Gonzaga Bulldogs start quick road trip at Santa Clara
Gonzaga takes a perfect five-&-oh mark in the West Coast Conference into Santa Clara on Thursday in a late ESPN2 tip-off slated for 11 p.m. (ET).
The Gonzaga Bulldogs have been slowly inching their way back onto the college basketball scene, rising to No. 8 in the latest coaches poll released earlier this week. Head coach Mark Few knows all the hard work can come crashing down as fast as the backboard did in the Bulldogs' win over Oklahoma on New Year's Eve.
Left out of the preseason rankings Gonzaga climbed quickly up the ranks thanks to wins over Wisconsin and Cincinnati. And then came the Dec. 19 game in New York against Duke, an embarrassing 76-41 loss to the Blue Devils that would boot the Bulldogs out of The Associated Press poll and teetering on exile from the coaches' ranks.
Gonzaga has responded with eight consecutive wins since having its butt kicked by Duke, including a key win at St. Mary's two weeks ago. The Bulldogs, 16-3 overall, have the lead in the West Coast Conference with a 5-0 mark.
The road trip the next few days, first to Santa Clara on Thursday and San Francisco on Saturday, doesn't appear dangerous on the surface. But life in a small conference for even a respected program like Gonzaga's is so fragile. Few's biggest job is going to be not allowing his team to look ahead to three big games after this quick roadie.
Gonzaga has topped Santa Clara 18 of the last 19 times the two schools have met on the hardwood. The lone win for the Broncos in that span came on the Bulldogs' floor in Spokane in Feb. 2007 with the Zags 6 ½-point chalk.
The Broncos do however have a respectable 6-5 record going against the spread in the last 11 meetings, covering the last two here at Leavey Center. The 13 ½-point underdog line is the most Kerry Keating's squad has been given at home to the Bulldogs the last 10 years.
Santa Clara wasn't going to be a real force in the WCC this year to begin with, and then they suffered the loss of Kevin Foster in early December when the sophomore had surgery on his right foot. The Broncos averaged about nine more points per game with Foster in the lineup early on than their season average (65.9), going 4-2 in the six games he played.
The Broncos are especially pathetic from outside, finding success on less than 30 percent of their three-pointers.
Meanwhile the Bulldogs are among the nation's best at putting up points. At 79.6 per game, Gonzaga is just outside the Top 20 in points scoring, stands fifth in field goal percentage (49.9) and does a good job of not turning the ball over.
Matt Bouldin leads the Bulldogs in scoring, but the kid that is coming on recently is Elias Harris. The freshman has put in almost 21 per game during the eight-game streak. Harris was averaging about 12.5 per game before the streak started.
The Zags should win this one by 17-20, but with the quick game in San Fran on Saturday that means you're either left relying on Few to leave Bouldin, Harris and other starters in a long time, or you're depending on guys like Grant Gibbs and Kelly Olnyk to score while they're in.
The first two numbers to hit on the total for this one came from Bookmaker (148) and TheGreek (147). Even though the 'over' is 8-1 at 148 or below in the series, I'll bite on the 'under' in this one along with laying the 13 ½ chalk on the square-play Bulldogs.
Gonzaga takes a perfect five-&-oh mark in the West Coast Conference into Santa Clara on Thursday in a late ESPN2 tip-off slated for 11 p.m. (ET).
The Gonzaga Bulldogs have been slowly inching their way back onto the college basketball scene, rising to No. 8 in the latest coaches poll released earlier this week. Head coach Mark Few knows all the hard work can come crashing down as fast as the backboard did in the Bulldogs' win over Oklahoma on New Year's Eve.
Left out of the preseason rankings Gonzaga climbed quickly up the ranks thanks to wins over Wisconsin and Cincinnati. And then came the Dec. 19 game in New York against Duke, an embarrassing 76-41 loss to the Blue Devils that would boot the Bulldogs out of The Associated Press poll and teetering on exile from the coaches' ranks.
Gonzaga has responded with eight consecutive wins since having its butt kicked by Duke, including a key win at St. Mary's two weeks ago. The Bulldogs, 16-3 overall, have the lead in the West Coast Conference with a 5-0 mark.
The road trip the next few days, first to Santa Clara on Thursday and San Francisco on Saturday, doesn't appear dangerous on the surface. But life in a small conference for even a respected program like Gonzaga's is so fragile. Few's biggest job is going to be not allowing his team to look ahead to three big games after this quick roadie.
Gonzaga has topped Santa Clara 18 of the last 19 times the two schools have met on the hardwood. The lone win for the Broncos in that span came on the Bulldogs' floor in Spokane in Feb. 2007 with the Zags 6 ½-point chalk.
The Broncos do however have a respectable 6-5 record going against the spread in the last 11 meetings, covering the last two here at Leavey Center. The 13 ½-point underdog line is the most Kerry Keating's squad has been given at home to the Bulldogs the last 10 years.
Santa Clara wasn't going to be a real force in the WCC this year to begin with, and then they suffered the loss of Kevin Foster in early December when the sophomore had surgery on his right foot. The Broncos averaged about nine more points per game with Foster in the lineup early on than their season average (65.9), going 4-2 in the six games he played.
The Broncos are especially pathetic from outside, finding success on less than 30 percent of their three-pointers.
Meanwhile the Bulldogs are among the nation's best at putting up points. At 79.6 per game, Gonzaga is just outside the Top 20 in points scoring, stands fifth in field goal percentage (49.9) and does a good job of not turning the ball over.
Matt Bouldin leads the Bulldogs in scoring, but the kid that is coming on recently is Elias Harris. The freshman has put in almost 21 per game during the eight-game streak. Harris was averaging about 12.5 per game before the streak started.
The Zags should win this one by 17-20, but with the quick game in San Fran on Saturday that means you're either left relying on Few to leave Bouldin, Harris and other starters in a long time, or you're depending on guys like Grant Gibbs and Kelly Olnyk to score while they're in.
The first two numbers to hit on the total for this one came from Bookmaker (148) and TheGreek (147). Even though the 'over' is 8-1 at 148 or below in the series, I'll bite on the 'under' in this one along with laying the 13 ½ chalk on the square-play Bulldogs.
