Ryan Nembhard on Gonzaga's doubters: 'Everybody kind of wants to hate on Gonzaga right now, so we're cool with that'
The first "off" year in some time for the Gonzaga Bulldogs has some prognosticators already writing off their hopes of having another deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
After falling out of the AP Top 25 poll for the first time since 2016, Gonzaga (13-5, 4-1 WCC) was put "on the bubble" to make the NCAA Tournament in the latest ESPN Bracketology update by Joe Lunardi. The Bulldogs can still go dancing by securing the WCC Tournament championship or earning an at-large bid from the selection committee. Without many quality wins on the resume, though, the latter route looks unlikely.
But any negative talk of the team's postseason chances or its perceived struggles this season doesn't seem to matter in the eyes of Ryan Nembhard.
"I don't really hear what people are saying," Nembhard said. "We'll be fine throughout the rest of the year if we just take care of business, so I'm not too worried about what everybody has to say. Everybody kind of wants to hate on Gonzaga right now, so we're cool with that."
Here's more of what Nembhard had to say ahead of Gonzaga's home game against San Francisco:
On his three-game streak without a turnover:
"I've just been trying to make better reads, make smarter decisions and I feel like the game has been slowing down a little bit for me, so that always helps. Just being a little more conscious of not trying to go into small spaces and make risky passes that are just unnecessary and mess up the flow of a game."
On what he learned from the two road wins last week:
"Our defense can travel. When you go on the road, and you have two defensive performances like the ones we did, I think that's huge. And that's something we can bring back to The Kennel and just bring back for the rest of the year. Try and allow our defense to dictate how the game goes regardless if shots are falling or not."
On playing in smaller gyms throughout the WCC:
"Honestly it's cool because sometimes in the Big East it would be big stadiums, a little bit smaller crowds for Creighton. So it's just good to be a team that everyone's gunning for and we know we're going to get their best shot, their biggest crowds for us in those games. So you know it's going to be a rowdy environment and yeah, [WCC arenas] seem more like a high school-kind of environment. But those are some of the best environments I've played in."
On talks he has with older brother and former Gonzaga guard Andrew Nembhard:
"We talk a lot, FaceTime all the time. So we definitely talk about each other's seasons and stuff. We talk here and there about little things that he sees in terms of ball-screen reads and certain stuff like that, but he just kind of just lets me do my thing and he knows I watch film."
