Offensive woes doom Gonzaga in season-ending loss to Texas in NCAA Tournament

For the second year in a row, Mark Few and the Gonzaga Bulldogs will see their season come to an end before the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament. No. 3 Gonzaga fell 74-68 to No. 11 Texas on Saturday afternoon in Portland, finishing the season with a 31-4 record and a long list of 'what-if's'.

Gonzaga's offense never recovered following a mid-January injury to star forward Braden Huff, and that was the problem once again in Portland against Sean Miller's Longhorns.

Gonzaga did make their first seven two-point attempts of the game, but only held a small lead - mostly because they missed their first five from beyond the arc - a perfect microcosm of the season to date. But one thing they were able to find success with early on, that this team hasn't had in over two months, is efficiency on the short roll.

Multiple times in the first ten minutes, Ike set a high ball screen, caught a pass on the short roll, and hit a 10-12 foot floater - aka the Braden Huff specialty. It seemed to surprise Texas - likely because they haven't done it in two months - and injected some much-needed rhythm into this team offensively.

Gonzaga extended their lead to eight, 28-20, before Texas finally got going offensively in the final few minutes of the half. The Longhorns went on a 15-5 run, punctuated by a Jordan Pope made three, to take a 35-33 lead into the halftime locker room.

These two teams traded body blows throughout the second half, with Texas taking a 62-56 point lead at 5:28 after grabbing multiple offensive rebounds in a row, leading to a big three from Pope.

Gonzaga never quite recovered after that, hitting a handful of clutch shots but not doing enough defensively to get back into the game. Then Cam Heide - who had not scored all game - hit a clutch three from the corner in the final 30 seconds, sending Gonzaga home and ending the collegiate careers of multiple seniors, including Graham Ike, Jalen Warley, Tyon Grant-Foster, and Adam Miller.

Below are three takeaways from Gonzaga's final game of the 2025-26 season:

1. Jalen Warley's swan song

After six weeks where he didn't look like himself, the best version of Jalen Warley returned for the NCAA Tournament. The 6'7 wing was the best player on the floor Saturday afternoon, racking up 10 points, eight rebounds, and five assists while shooting a highly efficient 4-7 from the floor.

At one point, he had seven rebounds when no one else - on either team - had more than four, a testament to his explosive athleticism and timing in going after the ball. He was tasked with gobbling up boards, defending star wing Dailyn Swain, and initiating the offense against this physical Longhorns team - and he performed admirably in all three areas in his final collegiate game.

2. Poor three point shooting

Gonzaga started the game making their first seven two-point field goal attempts, but had not done anything to separate from Texas on the scoreboard. That's mostly because they had also taken five attempts from three - and missed them all.

Once again, the issue for Gonzaga wasn't just that they weren't making enough threes - although that was certainly true - it's that they were taking too many of them.

The Zags ultimately finished the game shooting 4-16 (25%) from beyond the arc, another subpar performance in a season that was full of them.

3. Graham Ike's final showing

The prolific career of Gonzaga big man Graham Ike came to an end on Saturday evening in Portland, and what a ride. Ike dropped 25 points with three rebounds and three assists in his final game, throwing down a thunderous dunk in the closing minute to punctuate an extraordinary career, which ended with 2,575 points scored and 1,144 rebounds.

Gonzaga has had plenty of outstanding big men in coach Few's tenure, and Ike has firmly thrown himself onto this list after earning All-American honors this season.