After quick stint in Spokane, No. 11 Gonzaga again on the highway in search of thirty fifth straight win over USF

SAN FRANCISCO – Gonzaga was nonetheless operating an up-tempo offense half-hour after the ultimate buzzer sounded Saturday night time on the Leavey Center.

Operating on a good schedule to catch a constitution flight dwelling, the Zags held a brief postgame chat within the locker room. They showered, modified, performed media obligations and briefly visited with family and friends members earlier than loading onto a bus that rushed them to close by San Jose Airport.

The subsequent two days most likely glided by in a blink, too.

The Zags had roughly 48 hours again dwelling in Spokane to regroup, evaluate movie and repack. The seats on their constitution airplane could have nonetheless been heat by the point they returned Tuesday to take an identical flight right down to Northern California for the following recreation on their West Coast Conference schedule.

“San Francisco’s always been a really, really tough game for us,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few mentioned on Saturday. “Expect nothing less on Wednesday. As you get late into February in league, all of them are tough so we need to just hustle home and get some rest and move on from there.”

Every recreation has turn into valuable for a Gonzaga workforce that is hoping to seize a WCC regular-season championship and lock as much as the No. 1 seed on the convention match. The Zags (25-2, 13-1) aren’t wanting previous any opponent at this level of the season, least of all of the Dons (15-13, 7-8) after escaping with a two-point win over Chris Gerlufsen’s workforce final month in Spokane.

Wednesday’s tipoff between Gonzaga and USF is scheduled for 8 pm (ESPN2) on the Chase Center, the house of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.

The Zags could must win out to assert an outright WCC regular-season championship, however they will safe the No. 1 seed on the convention match by beating the Dons on Wednesday and profitable subsequent dwelling video games towards fourth-place Pacific and eighth-place Portland.

The second matchup with San Francisco ought to look noticeably totally different than the primary and never solely as a result of it is happening in a spacious 18,000-seat NBA venue quite than the extra intimate McCarthey Athletic Center, which packs in 6,000 followers for dwelling video games.

Playing its third straight recreation with out Graham Ike, Gonzaga survived in a 68-66 victory win over San Francisco on Jan. 24. Players, coaches and followers had been all holding their breath when Barry Wang’s potential game-winning 3-pointer clanged off the backboard within the remaining seconds.

The Dons are getting ready a recreation plan for Ike within the rematch – one of many hardest assignments in America for the time being, with the senior ahead averaging 26.7 factors over his final seven video games – and may very well be shorthanded themselves. Sophomore wing Tyrone Riley IV, who averages 11.4 factors and 5.2 rebounds, missed the final two video games with a knee damage and the standing of the reigning WCC All-Freshman member is unsure getting into Wednesday’s recreation.

“He’s kind of day to day and we’re certainly doing everything we can to get him back for Wednesday. Kind of remains to be seen what his availability will be,” Dons coach Chris Gerflusen informed The Spokesman-Review on Monday. “I’m not going to put him out there if he’s not ready to go. Certainly he’d be a much-needed presence Wednesday. But yesterday it was good to also, we didn’t have him in the lineup and still found a way for other guys to step up. We would much prefer him to be available on Wednesday.”

Riley’s damage, USF’s latest slide and Gonzaga’s 34 straight victories within the collection between the colleges are possible all enjoying a consider why the Zags are favored by 14½ factors. The Dons had misplaced three straight video games and dropped 5 of their final six earlier than getting again on observe Sunday with a 92-79 victory at San Diego.

“Had not been playing well and kind of hit a wall a little bit, to be honest with you,” Gerlufsen mentioned. “So just to be able to kind of band together, go on the road and probably played one of our best offensive halves of the season yesterday. It made me feel a little better as a coach and got back to doing the things and being the team I know we can be. Because certainly there’s enough talent there to play with anybody and we’ve shown we can lose to anybody too. So that’s not the best feeling as a head coach.”

The Dons managed the rebounding column within the final assembly towards Gonzaga, profitable that class 41-37. Gerlufsen acknowledged that he might be considerably tougher with Ike on the ground, however USF can be anticipating ahead David Fuchs to be an even bigger issue after the Rhode Island switch performed simply six minutes final month.

“In my time being here, I think we’re like 62-10 in games we outrebound our opponent,” USF’s coach mentioned.

With or with out Riley, the Dons will lean closely on main scorer Ryan Beasley, who had 14 factors, six assists, 5 turnovers and 4 rebounds final month on the Kennel. Beasley’s averaging 13.8 ppg and scored 30 factors on Feb. 4 towards LMU, impressively going 21 of 24 from the free-throw line.

“When we first got him, he was probably a score first, score second kind of guy,” Gerlufsen mentioned. “To see him settle into kind of adopting and being able to do kind of whatever the game presents from a point guard standpoint.”

The prime precedence for Gonzaga needs to be conserving USF off the 3-point line. The Dons made simply eight 2-point pictures however went 14 of 28 from the 3-point line in a slim loss to the Zags.