Author: jeremy2878

Gonzaga guard Nigel Williams-Goss (5) drives to the basket as Xavier’s Sean O’Mara (54) defends during the second half of an NCAA Tournament college basketball regional final game Saturday, March 25, 2017, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

By Jeremy Harness

SAN JOSE – As he found himself less than a minute away from the Final Four, Nigel Williams-Goss broke away from the crowd to gather his emotions.

He thought about his transfer from Washington and having to wait an entire season to get on the court with his new team, the ankle surgery he underwent during that year, and the overall journey that he and his team embarked on that has culminated in Gonzaga’s first-ever trip to the Final Four as a result of an 83-59 win over Xavier Saturday afternoon.

It was only fitting that Williams-Goss, the team’s leading scorer, be the one to spearhead the Bulldogs’ charge.

Not having to worry about being worn down by a full-court press like he did against West Virginia two days earlier, but instead was faced with Xavier’s half-court 2-3 zone, Williams-Goss was more free – and had more energy – to show his entire offensive game. It certainly showed, as he finished the game with 23 points on 7-of-19 shooting to go along with eight rebounds and four assists and did not turn the ball over once.

“We had a plan for ourselves,” Williams-Goss said. “We believed from day one, when we all stepped foot on this campus, that we could go to Phoenix, (the site of this year’s Final Four). And to be 50 seconds away to kind of check off that last goal that I had, when I originally got here, it was just a lot of emotion.”

Gonzaga used the 3-ball to jump out to an early lead and continued to use that for the remainder of the game. The Bulldogs sank eight of their 13 attempts from behind the arc to shoot out to a 49-39 halftime lead, effectively putting aside the shooting woes that were a major factor in the previous round, and made four more in the second half.

One big – literally and figuratively, by the way – reason for the abundance of open looks that Gonzaga got on Saturday was their ability to first get the ball into 7-foot-1, 300-pound Przemek Karnowski, who only scored five points on 2-of-4 shooting but proved to be a very effective passer when faced with a double team, a look that Xavier showed very often in order to get the ball out of his hands.

“No team that we’ve played has had a passer like Karnowski,” Xavier coach Chris Mack said. “He knows where everybody on his team is. And while he catches the ball in the mid post or high post in the zone, he’s such a huge target.

“When he catches it, he’s just going to turn and survey very patiently because he doesn’t have to worry about anybody affecting his ball. He’s going to find out who is open. He’s the reason.”

One of the other benefactors of this was Jonathan Williams, who teamed up with Karnowski to form an inside presence that Xavier had no answer for. He scored 19 points while making eight of his 12 shots, including an unlikely 3-pointer early in the second half that keyed a surge that put Gonzaga firmly in the driver’s seat.

“It’s just a crazy feeling to be able to go to the Final Four,” said Williams, who himself was a transfer, as he left Missouri and also had to sit out a year before joining Gonzaga. “I just want to thank God for my sitting out.

“I wouldn’t be here without my brothers, and if it wasn’t for Coach (Mark) Few and the coaching staff.”

Trevon Bluiett, on the other hand, was not nearly as efficient on Saturday. Xavier’s star guard, who was named to this year’s All-America third team and led the Musketeers’ upset win over Arizona on Thursday to get to this point, could not quite get himself on track when his team needed it the most.

He was a nightmarish 3-of-14 from the floor for 10 points, including making only one of his six shots from behind the 3-point line.

As was the case with Williams-Goss, Bluiett’s woes are reflective of the rest of his team. The entire offense also seemed to lack any consistent rhythm, whether it be the ability to make a basket that steadily decreased as the game progressed or the number of fumbled passes that led to transition points for Gonzaga.

Trailing by 10 at the half, Xavier shot a decent 44 percent from the floor and was certainly in a good position to make a run. However, Gonzaga blitzed the Musketeers to start the second half and opened up a 17-point lead in the first four minutes, and they never seemed to recover from that.

Xavier only made eight of its 30 field goals in the second half, with countless shots clanking off the back of the rim while the miscues – including the dropped passes and turnovers – piled up at a time when it needed to be at its sharpest.

It was a far cry from their comeback win over Arizona, which was a back-and-forth tussle that saw the Musketeers make all of the big shots and defensive stops down the stretch. The Musketeers simply had no answers for Gonzaga’s inside game, and the game was all but over when Gonzaga’s shots went in and theirs did not.

NOTES: Xavier did not get a lot of breaks on Saturday, but it did get one. A Gonzaga player attempted to corral a defensive rebound but ended up bouncing the ball on the floor, and it ended up bouncing off the glass and into his own basket.

Xavier almost got another big break going into the half, as J.P Macura’s three-quarter-court heave found the bottom of the basket. However, he was ruled to have released the shot after time had run out in the first half, so the Musketeers’ 10-point halftime deficit remained.

Gonzaga has now won each of the last four meetings with Xavier. Their last NCAA Tournament matchup, in 2006, was certainly more of a struggle than was the case on Saturday, as the third-seeded Bulldogs trailed Xavier at halftime before coming back to hang on for a 79-75 win.

Arizona guard Kobi Simmons, center, drives past Xavier forward Tyrique Jones, right, as Trevon Bluiett (5) watches during the first half of an NCAA Tournament college basketball regional semifinal game Thursday, March 23, 2017, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

By Jeremy Harness

SAN JOSE – Xavier has been always known as a tough, gut-it-out team, best known for its teeth-cutting battles with crosstown rival Cincinnati.

That toughness has continued to show throughout the Musketeers’ run through this year’s NCAA Tournament and again shone through Thursday night in the round of 16. They found themselves down to a more physically-talented Arizona team for much of the game but got the defensive stops that it desperately needed in the final minutes for a 73-71 win at the SAP Center.

The Musketeers will now face Gonzaga, who fought past West Virginia in the preceding game, Saturday afternoon at 3:09pm PST with a trip to the Final Four on the line, a place that neither program has ever been.

“I’m really proud of our kids,” Xavier coach Chris Mack said. “They battled tooth-and-nail. And for us to be able to go out and put together consecutive stops and come down and execute, it says a lot about how much our team has grown.”

These two teams met almost exactly two years ago, again in the Sweet Sixteen. The two schools were tied at the half, with Arizona taking over late in the game and advancing to the Elite Eight with a 68-60 win.

It appeared that this game would have a similar ending, especially given the fact that Arizona had romped their way through the Pac-12 tournament to earn a No. 2 seed in the West region, and had fought off a pesky St. Mary’s team with stellar play in the second half.

Xavier, however, had none of that, even after finding themselves down by eight with 3:44 to go. The Musketeers staged a rally – which was keyed by junior guard Trevon Bluiett, a third-team All-American who scored a game-high 25 points while making nine of his 17 shots from the floor – to tie the game two minutes later.

Sean O’Hara got a tough inside bucket with 40 seconds left and had a chance to ice the game when he grabbed a defensive rebound on the ensuing Arizona possession and was fouled. He missed the first free throw of a one-in-one, however, and that gave the Wildcats one last chance.

Guard Allonzo Trier had a decent look at a 3-pointer for the lead with eight seconds left, but it clanked off the back rim, and after a fight for the loose ball, Xavier came away with it and then sprinted into the frontcourt before Arizona had a chance to foul.

From that point, the Musketeers and their fans celebrated wildly, while Trier was left sitting on the floor wondering what just happened, especially after his team had shown its mettle in a talent-laden Pac-12.

Trier, meanwhile, finished with 19 points to go along with nine rebounds and three assists.

“I just told them to not try to get it all back in one or two possessions,” Mack said. “But it’s gotten to the point where they already know that. They just sort of echo, ‘Coach, we got it, we understand.’ And that hasn’t always been the case.”

11^th-seeded Xavier was fighting an uphill battle from the outset, as Arizona scored the first seven points of the game and held a 10-2 lead in the first five minutes of the game while the Musketeers struggled to find an answer for Dusan Ristic, who finished the game with 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting.

They slowly clawed their way back into the game and took their first lead of the game with less than three minutes left in the first half when Tyrique Jones’ dunk gave Xavier a 31-29 lead. Arizona, however, regained the momentum and went into halftime carrying a 37-35 lead.

For the better part of the second half, the two schools continued to trade baskets without either school leading by any more than four points, until Arizona put together an 11-0 run that seemed like it would put the Musketeers away for good.

However, that was when the Wildcats began to misfire at the most inopportune of times and gave Xavier just enough of a chance to pull the rug from right underneath their feet.

“It’s never easy when it ends, especially when you have a great team or had a great season,” Arizona coach Sean Miller said. “I think it’s always important, especially as the leader or our team and program, that we define our success.

“And I think if you’re a team that is 32-5, you win both the Pac-12 regular season and also the Pac-12 Tournament, and our journey ends in the Sweet 16, it’s hard to look at that as not getting it done or failure.”

Gonzaga players celebrate after beating West Virginia during an NCAA Tournament college basketball regional semifinal game Thursday, March 23, 2017, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

By Jeremy Harness

SAN JOSE – Josh Perkins has a tattoo that stretches across his collarbones, and it reads, “If it ain’t rough, it ain’t right.” That mentality apparently is shared by his Gonzaga teammates, and it has them in the Elite Eight.

To get there, the Bulldogs, the top seed in the West region, fought off a very game West Virginia team that went toe-to-toe with them for 40 minutes, pushing them to their limits with a full-court press that seemed to take them out of their element for much of the game.

With many of his teammates, including star guard Nigel Williams-Goss, struggling from the floor, Cal transfer Jordan Mathews stepped up and made the biggest shot of his team’s historic season. With his team down by one with 59 seconds left, he calmly knocked down a 3-pointer from the left corner, leading the way to a 61-58 win at San Jose’s SAP Center Thursday night in the NCAA Tournament’s round of 16.

“I just let it go; I just didn’t think about it,” Mathews said. “I didn’t see it go in, but I heard it.

“Just being able to play for a Final Four is something you grow up watching. You grow up watching March Madness and Sweet 16 games, and to have that opportunity to be 40 minutes away with this group, with this university, is very special.”

Despite shooting 27 percent from the field, West Virginia still had a chance to win in the final minute. Down by two and with Gonzaga face-guarding Mountaineers guard Jevon Carter, Tarik Phillip had a close look at the basket but watched as his floater bounced off the front of the rim, forcing West Virginia to foul.

Silas Melson made one of two free throws, and from that point, West Virginia turned completely to Carter, who scored 21 points and was the only guy who could make a shot at that point. Gonzaga knew that as well, and Carter was unable to get free for a clean look at a 3-pointer (he was 4-of-7 from that distance until then), missing two wild attempts as time ran out.

“That was a mistake on my behalf,” Carter said. “I should have drove it to the basket, but knowing it was a three-point game, I tried to go for the three, since I’d been hitting (that shot).

“But if I’m in that position again, I’ll take it to the basket.”

The primary reason why the Mountaineers were able to stay in the game was the pressure that they were able to put on Gonzaga. West Virginia won the coveted turnover battle, forcing the Bulldogs into 16 turnovers while committing 13 of their own, and they scored 24 points off those turnovers while Gonzaga converted West Virginia’s turnovers into 12 points.

“You tell me another team in the country who can shoot 26 percent from the field against a No. 1 seed, 21 percent from 3, and still could have, should have won the game,” West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. “I think that says a lot about what kind of guys we have.”

At the outset, Gonzaga moved the ball very well against that press, which has given the team the nickname of “Press Virginia.” However, the press eventually had a pronounced effect as the game progressed.

The Bulldogs primarily used Williams-Goss, their best scorer, to break the Mountaineer press, but the star guard expended a great deal of energy in the process and was clearly affected by that. Although he grabbed five rebounds and had only one turnover in the first half, he was only 1-for-5 from the floor in the first 20 minutes.

He seemed to have been worn down by it in the second half, committing four more turnovers and going 2-for-10 from the floor for 10 points.

Williams-Goss wasn’t the only one struggling from the floor in the first half, as Gonzaga only shot 38 percent, which allowed West Virginia, which only shot 23 percent itself, to stay in the game.

Mathews made only one of his seven shots in the first half, but he started the second half with the hot hand, nailing a 3-pointer and then converting a four-point play in the first four minutes to give Gonzaga a 41-34 lead.

From that point, the Bulldogs began to go to their big man, Przemek Karnowski, and they eventually opened up an eight-point lead.

However, the Mountaineers refused to go away and were kept in the game by Carter, the junior guard with a smooth shooting stroke to counter his receding hairline and was also tasked with sticking to Williams-Goss on Thursday. He made a pair of 3-pointers of his own before converting a three-point play with nine minutes gone by in the half to cut the deficit to two, eventually drawing the game even.

At that moment, West Virginia had taken a break from the press, but upon re-tying the game, it went right back to it and promptly forced a traveling turnover out of Gonzaga and took the lead.

A 3-pointer by Carter gave West Virginia a three-point lead with 1:47 to go, but Williams-Goss drew a foul on Gonzaga’s ensuing possession and sank both free throws, setting up Mathews’ heroics.

Gonzaga had not been forced into any real adversity until late in the year. The Bulldogs became the nation’s top-ranked team on Jan. 26 and held it for almost an entire month before being upended at home against BYU on Feb. 25.

They had considerable struggles in each of the first two rounds to get to the Sweet Sixteen. In the first round, Gonzaga had to fight off a pesky 16-seed in South Dakota State, which kept the game very close in the first half before wearing down and then watching as the Bulldogs found their stride in the second half en route to a 66-46 win.

Five days ago, Gonzaga started fast and led by as many as 22 points in its second-round matchup with Northwestern, but the Wildcats mounted a furious comeback late in the game, when a turn of events halted Northwestern’s momentum for good.

Gonzaga center Zach Collins clearly reached through the basket to block a Northwestern shot with 4:54 remaining, a basket that would have cut Gonzaga’s lead to three. Northwestern coach Chris Collins hotly protested the non-call and earned a technical for his trouble.

Williams-Goss hit both ensuing free throws, and Northwestern could get no closer in a 79-73 Gonzaga win.

West Virginia, the No. 4 seed in this West Regional, did not have an easy road to this round, either. The Mountaineers withstood a late comeback from 13^th-seeded Bucknell to escape with an 86-80 win before holding off a second-half surge by Notre Dame to come away with a 83-71 second-round victory.