Gonzaga faces sharp shooting LMU squad one final time in conference play

The Zags are off to a 3-0 start to WCC play ahead of Sunday's bout with LMU

Gonzaga men's basketball team. | Photo by Erik Smith

Mark Few and the Gonzaga Bulldogs' busy first week of conference play rolls on, as they host the LMU Lions on Sunday in their fourth game in seven days.

The game will tip at 6:00 PM PT at the McCarthey Athletic Center and will be the final regular-season battle between Gonzaga and LMU, with no return game at Gersten Pavilion in Los Angeles this year.

Gonzaga (15-1, 3-0) is coming off a way, way too close for comfort win over Seattle on Friday, winning 80-72 in overtime in a game the Zags trailed by as many as 13 in the second half. Braden Huff (28 points, 11-14 shooting), Graham Ike (24 points, 8-14) and Tyon Grant-Foster (19 points, 7-9) scored an astonishing 88% of Gonzaga's points, with Braden Smith (7 points) and Adam Miller (2 points) the only other Zags in the scoring column.

This comes after an ugly end to the team's win over San Diego on Tuesday, with the Toreros going on an 11-0 run to make it a five-point game despite Gonzaga holding a lead as big as 21 points in the second half.

The Zags will need to tighten things up in order to defeat LMU (10-6, 1-2), which boasts one of the strongest three-point shooting squads in the country. The Lions are shooting 37.3% as a team from deep, making 9.5 threes per game on average.

Loyola Marymount Lions head coach Stan Johnson. | James Snook-Imagn Images

Stan Johnson's team is led by a pair of 15-point-per-game scorers in Myron (MJ) Amey and Rodney Brown, who are both lights out from the perimeter. Amey is shooting 38.5% from three on 7.8 attempts per game, while Brown is even better at 41% on 7.6 attempts.

LMU also relies heavily on a former Gonzaga recruiting target from Slovenia, Jan Vide, who began his college career at UCLA but transferred to LMU ahead of the 2024-25 season. The 6'6 guard averaged 6.3 points playing behind Caleb Stone-Carrawell and Will Johnston last year, but has broken out in a major way this season - averaging 14.2 points and 4.9 assists per game while shooting 54.9% on twos and 53.8% (7-13) from beyond the arc.

Gonzaga will need to defend the perimeter on Sunday to avoid losing to the Lions at home as they did back in 2023, and to stay undefeated in conference play ahead of Thursday's big-time matchup with Santa Clara.

The Zags will also need to get back to dominating on the glass after getting outrebounded by Seattle, 41-40, while giving up a season-high 15 offensive boards. Fortunately, LMU is not a great rebounding team, although they have one of the very few true seven-footers in the conference in Rick Issanza, who will be a key player in this matchup - likely drawing the defensive assignment against Ike for coach Johnson's team.

Gonzaga has won 50 of 54 games against LMU in coach Few's tenure, and will look to make it one more on Sunday before making the move to the Pac-12 in 2026-27.