Erick Doxey photo
Even Gonzaga players might've been a bit shocked at how perfectly everything went versus Baylor.
There's starting off on the right foot, and then there's whatever happened Monday night inside Spokane Arena.
The Gonzaga men's basketball team loudly announced itself as a national title contender late on college basketball's opening night with a dominating 101-63 win against Baylor. The Bears came into the season ranked No. 8 in the country, but the Bulldogs made them look like a NAIA warmup team in front of the rabid crowd of Spokanites. It was just one of those nights where everything was clicking for Mark Few and the Zags.
While you never want to overreact to a single result, here are some too-early conclusions and stray thoughts from a season opener to remember.
ALREADY IN SYNC
Gonzaga’s season openers tend to be blowout victories, but they rarely tell us much about how good the Zags really are. Almost always, these opening night games come against significantly overmatched competition.Monday’s 38-point win came against a top-10 ranked Baylor squad, not Sacramento State or Southern. As ESPN Stats and Info noted, Gonzaga’s margin of victory was the largest against a preseason Top 10 team in a season opener in the history of the AP Top 25 Poll.
Baylor’s good. Gonzaga’s just better.
Which isn’t what we saw early on last season, when the Zags fell short against every great team — and some not so great teams — starting in November and going through January.
Gonzaga’s season was 92 days old when the Zags first picked up a marquee win last year. This time around, they needed just one day.
The Zags' offensive efficiency rating of 144.0 — number of points scored per 100 possessions — is better than all but one of their games last season against Division I competition.
It’s more than just the fact that Gonzaga brought back just about everyone besides Anton Watson from last year’s team, which ultimately found its footing and ran to another Sweet Sixteen. Though that is certainly part of it.
It’s also that the new guys fit in perfectly.
Khalif Battle (12 points) is a sixth-year senior who has played at three proud basketball programs in Butler, Temple and Arkansas. He’s as veteran as it gets in college basketball. Michael Ajayi (9 points, 8 rebounds) is in just his second year at the DI level, but he’s a senior overall and was one of the best players in the WCC at his previous stop playing for conference rival Pepperdine. He was scouting against the Zags for last season, but it's nice having him score for GU now. (WM)
DECISION '24-'25
Basketball is a mentally intensive game. Everything's moving fast, so a player's brain has to be making scores of tiny calculations every second they're on the floor. You can see at times when players are overthinking — struggling because they're not sure exactly what to do in a given moment.The most impressive aspect of the Zags from my perspective was how decisive the team was on the offensive floor. Credit Few and his coaching staff for prepping their guys, because almost every possession it seemed like the Bulldogs knew exactly what they should do next. There weren't long stretches of indecisiveness or hesitation. There's a team-wide confidence that is palpable when players are just out there making plays instead of thinking about how to make plays.
Take the sequence around the 12-minute mark in the first half — Nolan Hickman was driving for a fast break but got blocked by the Baylor defender. The ball went out to Braden Huff, who was trailing on the fast break. Rather than hold the ball and assess the situation or kick it to Ajayi under the hoop, he quickly took a dribble, drove hard and made an easy layup.
Hickman might've been the best player to illustrate this point throughout the game, as the junior guard felt more comfortable and decisive than he ever has during his Gonzaga tenure. Specifically, he showed no hesitation when driving for floaters throughout the game without forcing the issue. While he's always had a resting stone face, there were many times in prior years when he'd lose sense of the pace of the game and force shots that were less than ideal. On Monday, he felt like a player in complete control and ready to make the rarely seen senior jump up to be another caliber of player.
Decisiveness is something that can be hard to properly teach, but Few had his guys playing like a well-oiled machine on night one. (SS)
THREES? YES PLEASE
Another contrast with last season’s squad — especially early in the season — came from behind the arc.The Zags took 31 attempts from deep against Baylor, a number they matched or exceeded only twice last season. One of those was in a blowout of lowly Portland and the other was against Purdue in the Sweet Sixteen with 7-foot-4 Zach Edey patrolling the paint. One was because they could, while the other was because they felt like it was the only viable option.
On Monday, it felt like the Zags were letting it fly because they should, and they knew it. They connected on 13 of those 31 shots, an impressive 42% clip.
The starting backcourt of Ryan Nembhard (2-4), Hickman (3-6) and Battle (4-8) went 50% from deep. Off the bench, Dusty Stromer was even better at 3-5, most of them coming early as the Zags were building up their big lead.
It was more than just the guards and wings who were taking shots from deep, too. All eight rotation players attempted at least one 3, and while the bigs weren’t sharpshooters Monday, their willingness to shoot will frustrate defenses who would otherwise rather pack into the paint. (WM)
VERTICAL LIMITS
When your team drops 101 points, the focus is bound to be on the offense. But one element of Gonzaga's defense really stuck out all game long — the Bulldogs' ability to contest with verticality at the rim without fouling.While the Bears were often able to penetrate into the paint on dribble drives throughout the game — if you have to point out a weakness in the Zags' talent, it's probably the lack of lateral quickness on defense, which allows a lot of blow bys — Gonzaga defenders consistently stepped up and put a body into shooters around the rim without fouling. More than any Zags squad I can remember, the whole team's discipline on maintaining verticality to not let the refs bail out the Bears was very noticeable.
If they can continue to keep that level of discipline up all year, it honestly should be enough to cover up most defensive holes the Bulldogs may have. (SS)
TRUE TEAM BALL
Gonzaga notched 25 assists, while Baylor made a total of 23 shots.Is that good? I think that's good. (SS)
THE OTHER KENNEL
Being in the student section for Gonzaga games can be one of the most fun things about attending GU, but, alas, that experience is gone after graduation.Well, mostly.
For at least one night, I mildly felt like I was part of the Kennel Club again as the student section was mere feet behind our media table on the baseline.
The collegiate bunch brought loads of energy and deafening noise to Spokane Arena on Monday night. From the bounce of "Zombie Nation" to the always absurd thing of undergrads yelling at opposing players on the other end of the floor when it's so noisy that I could barely hear anyone sitting right by me, it was fun to feel the vitality of the Kennel Club once more.
Hopefully they'll keep up that energy all year, even against less high caliber opponents. (SS)
BIG TIME BENCH PRODUCTION
As freshmen, Braden Huff was strong, especially offensively, coming off the bench last season, while Stromer was solid, but often unimpressive.This year? Well, Huff and Stromer are both a year older. Huff looks as impactful as ever, but Stromer seems to have taken a big sophomore stride.
The shooter from Los Angeles looks bigger and stronger, which is an important development as someone playing primarily on the wing, but also more decisively. Stromer shot the ball when he should have, crashed the glass with authority, and avoided any stretches where the game looked just a half-step too fast for him. Even his four turnovers are something most Zags fans will take, because they showed he was actively trying to impact the game rather than waiting for it to come to him.
Oh yeah, and Ajayi came off the bench, too. And all he did last season was lead the WCC in scoring with 17.2 points per game and finish second in the WCC with 9.9 rebounds per game.
Between those three, 34 points were scored on 15 of 19 shooting from the field. It's tough to win without depth, but the Zags seem to have plenty this season. (WM)
THE FLOOR IS HIGH
To blow out a quality opponent, a team usually has to have truly stellar performance from their best guys. Maybe the most impressive thing about the Zags' performance against Baylor is that that wasn't the case.For the first 27 minutes of the game, Graham Ike — the guy who should've won WCC Player of the Year last season — was pretty easily the worst player on the floor for Gonzaga. That's not really an insult, he was just the lone Zag who wasn't firing on all cylinders. He seemed a bit lumbering, and only made one field goal in the first half while struggling with Baylor's double teams. While he ended up with 15 points, most of those came in the second half when the GU lead was already 20+ points.
But this is a very positive sign for the Zags.
When you can have the guy many experts would argue is your "best player" be a non-factor while the game is still up for grabs and it doesn't even matter? That's a sign of a high floor team that isn't going to be thrown off by any single player having an off night. Ike will be fine, which means the Zags should be way, way, way more than fine. (SS)
HELLO? 9-1-1? I'D LIKE TO REPORT A MURDER
Joe Few seems like an alright kid. He's always got a positive demeanor on the bench. When he gets garbage time minutes for the Bulldogs he always gives full effort. The Kennel Club loves him.That said, he probably shouldn't be on the court when the other team is playing guys who are projected to be Top 5 picks in the NBA Draft — guys like Baylor's VJ Edgecombe. Because things like this could happen...
VJ Edgecombe just POSTERIZED Mark Few’s son while down 30 ☠️
— College Basketball Report (@CBKReport) November 5, 2024
pic.twitter.com/sabyUFT7EY
Occasionally, nepotism has consequences. (SS)
A NEW TRADITION?
While many might quibble with the ultra late start time of Monday's game — 8:30 PST / 11:30 EST — Gonzaga should try to lean into being the team to kick off the college basketball season. While the season should start on a Tuesday as to totally avoid the NFL's dominance, as the preeminent basketball school without a football program Gonzaga should try to own the season tip-off space in the same way that the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions are always playing game on Thanksgiving.Make it appointment television. Make it the brand. It would be wonderful for college hoops fans to know that every year Gonzaga is gonna kick things off with a high-profile matchup of top teams in the country at Spokane Arena. As the college sports landscape shifts to an ever more fractured state, the Zags should strive to be a consistent force that lets people know college basketball is back, baby. (SS)
