A busy Saturday had a game out west that figured to be a good one. It was perhaps the one chance that a team heavily favored to win its conference could lose a conference game on the season, as they went on the road to take on what looked like the second-best team. The game lived up to its billing, though the final score won’t tell the story.
But what the final score does tell you is who rules the conference, and it’s the program that has done that for two decades now. Gonzaga beat San Francisco 96-83, and might well be on its way to an undefeated run through the West Coast Conference.
This is one of Gonzaga’s better teams, so while the Bulldogs would figure to be favorites in most years anyway, that is the case even more so this season. Add in the fact that the conference is better as a whole but not necessarily in terms of having a team capable of pushing Gonzaga, and you can see the potential for Gonzaga to not lose a game.
The two teams combined for over a dozen ties, and inside the final media timeout, San Francisco had an 81-79 lead. They combined for eight turnovers, a sign of how well-played the game was. The Dons would score just two points the rest of the way on a Charles Minlend layup with less than two minutes to go. That snapped an 8-0 Gonzaga run, but that was it as Gonzaga finished the game on a 17-2 run to win by a deceptive margin.
What’s not up for debate is how the Bulldogs are still pretty much head and shoulders ahead of everyone else in the WCC. Saint Mary’s is down after significant personnel losses, though the Gaels won on Saturday night to go to 2-1 in WCC play, and BYU is good (and now 3-1 in WCC play) but not in the Bulldogs’ league. San Francisco looked like they could be the team best positioned to give them a run for their money, and they came up short at home.
How is this for a note: San Francisco had six players score in double figures and still lost to a Gonzaga team that had five double-digit scorers of their own and got key plays late from Geno Crandall, who scored just three points and had missed time earlier with an injury.
Side Dishes
For more notes on game action, see the Saturday Notes column.
Duke went the entire second half without star forward Zion Williamson after he got poked in the eye on a drive to the basket. Williamson was hit by Florida State’s Trent Forrest and suffered from double vision, but was on the bench during the second half and could play in the Blue Devils’ next game, a quick turnaround on Monday night.
Baylor didn’t just lose a game to Kansas on Saturday. The Bears also announced that Tristan Smith, their second-leading scorer, will miss the rest of the season due to a left knee injury. The sophomore was leading the nation in field goal percentage at 73.7 percent, and it’s a blow to a Baylor team that needs to get more quality wins in Big 12 play.
Late Saturday night, the Sun Belt Conference announced that the officiating crew from Saturday’s game between Georgia State and visiting UL Monroe has been suspended for a game. Georgia State won 74-73, getting a game-winning layup from D’Marcus Simonds to cap a 28-point outing with less than a second to go, but the star guard appeared to take enough steps that even an NBA referee would have called a travel. While there was contact on the play, something should have been called – a travel or a foul, and not necessarily on a defender – but nothing was called and Simonds got the game-winner after UL Monroe had rallied from being down by 21 points. In a statement, Sun Belt Commissioner Karl Benson said, “When such an egregious error occurs that directly determines the outcome of a game, it cannot be ignored. As a result, these three officials will be suspended for their next scheduled game.”
Tonight’s Menu
Not surprisingly, the very busy Saturday is followed by a relatively light day of action here.
- It starts with a pair of Big East tilts as Butler visits Xavier and Villanova visits Creighton, both tipping at noon.
- A busy MAAC slate has Marist at St. Peter’s tipping first (1 p.m.), then Rider goes to Niagara, Iona travels to Canisius and Quinnipiac hosts Fairfield, all with 2 p.m. tips.
- The lone SEC game on tap is one originally scheduled for Saturday as Missouri visits South Carolina (1 p.m.)
- Purdue Fort Wayne takes their perfect Summit League mark into South Dakota (2 p.m.)
- A pair of Atlantic 10 games comes later, with Dayton hosting UMass (3:30 p.m.) and Rhode Island hosting George Mason (5:30 p.m.)
- The lone Missouri Valley game of the day has Drake visiting Northern Iowa (4 p.m.)
- A pair of American Athletic Conference games are on tap, with East Carolina traveling to UCF (4 p.m.) followed by Memphis visiting Tulane (6 p.m.)
- Next up are two Big Ten games as Michigan State visits Penn State (4:30 p.m.) and Michigan welcomes Northwestern (7:30 p.m.)
- Two Pac-12 games between the Oregon and Los Angeles schools are on tap at night as Oregon hosts USC (8 p.m.) and Oregon State hosts UCLA (10 p.m.)
