Jan. 14—PULLMAN — David Riley has been around the Pacific Northwest basketball scene for too many years to count, enough to remember all the great post play that Gonzaga has put on display. Sitting in a chair courtside at Beasley Coliseum, the site of his Washington State team's home matchup with the No. 9 Bulldogs at 7 p.m. Thursday, he begins to list off a couple names.
He remembers the days of Robert Sacre in the post, the days of David Stockton feeding all manner of Zags around the basket, the days of Drew Timme posting up and getting just about whatever shot he wanted — whenever he wanted.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"They're doing the same thing with these guys," Riley said. "They get a lot of their easy buckets from just those baskets. That's a huge key to the game."
In order for the Cougars to overcome a roughly 17.5-point underdog spread and upset the visiting Bulldogs, they'll have to disrupt Gonzaga's rhythm around the basket, Riley says, which is far easier said than done. The Zags (17-1, 5-0 WCC) aren't just the ninth-ranked team in college basketball. They return their top two posts from last season, Graham Ike and Braden Huff, and they're far deeper than in recent years.
Can WSU earn its first win over Gonzaga since 2010, when many of these current Cougars were in early grade school? Much of that will depend on how effectively WSU can slow down GU's offense, which ranks No. 6 nationally in adjusted efficiency, according to KenPom. Three Bulldogs are scoring in double figures — Huff and Ike are scoring 17.8 points per game each and veteran wing Tyon Grant-Foster is adding 11.7 points — and they've cleared the 80-point mark in each of their last 10 games.
The last time Gonzaga didn't reach that mark came in its only loss of the season, a blowout setback at the hands of Michigan, a top-five team in the nation. Since then, the Bulldogs have looked nearly flawless, earning wins over Power 5 foes Kentucky, UCLA and Oregon before opening WCC play with five straight victories.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe way Riley sees it, if the Cougs are to break that streak, they'll have to make Huff and Ike uncomfortable. Much more goes into the gameplan — the Zags are shooting nearly 37% from beyond the arc, which ranks No. 37 nationally, an efficient figure that will require the Cougs to chase them off the line — but it all seems to revolve around the paint.
"You gotta break their rhythm," Riley said. "Obviously, you can't give them deep catches. Braden Huff is shooting 60% on that weird floater left-hand hook shot that he's doing from 15 feet. But that's not a deep catch. You gotta break rhythm. That's something that hopefully we can take some of those lessons from Saint Mary's. We didn't do a good enough job breaking rhythm with (Paulius) Murauskas in the first half and some of their bigs. Hopefully we can watch the film and get better."
For their parts, the Cougars are coming off a mostly promising stretch. Heading into this past weekend, WSU had won five of its last six games, dispatching Portland on the road, Oregon State in Spokane and Loyola Marymount at home. On Saturday, the Cougs absorbed an 88-82 loss to Saint Mary's, likely the second-best team in the conference. For WSU, it was a loss on the ledger, but the Cougars showed some promising trends.
Perhaps at the top of the list, the kind that might bode well for WSU on Thursday: Freshman guard Ace Glass looked sharp. After slogging through a mini-slump toward the end of the calendar year, he looks like himself again, a more improved version. He's aggressive and clever, getting to his spots and knocking down mid-range jumpers.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementGlass will likely be guarded by Gonzaga guard Adam Miller. Can Glass score like he usually does, averaging nearly 16 points per game? Maybe the Cougars have a chance. If not, well, the hosts could be looking at a long night.
"They're gonna be aggressive with the ball screens," Riley said. "They're gonna try to put two on the ball and make him shoot contested shots. They do a good job with that. They've faced some good guards this year."
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