The West Coast Conference’s two elite men’s teams were well on their way to high-profile non-conference victories on Saturday night. No. 7 Gonzaga forged a stunning 50-34 halftime lead over No. 4 Kentucky at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena while Saint Mary’s sculpted a 39-22 margin at the break vs. Utah at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City.
Unfortunately, only one of the two was able to finish the job.
Kentucky (8-1) confounded the Zags (7-2) by changing its defense in the second half and battled back to a 90-89 overtime victory in front of a capacity crowd of 17,846. The Gaels (9-1) watched as the Utes (6-2) chiseled their lead down to two points but Saint Mary’s left a crowd of 7,435 disappointed by taking home a 72-63 triumph.
“I thought they played great,” Utah coach Craig Smith said of the Gaels, who beat Utah in Salt Lake City for the first time since 1958. “It just really felt like they do what they do. They capitalize when you make mistakes.”
What the Gaels do, of course, is force the tempo the way they want with both their defense and an often deliberate offense. Taking them out of their game can be a challenge, as WCC teams know. Saint Mary’s held the Utes to a season-low point total, 27 points below their season scoring average.
Saint Mary’s led 49-30 before the Utes assembled a 14-0 run to make it a game again. But when the margin shrunk to two points, 57-55, with four minutes left, Gaels sophomore forward Paulius Murauskas rose up.
The Arizona transfer, playing the best game of his career, scored 29 points, including 6-for-10 on 3’s. He made three of those 3-pointers in the final 3:57 to help the Gaels re-establish control.
“He’s a talented guy, and it just felt like every time we made a mistake, he made us pay,” Smith told the Deseret News. “And of course, early in the game, we make some mistakes, and he sees that ball go in the hole, and he’s hunting shots. He’s an aggressive guy.”
The win was the Gaels’ third this season over a power-four conference opponent and their first-ever at Huntsman Arena.
Gonzaga had beaten Kentucky each of the past two seasons but still has not won in three tries at Climate Pledge Arena. “All of a sudden there was a lid on the hoop,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few told the Spokane Spokesman Review.
Kentucky coach Mark Pope entered the game wary of Zags senior Ryan Nenbhard, one of the nation’s top point guards. “He’s really special,” Pope said. “There are some guys who understand how to move all other nine players on the floor. He’s playing chess and everyone else is playing checkers.”
And in the first half, Nembhard was totally in charge, posting eight points and seven assists and getting all the Zags involved in the offensive attack. Forward Graham Ike had 18 of his 28 points by halftime, often turning pick-and-roll passes into baskets.
Kentucky switched from a man defense to a zone in the half, hoping to disrupt the Gonzaga flow. “Well, it’s easy to make that decision when you’re getting cooked,” Pope said.
Few called it a “fake zone” where Kentucky showed zone then quickly switched out of it during a possession. However it unfolded, it altered the landscape. “They just changed the matchup, (did) a couple things differently in ball screens,” said Nembhard, who wound with 13 points and 10 assists.
Still, there was no denying one thing: “ It was a great basketball game,” Few conceded.
LAST WEEK’S BIG THING: The Pacific and Oregon State women got the jump on the rest of the WCC, squaring off in the season’s first WCC matchup in Stockton on Thursday. Anaya James scored 22 points, including a 3-pointer with five seconds left in regulation, and the Tigers went on to post a 66-63 victory. AJ Marotte scored 17 for the Beavers, an affiliate member of the Conference, playing its first-ever WCC game.
THIS WEEK’S BIG THING: The Gonzaga men play the latest game in their non-conference gauntlet of high-level opponents when the Zags visit NYC’s Madison Square Garden to face two-time reigning NCAA champion UConn on Saturday at 5 p.m. PT (FOX).
PILOTS STAY PERFECT: The Portland women won twice more this week to extend the best start in program history. Never the winner of more than six in a row to begin a season until this year, the Pilots are 10-0 after a 74-55 win over Princeton and an 83-67 victory over UTEP. They have won all 10 by double digits.
GOOD AND BAD FOR COUGARS: The Washington State men (8-2) claimed a second straight Quad 1-level victory Saturday night, winning 74-69 over Boise State. Playing at Idaho Central Arena in Boise, technically a neutral site, WSU led by 24 points before hanging on to win. The Cougs did it without star wing Cedric Coward (17.7 points, 7.0 rebounds), who reportedly will undergo should surgery that will sideline him for an indefinite period.
First-year coach David Riley told the Spokesman-Review fans should not be surprised by his team. “We should win these games,” he said. “We’ve got the dudes to do it. We gotta make a statement vs. Boise that this is not a surprise anymore. This is who we are.”
TIP-INS: Oregon State’s Sela Heide, a 6-foot-7 senior who transferred from Cal two years ago, had 16 points, 12 rebounds and a career-best eight blocked shots off the bench in the Beavers’ 63-56 win over Grambling State . . . Graduate transfer Naudia Evans scored a career-best 32 points and the LMU (6-1) women won their sixth straight game, beating San Jose State 82-71 on the road Saturday . . . Maud Huijbens posted 15 points and a career-high 19 rebounds but couldn’t prevent the Gonzaga women from falling 74-72 in overtime at Colorado State.