Tag: Gonzaga basketball

Trojans Wire discusses USC-Gonzaga on the Locked On Zags podcast

We are talking USC-Gonzaga.

If you have been reading Trojans Wire for the past three years, first of all: Thank you. Second, if you have been reading our site the past three years, you might recall that Andy Patton used to be a staff writer here. Patton is now the host of the Gonzaga-centric Locked On Zags podcast. He has also hosted the Locked On College Basketball podcast. He has recently joined College Sports Wire as a contributing writer with an emphasis on college basketball.

Patton reached out to us at Trojans Wire to get our views of Saturday night’s big USC-Gonzaga game in Las Vegas. There is a lot of pressure on USC to at least play well in this game if not win it outright. Isaiah Collier takes center stage against one of the most successful programs in college basketball.

Andy and I discussed the USC roster, the bumpy ride for the Trojans in the month of November, and some of the key components of this game against the Zags. It’s a good primer for Saturday night, at least from a USC vantage point.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire.

No more trial runs: Isaiah Collier needs to be the big dog versus Gonzaga

It has been a bumpy ride for Isaiah Collier in his young #USC career. Now comes a prove-it moment vs Gonzaga.

The preliminaries are over. Now comes a battle with Gonzaga. Now comes a main-event moment for USC basketball, the kind of game made for a big-time point guard and the No. 1 recruit in the United States for the Class of 2023.

This is the kind of game Isaiah Collier came to USC to play in. This is the kind of stage Isaiah Collier was meant to embrace. This clash against Gonzaga is the kind of situation Collier needs to own and conquer in order to become a top NBA draft prospect. This is a matchup Collier must figure out in order to give USC a real belief it can make a deep run in the 2024 NCAA Tournament.

This is a showcase in which USC needs to put its best foot forward. USC being at its best means that Collier is at his best. Collier is the most talented player on this roster. He needs to lead by example and enable his teammates to follow him.

We saw Collier’s best against Kansas State. USC won by 13 in a performance which got everyone excited. We haven’t seen that version of Collier since then.

It needs to return against Gonzaga. If it does, USC could begin to realize the promise and potential this season offered when it began a few weeks ago.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire.

Anton Watson is the Gonzaga player USC must be able to contain on Saturday

Elementary: USC must stop Watson.

The Gonzaga Bulldogs defeated the UCLA Bruins last week at the Maui Invitational in Hawaii. A team which can beat UCLA on a neutral floor has already set the bar fairly high. The Zags have established themselves at a higher level than USC has in the first three weeks of the college basketball season.

No individual player has set a higher standard on the Zags than Anton Watson. If you watched that UCLA game, you would readily agree.

USC has Isaiah Collier and Boogie Ellis. The two players have had some bright moments early in the season. However, neither has had a game as great as the one Watson forged against UCLA. Watson smoked the Bruins with 32 points on 14-of-15 shooting. The raw output is impressive enough, but the lights-out shooting numbers — near perfect — are eye-popping.

UCLA has a good defense, too, better than USC’s. The Trojans are really going to have their hands full with Watson. It’s elementary.

If they don’t find a Sherlock Holmes solution to this mystery, they are going to lose on Saturday night in Las Vegas.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire.

Gonzaga looks like the class of the West Coast Conference again; USC will have its hands full

Gonzaga sets a high standard once again.

Some college basketball pundits and prognosticators felt before the season began that the Saint Mary’s Gaels might knock Gonzaga off its perch as the best team in the West Coast Conference. After three weeks of action, that belief has been punctured.

Saint Mary’s is losing games left and right. Gonzaga clearly looks like the team to beat in the WCC. The Zags look like a genuinely strong team. They might not be as good as they were in the 2021 and 2022 seasons in which they were a No. 1 seed — that is a different conversation — but they are still the class of their conference and a definite top-20 group.

Gonzaga enters Saturday’s game against USC in Las Vegas with a 5-1 record. The Zags’ only loss is to No. 1 Purdue. They beat UCLA on a neutral court, which is a significant indication of how good they are. This is not the best Gonzaga team in recent years, but it is still a team which should expect to be in the Sweet 16 and gain a chance next March of making a run to the Final Four.

USC wants to be where Gonzaga is. The Trojans can do something about that against Mark Few and the Zags. Saturday’s game starts just after 7 p.m. Pacific time in Las Vegas on ESPN.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire.

USC looks for revenge from 2021 Gonzaga game which denied Trojans a Final Four spot

Gonzaga prevented USC from making the Final Four. The Trojans need to strike back.

The USC Trojans face the Gonzaga Bulldogs in Las Vegas on Saturday in a highly-anticipated matchup.

The Trojans just put up over 100 points against Eastern Washington on Wednesday night, and Andy Enfield sure hopes that offense can sustain itself.

With Gonzaga on tap, that 2021 matchup — the only one between these two programs — is a memory USC fans don’t love.

The Trojans lost to Gonzaga in the Elite Eight in 2021, ending their miraculous run just one win short of the Final Four.

In that game, Isaiah Mobley and Evan Mobley combined for 36 points with 12 rebounds, and Drew Peterson had 13 points.

Gonzaga scored 85 points in its victory, led by 23 from Drew Timme and 18 apiece from both Corey Kispert and Jalen Suggs, both of whom are playing in the NBA right now.

USC went into halftime of that game down 49-30 and could never recover from that deficit. Andy Enfield is hoping the 2023-2024 Trojans come out of the gates firing on all cylinders this Saturday in Vegas.

This time around, it isn’t an Elite Eight showing, but this game will be a huge test for USC with Pac-12 Conference play right around the corner.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire.

USC prepares for a big-stage moment against Gonzaga in Las Vegas

There’s no getting around it: This is an important moment for USC.

The USC Trojans breezed past Eastern Washington on Wednesday night. Now comes one of the big moments of this college basketball season: a date with the Gonzaga Bulldogs on Saturday night in Las Vegas.

Gonzaga is synonymous with college basketball excellence. The Zags haven’t won a national championship, but they have reached two national championship games and have been a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament several times in recent years. They have established a very high standard USC would love to match. Gonzaga hasn’t done everything, but it has done almost everything in major college basketball. That alone makes this game important for USC.

Beyond the “status symbol” elements of this game, beating Gonzaga would give USC a high-quality win and significantly boost the Trojans’ resume. The Men of Troy need that after the losses to Irvine and Oklahoma.

This game is also important because Isaiah Collier needs the kind of moment which stamps himself not just as the leader of this team, but a leader who can be fully trusted and relied on. Collier, if he masters this game against Gonzaga, will grow in influence and confidence. USC really needs Collier to become the alpha male star who can take over games and carry the Trojans in important moments this season.

The Gonzaga game could be the man-making moment for Collier and the Trojans.

We have much more on this game in the coming days and then after the game ends on Saturday night.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire.

Gonzaga loses guard Steele Venters (knee) for the season — USC vs Zags on December 2

Venters was likely to play close to 20 minutes per game for Gonzaga.

The USC Trojans men’s basketball team has a massive showdown against Gonzaga on December 2. The game is in Las Vegas, and this is the biggest test for USC before Pac-12 play. It will be an indicator of how good this team is.

Unfortunately for Gonzaga, the Zags will now be without junior guard and Eastern Washington transfer Steele Venters for the season after he suffered a knee injury, per Andy Patton of Locked on Zags.

Venters averaged 15.2 PPG on 45 percent shooting from the field. He was expected to be a massive part of the rotation for the Bulldogs and Mark Few, so this is a tough blow. Gonzaga plays its season opener on Friday night.

Venters was likely to play in the neighborhood of 20 minutes per game. That’s a notable rotation piece the Zags will now be without.

Venters was also the Big Sky Player of the Year at EWU, so this is not the news Gonzaga wanted to hear this early in the season.

The highly-anticipated USC-Gonzaga game in Sin City will be without both Venters for Gonzaga and Bronny James for USC. This injury deprives Gonzaga of needed depth in its rotation. USC’s backcourt has a better chance of doing well against the Zags’ guards.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire.

College basketball analyst offers early read on USC-Gonzaga showdown

Get an early look at the Gonzaga team which plays USC basketball on December 2.

We talked to college basketball expert Kevin Sweeney of Sports Illustrated about USC basketball. Sweeney spent a little time looking at the Gonzaga team USC will face on December 2 in Las Vegas.

“Gonzaga is still going to be something of a power in recruiting. Graham Ike from Wyoming was Mountain West Preseason Player of the Year, then got injured last year. He’s got a chance to be really good for them up front. They get Anton Watson back, but it seems they’re not super deep. They’ve only got 10 scholarship players as of now. They’ve had some weird circumstances that included a medical retirement. They had a late decommitment, they had draft decisions that were down to the wire,” Sweeney told us.

“So, it’s not necessarily the most talented Gonzaga team that we’ve seen in recent years, but I still think this is a group that will probably wind up in the preseason ranked 15 to 20. That (group) will certainly be well coached by one of the best to ever do it in college basketball (Mark Few). I certainly think they’ll be a force to be reckoned with in the WCC. They will roll through and win 28 to 30 games as they have done each of the past several years. So this won’t be an easy one.

“I think USC is probably just a more talented team on paper than Gonzaga is, but the experience they (Zags) have in the backcourt with Ryan Nembhard and Nolan Hickman, who’s back as a junior as a combo guard, will help Gonzaga early on in the season.”

*

Follow Fighting Irish Wire for more on Notre Dame.

Follow Buffaloes Wire for complete coverage of Deion Sanders and Colorado.

Follow Ducks Wire for coverage of Oregon football.

Oklahoma fans were right about Lincoln Riley, at least for this specific season.

USC assistants need to be coaching for their jobs.

Lincoln Riley did not assemble an elite 2023 roster, which surprised us and a lot of other observers.

Is USC ready to win in 2024 with Miller Moss or Malachi Nelson at quarterback? Lincoln Riley has to be honest about how he answers that question.

Brent Venables is coaching Oklahoma far better this year than Lincoln Riley is coaching USC. It’s up to Riley to change that reality.

Explaining why Drew Timme isn’t considered a strong prospect in the 2023 NBA Draft

Why isn’t this college star considered a better NBA prospect?

Despite dominating for four seasons in the NCAA, the professional outlook does not look as promising for Gonzaga Bulldogs big man Drew Timme.

The 22-year-old big man is a three-time All-American and two-time West Coast Conference Player of the Year winner. But he did not appear on the latest aggregate mock draft provided by HoopsHype, which surveys several mock drafts from experts around the industry.

One primary reason is that Timme doesn’t offer much athleticism. His standing vertical (26 inches) and max vertical (30.5 inches) both ranked below the 20th percentile among all participants in the NBA Draft Combine since 2000, per Stadium Speak.

His three-quarter sprint (3.34 seconds) also ranked below the 40th percentile.

The biggest concern for Timme is on the defensive end of the floor. His opponents shot 130-for-275 (47.2 percent) when he was credited as the nearest defender, per Stats Perform, worse than any of the prospects included in the HoopsHype aggregate mock draft.

As one NBA scout told Seth Davis (via The Athletic):

“I hope he makes it, but I just don’t think he can. He scores with his back to the basket, and I don’t think that’s gonna translate to the NBA. He won’t be able to defend anyone. Some guys are just really good college basketball players. He’s a below the rim, undersized center. If he makes it, it’s because of his motor, his toughness and his IQ, but there’s more on the side of why he won’t make it.”

His defensive presence had little impact on the other team. His opponents were 43-for-84 (51.2 percent) when Timme contested their jumper, per Stats Perform, which was second-worst among top prospects.

When other teams applied pressure to the rim, it was a problem for Gonzaga. Opponents scored 0.64 points per touch on drives defended by Timme, per Stats Perform, which was also the worst among top prospects.

Gonzaga allowed opponents to shoot a whopping 67.9 percent at the rim during minutes when Timme was on the court, per CBB Analytics. That ranked as one of the worst marks among all heavy rotation Division I men’s college basketball players.

There are some question marks on the other side of the floor as well.

Timme use his size to score while in college, but he won’t have that same physical advantage against NBA defenders. He averaged 0.11 post-ups per offensive touch, per Stats Perform, the third-most among all top prospects.

He never improved his shooting from beyond the arc, either, which was disappointing. Timme made just four 3-pointers during the entirety of his senior campaign at Gonzaga.

Still, there are plenty of reasons to like Timme, who displayed solid leadership and helped establish a winning culture during his time in the NCAA.

He is a fantastic scorer who could provide some helpful depth. But at this point, the big man is likely someone who will receive a two-way deal as a second-round pick than a guaranteed contract earlier in the draft.

MORE:

Twitter reaction to USC and Gonzaga basketball arranging to play each other

This is the latest sign that #USC hoops, often overshadowed by UCLA, is now the program everyone in L.A. wants to see.

USC versus Gonzaga. It will happen on December 2 of this year. It happened in March of 2021 with a Final Four berth on the line.

We wrote about that Elite Eight game two years ago:

“The USC Trojans had a great NCAA Tournament. An Elite Eight is a terrific result — the Men of Troy got that far in the brackets for just the second time since 1954. What was the big problem with USC in this tournament? The Gonzaga Bulldogs were the problem. They swatted away the Trojans, one stop short of the Final Four on Tuesday night.”

That game in Indianapolis had little to do with USC’s flaws. There was only one team in the 2021 college basketball season which had a good chance of beating Gonzaga. That was Baylor. The Bears proved they were better than the Zags when they defeated GU in the national championship game. Gonzaga fell one game short of becoming an unbeaten college basketball national champion.

Now USC and Gonzaga will meet again, the latest high-profile game USC has scheduled for the coming season. Bronny James will make USC a television magnet. Showcase games like this will proliferate.

See what social media had to say about this big college hoops announcement: