Gonzaga men's basketball looks to get right vs. Jackson State
Simply put, the No. 15 Gonzaga Bulldogs have not looked like a true national championship contender in recent weeks.
Granted the competition has been steep, with two of their losses coming on neutral site floors against the No. 1 ranked team in the country and the other to the reigning national champions. Letdowns to Purdue and UConn won't look bad on the resume come March, at least on paper, but in neither of those games did the Zags (8-3) put together a consistent 40 minute-stretch that proved they belong in the conversation of the nation's elite teams.
From scoring droughts, shooting woes and apparent lack of depth, Gonzaga has yet to take advantage of the quality opponents in the nonconference slate thus far, posting an 0-3 record in Quad 1 games.
The Zags have been in a similar spot before. Last season's team started 5-3, with losses to Purdue and Baylor within a seven-day period. But after slugging out a win over a good Kent State squad at home, the Bulldogs rebuilt their confidence game by game before putting together an offensive clinic against No. 4 Alabama in Birmingham.
Sure the wins over Washington and Northern Illinois leading up to that matchup weren't resume boosters, but they did help in terms of cleaning up certain areas along with reestablishing trust and connectivity among the program.
So, while Wednesday's matchup with Jackson State won't change the perception of this season's Bulldogs squad in the short-term, it can set the foundation for bigger things to come. It's not likely that everything will be cleaned up in one game before the next pivotal matchup against San Diego State on Dec. 29, though if there's any one area that the Zags can build confidence in when facing the Tigers, it's their 3-point shooting.
After a 2-for-12 showing from behind the arc against UConn, Gonzaga is shooting 32.3% on 3-point attempts this season. That's on pace to be the lowest conversion rate for the program in the Mark Few era, though there's plenty of time to improve that mark — starting with a matchup against one of the worst 3-point defenses in the country.
Jackson State (4-7) has allowed its opponents to shoot 37.8% from deep and make over 10 3-pointers per game. Three of its last five foes have shot 41% or better from distance. Arkansas State, which posts a comparable 3-point percentage to Gonzaga at 32.8% on the season, knocked down 14 triples in its matchup against the Tigers in late November.
And unlike the matchup against Mississippi Valley State, Jackson State doesn't rely solely on zone defense. Gonzaga shot 5-of-24 from deep against the Delta Devils' zone defense, though it's unlikely it'll face a similar look from the Tigers with the exception of a few possessions.
As a whole, the Tigers have put up little resistance on the defensive end of the floor. They've allowed opponents to post a 56.4% effective field goal rate, the seventh-highest mark in the nation according to hoop-math.com, while giving up an average of 79.5 points.
Offensively, the Tigers have struggled to take care of the ball with 15.3 turnovers per game. Gonzaga has forced at least 10 turnovers in all but two games this season while scoring 15.3 points per contest off its opponent's mistakes. Extra opportunities to score via sound defense have helped when things stall offensively for the Bulldogs, though that might not be needed against a struggling Jackson State team.
A bright spot for the Tigers has been redshirt junior Ken Evans Jr., a 6-foot-5 guard averaging a team-high 17.5 points and 3.2 assists. He's been relied on heavily in the absence of Ole Miss transfer Daeshun Ruffin, who will miss the season with an injury. Alabama State transfer Jordan O'Neal has provided scoring down low with 11.9 points per game.
For Gonzaga, a game like this would normally be a chance for the reserves to get extra minutes on the floor, though the team will be without Luka Krajnovic for some time with a broken hand. That likely means more of Jun Seok Yeo in the second half, as an already thin rotation becomes even tighter heading into WCC play.
