Gonzaga trailed with 14 minutes left, then turned on the jets in a scintillating 16-0 run to dispatch San Francisco, 81-72.
LAS VEGAS – Here at the West Coast Conference basketball tournament, otherwise known as Gonzaga’s Search For Its Former Self, Saturday began a little eerily.
Portland ousted St. Mary’s — by 17, yet — which means not only will Gonzaga and the Gaels not dust off an old tradition of playing each other here in the final, they won’t play each other at all, for the first time since 2008.
And for a long time in the early evening, it looked like the Zags and Gaels might run into each other at the airport. Gonzaga trailed with 14 minutes left, then turned on the jets in a scintillating 16-0 run to dispatch San Francisco, 81-72.
As for that rediscovery of the team that was turning heads nationally before a case of the sputters in part of February, Zag zealots will have to satisfy themselves with a segment of sizzle, not the whole blame thing.
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But realize that once they stared down the idea of a really ignominious exit from this thing, they hit 21 of their last 29 shots and had a blistering, 54-point second half.
“In the second half,” said Gonzaga coach Mark Few, “we stepped up and started making shots like we’re capable of.”
Of course, the guy with the shortest route to the basket is Przemek Karnowski, the 7-foot-1 junior import from Poland. He went 10 for 14 on a career-high 24-point night, one in which he even hit 4 of 5 free throws.
“They didn’t double down low for most of the game,” said Karnowski. “That gave me some space to operate and score easy baskets.”
Unlike most Zag opponents, who seem to bedevil Karnowski with double-teams, sometimes rendering him indecisive, USF chose to go at him 1-on-1 and try to offset that deficit by harassing the perimeter.
For a long while, it worked, until Karnowski’s teammates – who went 6 of 23 in the first half – began getting things done offensively. When that happened, and when the Zags dialed up a defense that limited USF to 37 percent, the issue was decided.
If a guy who measures 85 inches head to heel can be forgotten, that seems to be what’s happened with Karnowski. With other story lines bubbling up like Kyle Wiltjer’s surge to national acclaim, Kevin Pangos’ successful pursuit of the GU three-point record and even Eric McClellan’s emergence as a useful force, the progress of Karnowski has been a back-burner factor.
Truth be told, there wasn’t that much of it in the WCC season. In the 14 games since Jan. 10, mostly double-teamed, he creased double figures seven times. He’s a first option, but the fourth-leading scorer.
“That stretch in December and January, he was as dominant a big man as there was in the country,” said Few. “He kind of lost what he was doing to be successful. He’s a force down there; he’s an entity.
“The big thing for him is not settling – don’t settle for 8-foot hook shots.”
So: Double-team or not? Most teams do, figuring they’ll take their chances with deadly three-point shooters. USF went the other way, and Pangos and Gary Bell Jr. hit only one of their first 10 shots, which made it 5 of 26 over two games.
But that was before the 16-point run in the second half, when Gonzaga broke the game open by scoring on eight straight possessions. Kyle Wiltjer started it, and then Pangos and Bell drained consecutive treys to make it 51-41. Pangos’ was a relatively tough, off-balance shot from the right wing after he had missed his first half-dozen threes.
“I’m just gonna keep shooting until they fall,” Pangos said, a smile tugging at his lips. “That’s my mentality. Move on and keep shooting.”
Gonzaga thus annexed a 30-victory season against two losses, but not before Wiltjer took a hard fall with 5:10 left, bruising a hip. He didn’t return, and the Zags are thankful for a day off Sunday before meeting Pepperdine Monday night in the semis.
“He kind of did the splits,” Few said, “and got into a position he doesn’t even get into in yoga.”
Wiltjer is into yoga?
“Yeah, all these guys do,” Few said. Turning to Karnowski, he said, “Can you imagine this guy on a yoga mat?”
Well, no. But then, it would have been hard to imagine a WCC semifinals without St. Mary’s or Gonzaga, too. That’s a thought the Zags don’t have to entertain.