Gonzaga zig-zags around Bears, turning Baylor inside-out in season-opening rout
SPOKANE, Wash. — In the world of college basketball, experience and continuity should be kept in the bank safe, because they're just that valuable.
And Gonzaga is rich with those qualities.
The sixth-ranked Bulldogs demonstrated a high level of communication and elite passing in turning No. 8 Baylor inside-out defensively. That allowed the Zags to roll to a season-opening 101-63 win before a satisfied crowd of 12,000 at Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena Monday night.
It was Baylor's most lopsided loss ever as a Top 10-ranked team.
Baylor coach Scott Drew knew that the fact that seven of Gonzaga's top eight scorers from last season returned would be a challenge. But he probably didn't expect this, either.
"A ton of respect for Gonzaga, because if you're not on point they make you look really bad. Coach (Mark) Few had them ready to go, and they really exploited our switching," Drew said. "For Baylor fans who stayed up, I promise we will get a lot better. And we'll give you a better effort than this."
Gonzaga (1-0) dished out 25 assists on its 40 made baskets. Nothing came easy for Baylor (0-1), which produced only 11 assists, committed 12 turnovers and shot 37% from the field. (Gonzaga's Ryan Nembhard had 11 assists by himself.)
"Offensively we did a really poor job tonight, 3-for-21 makes you a bad offensive team from 3, because we had some good looks and we've made more shots than that," Drew said. "Eleven assists, 12 turnovers and only eight second-chance points, that's not Baylor basketball."
Gonzaga had every bit the look of a Final Four team or perhaps even a national championship team. Five players scored in double figures for the Bulldogs, who shot 57% from the floor and just under 42% from 3-point range.
Nolan Hickman led the way with 17 points for the Zags.
It's of course a new-look team for Baylor, which features 11 players who had never suited up for the Bears before this season. A certain amount of learning curve should be expected, but no doubt the Bears wanted to play a lot better than they showed.
Baylor's defensive rotations were sluggish, as the Bears routinely left Gonzaga shooters open from the perimeter.
Offensively, they relied often on trying to break down the Zags off the dribble, and that strategy proved mixed results at best. The Bears also struggled to hit from outside, shooting a paltry 14.3% (3-of-21) from 3-point range.
Baylor trailed by a 49-30 score at the half, and Gonzaga widened that gap to 25 early in the second half.
The Bears gave a brief flash of hope to any Baylor fans up late watching back home on TV — the game featured a 10:30 p.m. tipoff Central time — when they cut Gonzaga's lead to 59-46 following a steal from VJ Edgecombe and a push-ahead pass to his freshman teammate Robert Wright for a transition bucket at the 13:34 mark.
Gonzaga's response was to dump the ball down low to its big dudes Braden Huff and Graham Ike, and both scored easily on the Zags' next two offensive possessions. The Bulldogs exhaled, and dominated the action the rest of the way.
"We let the pace and tempo get away from us. Some bad offense, a lot of turnovers led to some easy ones (for Gonzaga)," Drew said. "Once they got that gap, it made it really hard and kind of took us out of what we were doing."
Baylor got a team-best 15 points and nine rebounds from Norchad Omier in the Miami transfer's first game for the Bears. Wright showed a nice ability to get to the cup and hit for 12 points and six assists in his first college game, while Josh Ojianwuna went for 10 points and six rebounds.
Edgecombe looked nervous at the outset, and had a rough go of it shooting the ball, hitting 2 of 11 from the floor and totaling four points. But that didn't stop him from making hustle plays elsewhere on the floor, as the Preseason Big 12 Freshman of the Year also contributed seven rebounds, a steal and two blocked shots.
And, boy, did the two shots he made ever flash Edgecombe's Space Needle-high potential. He scored his first college points on an acrobatic scoop in traffic late in the first half. Then late in the game, he took a pass in transition and soared to flush an instant-poster dunk over Zags reserve guard Joe Few, the coach's son.
Even the raucous Gonzaga fans — who were chanting "Over-rated! Over-rated!" at Baylor moments earlier — couldn't help but gasp and mutter in amazement after that dynamic dunk.
With the student section rocking even before tipoff, Gonzaga shot out to the quick lead at the outset. The Bulldogs took an 8-1 lead after a point-blank bucket from Ben Gregg at the 16:30 mark. On the other side, the Bears struggled to get loose, missing their first five shots.
Baylor made a nice 8-0 run to take a 9-8 lead on Jalen Celestine's 3-pointer, the Cal transfer's first points as a Bear. But the Zags responded in kind, breaking off a 10-0 run of their own as they consistently had Baylor's defense scrambling and out of position with their slick passing.
Mark Few's Zags seemed to have an answer for whatever Baylor tried. When Drew turned away from the team's man-to-man defense and gave Gonzaga a different look with a 1-3-1 zone, the Bulldogs didn't blink. They rapidly found the hole in Baylor's defense and scored on a floater from Hickman within seconds.
Baylor's most effective offense in the first half was Wright getting around his man and slicing to the basket for layups. But there just wasn't enough of that for the Bears, and far too many errant shots. Baylor shot just 2 of 13 on 3-point attempts in the first half in falling behind 49-30.
Ike finished with 15 points and eight rebounds on the night for Gonzaga and Huff had 14 points off the bench. Newcomer Khalif Battle scored nine of his 12 points during a flame-throwing personal 9-0 run late in the second half, while reserve guard Dusty Stromer went for 11 points, hitting a trio of 3-pointers.
The schedule doesn't necessarily get any easier next time out for Baylor. The Bears will face a second straight Top 20 opponent when they take on No. 16 Arkansas at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in a neutral-site game at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.
