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Dec. 21—It probably wasn’t everything Mark Few had on his wish list, but Gonzaga’s home nonconference finale against Bucknell served the only purpose it needed to before Bulldogs players began a brief holiday break.
For long stretches, Gonzaga’s offense didn’t operate with the level of urgency or efficiency many have grown accustomed to, but Graham Ike scored at least 20 points for the second straight game since a three-point outing against Connecticut, and the Bulldogs were disruptive enough on the defensive end to win 86-65 at the McCarthey Athletic Center.
Ike was the primary source of offense early, scoring the Bulldogs’ first nine points, and that didn’t change much throughout the evening. The senior forward did most of his work inside, but switched it up from time to time, hitting a series of fallaway jumpers, midrange shots as well as one 3-pointer to reach his second-highest total of the season with 25 points on 11-of-15 shooting from the field along with 10 rebounds.
“I think the biggest thing is he kind of took what they gave him,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said of Ike. “Look, they chose not to guard our bigs and just sag off them and basically dare them. I thought, for the most part, we took the right number of 3s and right number of shots, but also found some paint touches and were able to play out of those.
“I liked our defense a lot tonight, especially in that first half our numbers were really good. The start of the second half was really good, then we let them get going a little bit from 3 there.”
Gonzaga’s efficiency numbers on offense improved in the second half, when the Bulldogs made 7 of 17 shots from the 3-point line, but Ike and the defense were reliable all night.
Bucknell, a team averaging just 59 points in its past five outings, wasn’t on pace to hit that mark after the first half, when Gonzaga forced the Bison into 14 of their 19 turnovers.
The visitors went through a 3-minute, 28-second scoring drought early in the game, then had two other dry spells…
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Author : The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.
Publish date : 2024-12-22 04:59:00
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