Tag: Gonzaga basketball

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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:

USC basketball to play Gonzaga in Las Vegas

The game is a rematch of the 2021 Elite Eight, in which the Zags denied #USC its first Men’s Final Four berth since 1954.

The Bronny James effect is real. Yes, USC is a top-15-level team heading into November primarily because of No. 1 recruit Isaiah Collier. The combination of Collier, Boogie Ellis, Vince Iwuchukwu, and Bronny James as a quartet, with lots of great role players providing depth and balance, is why USC has a chance to be special. Bronny isn’t the number one reason the Trojans can contend for the Pac-12 title and the Final Four.

However: Bronny James is the main reason these big nonconference games are being scheduled. He is the reason USC — which has generally not scheduled a lot of aspirational nonconference games in the Andy Enfield era — is loading up its nonconference schedule for the 2023-2024 season.

USC had already scheduled Kansas State for its season opener on November 6. Now comes the news that the Trojans will play a nonconference game against Gonzaga. Holy smokes!

This is what it feels like to enter the top tier of major college basketball, at least in terms of television coverage and media visibility. The Trojans now have to enter the top tier in terms of achievements — they haven’t gotten there yet — but this date with Gonzaga underscores the point that TV networks will want to put USC on the air as much as possible with Bronny in the fold. USC will almost certainly add more high-end nonconference games before it’s all said and done.

There are other details about this Gonzaga matchup you need to know about. We’ll provide those details below:

Friend of Badger guard enters portal from Gonzaga

Hunter Sallis, a former five-star recruit and 6-foot-5 guard entered the transfer portal Friday after two seasons with Gonzaga.

Hunter Sallis, a former five-star recruit and a 6-foot-5 guard, entered the transfer portal Friday after two seasons with Gonzaga. Sallis is from Omaha, Nebraska, and has a relationship with Badgers’ point guard Chucky Hepburn.

Coming out of Millard North High School, Sallis was the 21st-ranked prospect in the nation for the class of 2021. He never really clicked with Mark Few and the Zags in his two seasons with the program, averaging 4.5 points, 2.2 rebounds and 1.4 assists during the 2022-2023 campaign.

Although he’ll be hitting the open market and anyone can secure his commitment, Greg Gard and the Badgers remain a long shot to acquire him regardless of his friendship with Hepburn.

Fans can dream.

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One thing seems clear: San Diego State is becoming another Gonzaga

While we sort out whether the #Aztecs will join the #Pac12 (which seems likely), it’s clear they have transcended mid-major status.

There is no official announcement or formal ceremony for any of this, but it’s true that at some point in time, a college sports program transcends its status and its larger place in the ecosystem. At some point in time, Gonzaga ceased to be a mid-major program despite competing in the West Coast Conference, a mid-major league. Gonzaga’s results, quality and visibility gave the school a profile and resource base which exceeded the rest of the competition. The WCC might not be a dominant conference, but Gonzaga stood apart. That same reality applies to San Diego State after the Aztecs reached their first Final Four on Sunday.

SDSU, located in sunny and agreeable San Diego, was already an attractive place to attend college, but now this Final Four is likely to boost admissions and improve the various aspects of a university which go beyond sports themselves. Gonzaga experienced this boost once the basketball program attained a certain degree of sustained success.

San Diego State invested a lot of money into improving facilities, including the building of an on-campus football stadium to replace its previous and longstanding arrangement as a tenant for the old (now demolished) Jack Murphy/Qualcomm Stadium which used to be the home for the NFL Chargers and MLB Padres.

San Diego State, one would think, will be able to enter the NIL space as a legitimate competitor. One of the other teams in the 2023 Final Four, Miami, used NIL to form a part of its breakthrough roster this season.

The Mountain West didn’t win a single game in last year’s NCAA Tournament, and the other three teams in this year’s tournament didn’t win a game. San Diego State transcended all that.

SDSU is not yet a Pac-12 member, but it already seems clear the Aztecs have transcended mid-major status even while they remain in the Mountain West.

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Gonzaga gets knocked out of March Madness — now the Big 12 watch begins

Is Gonzaga entering its last season as a member of the West Coast Conference? Is the Big 12 about to bring GU into the fold?

Gonzaga’s 2023 NCAA Tournament run ended on Saturday in a blowout loss to Connecticut. Now that the Zags’ season is over, get ready for a fresh round of speculation surrounding the school’s future, and more particularly, a possible move to the Big 12 Conference.

While the Pac-12 considers adding San Diego State and maybe also SMU, the Big 12 and its commissioner, Brett Yormark, have had conversations with Gonzaga administrators. This isn’t necessarily the Big 12’s number one point of focus, but it’s certainly one of several agenda items the conference is continuing to evaluate as it imagines its future.

It’s a good time for some updates on GU’s situation relative to the Big 12, along with a few reminders about the Big 12’s changing landscape and plans, and to see where Gonzaga might fit within them: