'He's a winner': Gonzaga's Anton Watson makes winning plays when it matters most
It didn't take long for Anton Watson's new teammates to notice just how important he is to the Gonzaga Bulldogs.
"He just does everything for us," Ryan Nembhard said after Gonzaga's win over Cal State Bakersfield on Tuesday. "He's a guy that gets us going just with everything. If he can't score the ball, he's our biggest guy on defense. He's a glue guy, but he started to score the ball too. He just knows how to win games."
The term "glue guy" has been the go-to phrase when describing how Watson impacts the game in ways that aren't recorded on the box score. Hedging hard on ball screens to shut down a pick-and-roll. Boxing out on defense to let a teammate grab a rebound and push the pace the other way. Tipping errant passes, setting solid screens, diving for loose balls — all the little details that add up to equal winning basketball.
And to Nembhard's point, Watson has been more aggressive as a scorer. He leads the Zags with 15.7 points while still finding the energy to snatch 8.8 rebounds per game, both of which are career-bests to this point. He still remains ultra-efficient, shooting 65.1% from the field, the second-highest clip in the West Coast Conference. That's quite a feat considering he's taking 10.5 shot attempts per game, three more than his previous career high from last season.
Watson made it a point to be more assertive on offense heading into the UCLA game, which was the last leg of a 72-hour stretch that consisted of three games with minimal turnaround in between. Especially given the backcourt's infrequent rest over the three days, every single one of Watson's 32 points was crucial in the 69-65 win. Whether it was fatigue, the Bruins' defense or a combination of both, Watson's teammates combined to shoot 9-of-37 from the floor and 3-of-13 from behind the arc.
Watson figured to have an expanded role offensively heading into the season with so many newcomers at his side, but a Drew Timme-esque performance when his team desperately needed a boost was certainly an eye-opener for those familiar with the fifth-year senior's game. Watson had never crossed the 30-point threshold in his career before that, and to do it on the last day of a tournament against a top-15 defense while the rest of the team struggled was certainly deserving of recognition.
Watson did indeed earn his first WCC Player of the Week honor following his career night, on top of being named to the Maui Invitational all-tournament team. For a player who had hardly received any sort of individual honors prior to his fifth season, Watson has flown under the radar as one of the most consistent winners in college basketball. He finally earned preseason All-WCC team honors and a spot on the Julius Erving Award watch list heading into 2023-24, and it's safe to say he'll be on the next ballot of names announced later this season.
While the national media has overlooked the Spokane native, his coach knew how important the 6-foot-8 forward would be before his first official game in a Gonzaga uniform. Mark Few recalled Watson's 15-rebound performance as a freshman during a closed-door scrimmage against Michigan State, which featured future NBA talent Xavier Tillman Jr.
Fast forward to now, Few admitted that Watson's prowess on the boards has been "hit or miss" since then, but the impact on winning has been the same throughout his career.
"He was great ... just the plays he makes and how he competes," Few said of Watson after the Bakersfield game. "He's just ... he's a winner. He made a lot of winning plays when the game was still in the balance."
Gonzaga is 58-7 with Watson in the starting lineup since his freshman season, and while many of those victories can be attributed to the efforts of his old pal Timme, even the former All-American attested that without Watson, Gonzaga wouldn't be as successful as it has been over the past five years.
