Gonzaga's Mark Few on the Bulldogs' second half run vs. USF Dons: 'It was a great response to what was a hard-fought game'
The Gonzaga Bulldogs flipped the script on the San Francisco Dons in the second half of Thursday's pivotal West Coast Conference battle at the Chase Center.
After trailing for much of the first half and holding a one-point advantage at intermission, Gonzaga's offense was alive and well coming out of the locker room. The Bulldogs raced out to a double-digit lead before the first media timeout, as they went on a 22-3 scoring run and made 12 of their first 13 field goal attempts in the second half.
“It was a great response to what was a hard-fought game," said Mark Few of his team's focus coming out of halftime. "We got a break going, it really started with our stops. I don’t how many consecutive stops we had but our defense was fantastic in the first 10 minutes of the second half.”
Here's more of what Few had to say following the Bulldogs' win.
On Graham Ike's 26-point performance:
"He’s been delivering in there. [The Dons] were doubling him and he was still delivering through a lot of that. You know it’s amazing we still have to yell at him post up and ask for the ball you know cause he’s just such an unselfish guy he’ll just stand outside the lane and watch Ryan operate or watch Anton operate."
On Ryan Nembhard and Nolan Hickman's night:
"I thought Nolan did a good job in the second half. You know in years past, he has a rough first half he hasn’t really been able to flip the switch and change the dynamic and he changed it in the second half. Ryan did a good job. [San Francisco's] guards are so physical and quick and they’re hard to create offense against and I thought Ryan did a good job of getting us into our actions, getting us with great pace and just managing the game."
On clinching the No. 2 seed in the WCC Tournament and the possibility of playing San Francisco again:
"It helps. We’re used to that, obviously we’re used to playing on Monday. But it’s also hard playing on Monday ... it's a different feeling down there in the league tournament but yeah, obviously we’re only playing seven to seven and a half guys so it’s good to get one less game and probably have to play [the Dons] again for sure. I have massive respect for them, just how hard they play, how tough they play … just physical and edgy they are and Chris has done a really really nice job with this squad."
On the rematch with Saint Mary's:
"They like to play physical and tempo basketball and we like to get out and run. But they’ve had a heck of a year, but again, I think we led the game in Spokane for 30 minutes or 32 minutes and just didn’t quite finish it off. But they’re doing a great job of finishing off games and certainly they’ve won [16 games] in a row so, yeah it’s going to take everything we got to go in there and get it done but we got step one but now we got to go get step two."
