It’s not that Washington State and No. 18 Gonzaga are unfamiliar with each other historically. They’ve played 150 times prior to Saturday night’s West Coast Conference matchup on the Bulldogs’ floor in Spokane, Wash.
But this will be the first time they’ve met as WCC rivals, thanks to the Cougars needing a home for their non-football sports programs after the Pac-12 dissolved last year. So when Washington State makes the 75-mile trip up a mountain pass from Pullman, it will be a game that Gonzaga (13-4, 4-0) has pointed to for some time.
“We’ve been wanting a game like this in the Kennel for a while,” Gonzaga forward Ben Gregg said after Wednesday night’s 93-80 WCC win over San Diego. “Both schools are having a great start to the season so far. It’s going to be a hard-fought game.”
The game lost a tiny bit of luster Thursday night when the Cougars (13-4, 3-1) stepped on a NET landmine and lost 95-94 in overtime at home to Pacific, ranked 310th heading into that game. Washington State was a defensive stop away from surviving before the Tigers’ Lamar Washington capped a 40-point effort by drilling a corner 3-pointer at the buzzer.
Still, Gonzaga coach Mark Few has nothing but praise for the Cougars, who have blended a high-scoring offense with elite rim protection to put together a solid team again.
“They’re kind of fearless,” Few said. “They’re very, very physical. They’re smart, they play like a really old team and they look like they’ve played together a long time. It looks like from watching them, they really frustrate some of the teams that they play.”
Can Washington State do that with its new neighborhood rivals in the teams’ first meeting in 10 years? Much will depend on if it can slow down the Bulldogs’ offense, ranked seventh in Division I at 87.8 ppg and led by forward Graham Ike at 16.3 ppg.
Ike had a unique game on Wednesday night, making only one field goal but still finishing close to his average, as he made 13 of 15 foul shots to end the night with 15 points and a whopping 19 rebounds.
First-year Cougars coach David Riley hopes his team can get out of the gates quicker than it did on Thursday night, when it fell into a 12-point first-half hole and spent most of the game’s remainder rallying just to force overtime.
“I thought that first half, we didn’t honor the game,” Riley said. “We didn’t play with the toughness we needed to go win a Division I game and that put us in a hole. They made some big plays down the stretch.”
Washington State will present some of the same challenges that it faces from Gonzaga. It averages 82.3 ppg and is tied for 15th in Division I with 5.5 blocked shots per game. Nick Calmese leads a balanced attack at 16.2 ppg.
Playing fast has had some drawbacks at times, though, as the Cougars rank near the bottom of Division I in turnovers at 15.4 per game. By comparison, the Bulldogs commit only 10 turnovers per game.
–Field Level Media
