Gonzaga puts together complete performance, routs Loyola Marymount 96-68 for third WCC win
LOS ANGELES – Gonzaga’s past four games, played over a stretch of eight days, each warranted different letter grades on a traditional report card.
After stumbling Dec. 28 against UCLA, holding on for a narrow win against Pepperdine on Monday and cruising against Portland on Thursday, Gonzaga saved its most complete performance for last, earning passing marks across the board Saturday in a 96-68 win against Loyola Marymount at Gersten Pavilion.
In many of GU’s recent games, the Zags had been decidedly better in one half compared to the other. It would have been tough to choose on Saturday in a game that saw Gonzaga shoot 51% from the first half and 54% in the second while holding the opponent to 32% in the first half before forcing eight LMU turnovers in the second.
“They’re all different, right? Every game has a life of its own and the opponents are all different and all that,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. “But this was definitely a complete performance, our defense was rock solid against a team that came in very confident. I mean they played great against Oregon State.
“I thought we did a great job there and then we stayed with it through the second half. I think we really did a good job of not giving them any easy 3s so they could really get going from out there.”
Doling out game MVP honors also would have been a challenging task on a night that saw two Gonzaga players exceed 25 points, another break out of an extended scoring slump and a fourth creep into triple-double territory midway through the second half.
Graham Ike, probably the top choice, finished one point shy of a season high, scoring 27 on 12-of-16 shooting from the field while making his only 3-point attempt of the game.
Another good option was Khalif Battle, who set a season high by scoring 26 points on 10-of-12 shooting from the field and 4 of 5 from the 3-point line. Battle’s efforts on the defensive end also generated three steals, matching a season high.
Michael Ajayi added 15 points for Gonzaga, scoring in double figures for the first time since a mid-December loss to Connecticut. Ajayi also broke out of his perimeter shooting funk, making a 3-pointer for the first time since Gonzaga’s loss to West Virginia on Nov. 27 at the Battle 4 Atlantis. Ajayi had missed 12 straight 3-point shots over the past nine games.
Ryan Nembhard did what was necessary from a scoring and distribution standpoint to notch his first career triple-double, but the point guard came up short in the rebounding column, finishing with 10 points, 11 assists and six rebounds.
“Our offense was good, very good,” Few said after watching his team make 38 of 72 (52.8%) shots from the field, knock down 7 of 16 from the 3-point line, make 13 of 14 from the free-throw line and commit only six turnovers. “To only have six turnovers against that type of pressure and that type of athleticism is just a great, great performance by our guys.”
Few was complimentary of Gonzaga’s defense after the Bulldogs held the Lions in check, particularly throughout a first half that saw the home team put up just 28 points.
LMU’s top scorer, Jevon Porter, surpassed his season average (13.9 points per game) by scoring 17 points, but the big wing did it on low-efficiency numbers, making just 4 of 14 shots from the field while shooting 2 of 7 from the 3-point line.
“They’re a really aggressive team, so we have to be aggressive back,” said Ajayi, who guarded his former Pepperdine teammate, Porter, for much of the evening. “With Jevon, he’s trying to get shots up, get to the paint, 3-balls, pull-ups, so just contesting every shot, making it difficult to get 20 points. At the end of the day as a team, we just collectively pounded the glass, ran our offense through and got good looks at the rim.”
Caleb Stone-Carrawell, another 13 point-per-game scorer for LMU, finished with only nine points, going 4 of 12 from the field and 1 of 6 from the 3-point line.
Will Johnston led the Lions in scoring with 18 points, but Gonzaga still limited the point guard’s opportunities – particularly from the 3-point line – after he scored 33 points on 7-of-11 shooting from behind the arc in a 17-point loss to the Zags at Gersten Pavilion last season.
Gonzaga (12-4, 3-0) returns for its first home game since Dec. 21 – and first home game in front of students since Nov. 20 – when the Bulldogs host San Diego (4-12, 1-2) on Wednesday.