowd in Moraga, California, Lewis torched Gonzaga with a number of second-half shots earlier in the month, scoring 10 points in the final 11 minutes, 15 seconds, and making multiple shots that extended the lead to 53-50 and 56-51.

Likewise, Lewis saved his best for last in Saturday’s matchup.

Gonzaga’s Graham Ike closed the deficit to 55-53 before Lewis rose up for a 3-pointer to make it a two-possession game. The Zags used a 4-0 run to trim the Saint Mary’s lead to one point, but Lewis connected on another 3-pointer and drew a foul on Ike, completing the four-point play and extending the Gaels’ lead to 62-57.

Lewis had two free throws to open up a 10-point lead with 4 minutes, 40 seconds remaining, then hit his fifth 3-pointer with under three minutes remaining to make it 72-61.

“He’s had a few of them. So when you do that, at least you have the belief you can do it and he does,” Bennett said. “He did it against Nebraska, Gonzaga the first time. He was better this time and this one was on the road. He’s had a number of those. Guys would be happy they had that many in a career and he’s had it in his first year, so it’s pretty cool.”

Gonzaga switched to a zone defense in the second half of the first matchup with Saint Mary’s and deployed the same scheme for long stretches of Saturday’s game. Botched assignments and defensive rotations allowed Lewis and the Gaels to get open for eight 3s, on 19 attempts, and shoot 45% (27 of 60) from the field.

“There was a missed assignment on our zone,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. “We’d been doing that effectively for at least the first 12-14 minutes of the second half. Missed one there and then the last one was just ball-screen coverage. You’ve got to pull in or the guy’s going to get a dunk, because we didn’t do our job on the front end of the ball screen and (Augustas) Marciulionis made a nice pass.”