Gonzaga BB 2019-20 Thread

[Shanegotyou11]

Zags have a chance in this wide open field. I don't see a "dominant" team in college hoops landscape. Hopefully its the zags. Cant wait to be in K2 vs NC.

It would be incredible. They will have to improve on their FT shooting to get further than the Sweet 16 imo.

Yes i fully agree.

 

[Hawk-Lock]

UNC is nothing more than name recognition. They are probably a fringe top 25 team with Anthony, and may not even be a tourney team without him. Zags are big favorites and or a reason.

It’s completely wide open. Could be Zags year, but that can be said for almost any team. They are definitely one of the best teams in the nation though.

 

[Natethegreat]

Easy win over UNC. I was a little surprised it came that easy with how dinged up GU is. I realize that unc is as well but man their was a talent gap between them.

Joel Ayayi is a really talented player and a HUGE reason this team is playing so well. He brings great defense terrific outside shooting and gets a TON of rebounds. Really impressive player. Love watching him play.

 

[TransGenderHawkFan]

Zags will be fortunate to go 1-2 in the upcoming stretch of at UW, at Arizona, home vs. North Carolina. 0-3 wold not surprise me.

Keep making predictions. It is working dandily.

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

Zags will be fortunate to go 1-2 in the upcoming stretch of at UW, at Arizona, home vs. North Carolina. 0-3 wold not surprise me.

Keep making predictions. It is working dandily.

Could not be happier to be totally wrong. Would've been ecstatic with 2-1. Getting through at 3-0 is frosting.
I still say to get past the Sweet 16 level they'll need to stop allowing so many offensive rebounds and especially will need to improve their free throw shooting. Oh, and a healthy Killian Tillie would be a HUGE help too.

Easy win over UNC. I was a little surprised it came that easy with how dinged up GU is. I realize that unc is as well but man their was a talent gap between them.

Joel Ayayi is a really talented player and a HUGE reason this team is playing so well. He brings great defense terrific outside shooting and gets a TON of rebounds. Really impressive player. Love watching him play.

Yeah that 13 point margin is deceptive. It was 19 with a minute to go and NC hit two garbage time 3s in the last like 50 seconds while the Zags weren't even attempting to score.
Completely agree about Ayayi. He's made a huge difference in this team since early in the season when he wasn't getting the amount of minutes he is now.

 

[Hawkstorian]

The cool thing is --- all the flaws with this team are easily fixable or will be fixed by getting healthy.

That said --- once you get to the final 16, it's basically matchups and luck that determines who advances. Texas Tech was just on fire last March and not much Gonzaga could do about it.

 

[Natethegreat]

As long as GU doesn't lose to EWU they most likely move to number 1. GU has a history of coming out dead on games just before Christmas with the students all gone though.
They have lost a few games they had no business to lose to in the past. Honestly I am shocked they are even sniffing number one rank. They lost almost every important player from last year.

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

As long as GU doesn't lose to EWU they most likely move to number 1. GU has a history of coming out dead on games just before Christmas with the students all gone though.
They have lost a few games they had no business to lose to in the past. Honestly I am shocked they are even sniffing number one rank. They lost almost every important player from last year.

It's kind of an odd feel to see them this successful after losing the guys they did. Speaks loudly to the kind of talent they recruit.
Guess we didn't need to worry about Eastern.

 

[Tical21]

And since they don't play any more varsity games until March, they'll assuredly still be at #1

 

[Natethegreat]

And since they don't play any more varsity games until March, they'll assuredly still be at #1

Results would be the same if they played in the Pac. WCC is 9-11 against the pac this year by the way. Not sure you have much to squack about.

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

And since they don't play any more varsity games until March, they'll assuredly still be at #1

And when will the Huskies actually beat Gonzaga again?

How many years before Gonzaga beats UW again?

So let's see you posted this on May 2nd and Gonzaga beat them on December 8th so that's 7 months and 6 days by my calculations. So the answer to your question of how many years till Gonzaga beat the Huskies again would be zero. Okay I'll be nice, a half a year.

Just a reminder, Zags have beaten UW 6 in a row and 13 out of 14.



Scoreboard Tical.

 

[Hawkstorian]

WCC has some real crap teams... but St. Mary's (25 in KenPom) and BYU (38) are at least as good as the middle of the Pac12 (i.e. UW). San Francisco, Pacific and Santa Clara are all much improved.

I actually expect Zags to lose a game or 2 in conference unless somehow Killian Tillie can come back to full health. He's just a matchup nightmare that no team can deal with until late into March. Sadly, I'm not optimistic that will be the case as he's already on "load management".

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

Very poor week this week and without Tillie they go 0-2 instead of 2-0. Very discouraged by their play the last 2 games.

 

[Hawk-Lock]

WCC has some real crap teams... but St. Mary's (25 in KenPom) and BYU (38) are at least as good as the middle of the Pac12 (i.e. UW). San Francisco, Pacific and Santa Clara are all much improved.

I actually expect Zags to lose a game or 2 in conference unless somehow Killian Tillie can come back to full health. He's just a matchup nightmare that no team can deal with until late into March. Sadly, I'm not optimistic that will be the case as he's already on "load management".

Let’s not try to defend the WCC. It’s garbage outside of Gonzaga. The second best team every year is at Mary’s, and they are a bubble team every year. After that it is a bunch of teams that would be near the bottom of any power conference. I’m not trying to take anything away from Gonzaga, because I think they’d win or compete for the top spot in nearly any power conference. But the WCC is a joke, without Gonzaga they wouldn’t be much different than any of those other mid major conferences we know nothing about.

 

[Natethegreat]

WCC has some real crap teams... but St. Mary's (25 in KenPom) and BYU (38) are at least as good as the middle of the Pac12 (i.e. UW). San Francisco, Pacific and Santa Clara are all much improved.

I actually expect Zags to lose a game or 2 in conference unless somehow Killian Tillie can come back to full health. He's just a matchup nightmare that no team can deal with until late into March. Sadly, I'm not optimistic that will be the case as he's already on "load management".

Let’s not try to defend the WCC. It’s garbage outside of Gonzaga. The second best team every year is at Mary’s, and they are a bubble team every year. After that it is a bunch of teams that would be near the bottom of any power conference. I’m not trying to take anything away from Gonzaga, because I think they’d win or compete for the top spot in nearly any power conference. But the WCC is a joke, without Gonzaga they wouldn’t be much different than any of those other mid major conferences we know nothing about.

And yet the WCC is 9-11 against the Pac this year. Last I checked GU is part of the WCC. Taking teams out to make arguments is really quite ridiculous. Lets take teams out of the Pac then too. SMC is a good team as is BYU. USF has been a good team recently and Santa Clara and Pacific are getting much better.
WCC will be a top ten league again this year and closely rated to the Pac again. Now admittedly WCC is nowhere close to as good as ACC, Big East, Big 12, and Big 10.
But those trying to push the Pac as a top tier Basketball conference are living in the past. Maybe they get back there some day but they haven't been for about 10 years + now.

 

[Hawk-Lock]

WCC has some real crap teams... but St. Mary's (25 in KenPom) and BYU (38) are at least as good as the middle of the Pac12 (i.e. UW). San Francisco, Pacific and Santa Clara are all much improved.

I actually expect Zags to lose a game or 2 in conference unless somehow Killian Tillie can come back to full health. He's just a matchup nightmare that no team can deal with until late into March. Sadly, I'm not optimistic that will be the case as he's already on "load management".

Let’s not try to defend the WCC. It’s garbage outside of Gonzaga. The second best team every year is at Mary’s, and they are a bubble team every year. After that it is a bunch of teams that would be near the bottom of any power conference. I’m not trying to take anything away from Gonzaga, because I think they’d win or compete for the top spot in nearly any power conference. But the WCC is a joke, without Gonzaga they wouldn’t be much different than any of those other mid major conferences we know nothing about.

And yet the WCC is 9-11 against the Pac this year. Last I checked GU is part of the WCC. Taking teams out to make arguments is really quite ridiculous. Lets take teams out of the Pac then too. SMC is a good team as is BYU. USF has been a good team recently and Santa Clara and Pacific are getting much better.
WCC will be a top ten league again this year and closely rated to the Pac again. Now admittedly WCC is nowhere close to as good as ACC, Big East, Big 12, and Big 10.
But those trying to push the Pac as a top tier Basketball conference are living in the past. Maybe they get back there some day but they haven't been for about 10 years + now.

The Pac is pretty garbage. I already stated that Gonzaga is elite, so if you take out the Zags 3-0 record vs the Pac, the WCC went 6-11 vs the Pac, and SMU went 2-0 against the Pac. So you take out the two respectable teams and they went 4-11 vs the weakest power conference.

I agree Gonzaga and SMU could play in any power conference. There is no debate about that. And BYU too. But after that, the conference is trash. Cal and Wazzu are embarrassments to the Pac-12, they probably finish in fourth or fifth of the WCC.

 

[Hawkstorian]

That's debatable --- i think WSU is more like 7 or 8 .... but at the end of the day this is about Gonzaga not the WCC. If Zags could find a way out of the WCC they would take it in a heartbeat but they have no place to go. Can't go to the PAC without football and the MWC was just a chip to leverage staying in the WCC with better terms. MWC really isn't much better than the WCC ... San Diego St. is good this year but Nevada has fallen off and the rest of the league is YIKES.

It will always be the same. Gonzaga will need to schedule a big pre-season schedule to make up for their lousy conference. They get it and get that they can't really change it. The rest of the world can crap on them for it but there's nothing that can be done really to fix it.

 

[Hawk-Lock]

Yeah my bad if I got us off topic. Bottom line is Gonzaga can play in any conference and contend for a championship. I just don't know if they will ever reach their full potential playing three months in the WCC.

 

[Natethegreat]

Personally I am stunned the Zags are ranked number one this year and have a really good shot at a 1 seed. This team lost so much from last year. The Recruits we got have potential but none of them are elite. The biggest player to step up in my mind is Ayiyi.
He has been pretty good and has really helped this team gell. We needed someone at the guard spot to do this and with Gilder and Woolridge the guard play is good enough for this team to compete.

 

[Hawk-Lock]

Personally I am stunned the Zags are ranked number one this year and have a really good shot at a 1 seed. This team lost so much from last year. The Recruits we got have potential but none of them are elite. The biggest player to step up in my mind is Ayiyi.
He has been pretty good and has really helped this team gell. We needed someone at the guard spot to do this and with Gilder and Woolridge the guard play is good enough for this team to compete.

I think a lot of teams feel the same way...”I can’t believe we are ranked this high.” College basketball is really down this year. There is no Duke team with Zion and multiple lottery picks. If you go across college basketball, most teams would say the same thing, it’s their weakest team in a long time.