First off, I'm honestly curious about this and am not trying to be a prick.

After the loss tonight, what do you Gonzaga fans think about the talent level of the Zags in comparison to the rest of the WCC and St Mary's in particular? I don't follow the WCC at all but based on what I've seen (Montana, Tennessee, chunks of games, highlights) I'd think the play between St Mary's and GU wouldn't be nearly as close. Thought GU would be a bit farther above them. I mean, Heytvelt, Pargo, Daye, Gray, Bouldin. Two of those guys are freshman and Gray may not be one of the best 4-5 players on the team but the results just seems surprising, I don't know.

Thoughts?

GU is definitely the more talented team. Nobody can effectively argue that. But talent doesn;t always get you wins. With regard to tonight, I was just disappointed that the game had to be decided like that by the refs. I'm the last guy to blame a loss on the refs, but my day has come. Three blown calls with major implications even had Bardo and Gannon scratching their heads. Tough loss, but , as always, we had a chance to win. This tells me that we can withstand bad calls to give ourselves a shot at any game.

We need to start utilizing talent a little better though.

Without much in the way of a scoring contributor in the paint, I think GU is going to struggle in some of these competetive games. Kuso plays hard and does well defensively (when he isn't in foul trouble) and he can get tips and layups but doesn't have much more in the way of offensive skills. Sacre is still too green and Foster too uncoordinated. Heytvelt just hasn't returned to the form he showed two years ago, either offensively or defensively and , even given the setbacks of his layoff last year (self induced) and his injury this year, one wonders whether he is ever going to. I hope so, but it's a long time coming.

Inconsistency by some of the other good players hasn't helped. Downs missed shots he nearly always makes last night and Bouldin has been very spotty from a scoring standpoint in some of the big games. The Zags have a lot of talent, just need a little more consistency and refinement.

Plainsman wrote:Without much in the way of a scoring contributor in the paint, I think GU is going to struggle in some of these competetive games. Kuso plays hard and does well defensively (when he isn't in foul trouble) and he can get tips and layups but doesn't have much more in the way of offensive skills. Sacre is still too green and Foster too uncoordinated. Heytvelt just hasn't returned to the form he showed two years ago, either offensively or defensively and , even given the setbacks of his layoff last year (self induced) and his injury this year, one wonders whether he is ever going to. I hope so, but it's a long time coming.

Inconsistency by some of the other good players hasn't helped. Downs missed shots he nearly always makes last night and Bouldin has been very spotty from a scoring standpoint in some of the big games. The Zags have a lot of talent, just need a little more consistency and refinement.

Bingo, spot on!

CDAGRIZ wrote:GU is definitely the more talented team. Nobody can effectively argue that. But talent doesn;t always get you wins. With regard to tonight, I was just disappointed that the game had to be decided like that by the refs. I'm the last guy to blame a loss on the refs, but my day has come. Three blown calls with major implications even had Bardo and Gannon scratching their heads. Tough loss, but , as always, we had a chance to win. This tells me that we can withstand bad calls to give ourselves a shot at any game.

We need to start utilizing talent a little better though.

Not to be an a$$, but GU seemed to benefit from an officials call (a Spokane offical, as a matter of fact) against Santa Clara with .3 seconds left in the prior game.......it goes both ways. If it hadn't been for the superb play of the Freshman (Gray and Day) picking up the slack for Bouldin, Downs and Heytvelt, the road trip would have ended with 2 double digit losses.

[quote="CDAGRIZ"]GU is definitely the more talented team. Nobody can effectively argue that. But talent doesn;t always get you wins. With regard to tonight, I was just disappointed that the game had to be decided like that by the refs. I'm the last guy to blame a loss on the refs, but my day has come. Three blown calls with major implications even had Bardo and Gannon scratching their heads. Tough loss, but , as always, we had a chance to win. This tells me that we can withstand bad calls to give ourselves a shot at any game.

We need to start utilizing talent a little better though.[/qu

dayes foul that sent him out of the game was bad. real bad. st. marys knocking the ball out of bounds and getting it back under their basket was also questionable. but when #24 literally jumped backwards to make contact before falling out of bounds by gonzagas bench was the worst call i have seen this season. and i don't like the zags! i still see st. marys as overrated. if they land a 6 or 7 seed in the tourney, i look for them to get upset. actually, without knowing who they play, i look for them to get upset by pretty much whoever they play.

grizfnz wrote:

CDAGRIZ wrote:GU is definitely the more talented team. Nobody can effectively argue that. But talent doesn;t always get you wins. With regard to tonight, I was just disappointed that the game had to be decided like that by the refs. I'm the last guy to blame a loss on the refs, but my day has come. Three blown calls with major implications even had Bardo and Gannon scratching their heads. Tough loss, but , as always, we had a chance to win. This tells me that we can withstand bad calls to give ourselves a shot at any game.

We need to start utilizing talent a little better though.

Not to be an a$$, but GU seemed to benefit from an officials call (a Spokane offical, as a matter of fact) against Santa Clara with .3 seconds left in the prior game.......it goes both ways. If it hadn't been for the superb play of the Freshman (Gray and Day) picking up the slack for Bouldin, Downs and Heytvelt, the road trip would have ended with 2 double digit losses.

Yeah, that one could have gone either way. I'll tell you about three that should have gone the other way, no question.

1. Heytvelt gets a board, Samhan knocks it out of bounds, St. Mary's ball. They hit a three.

2. Daye steals from Samhan, Samhan tackles Daye, Daye fouls out for getting tackled. We were in the bonus and Daye shoots 90%.

3. We trap a player in the backcourt, he's falling out of bounds, he jumps into Gray, foul on Gray. Made FTs.

This is not to mention Daye's fourth foul on Mills where Mille made the layin. There was no contact, none.

Listen, I understand that I will always be biased toward GU on the old Charge/Block call, or the "was the ball going up or coming down" goaltending call. But these were not up for debate. I also understand that it's stupid to complain about bad calls if they didn't matter in the end. But every one of these cost us points; sometimes perhaps a four point swing.

One of these refs has been suspended before for this exact same thing. IDK if it's related, but it sure felt like the crew was dictating the outcome instead of the players.