What Gonzaga's Mark Few said after nail-biting win over San Francisco

Gonzaga hung on for a 68-66 victory over San Francisco Saturday in a thrilling back-and-forth West Coast Conference battle from McCarthey Athletic Center.

The Bulldogs (21-1, 9-0 WCC) got everything the Dons (13-9, 5-4 WCC) could throw their way, including several haymakers down the stretch of regulation, as they squeezed out their 14th straight win of the season.

The Zags led by double-digits several times in the first and second halves but never seemed to pull away from the Dons, who managed to make 11 more shots from downtown and outrebounded the home team, 41-37, keeping things interesting for the whole 40-minute affair.

Gonzaga managed to slug its way to a double-digit but began to feel the pressure once the 3-pointers that didn't fall for San Francisco early on started to drop midway through the first half.

Even though not much was going down inside the arc for the Dons, they were able to connect on a few 3-pointers to trim their 11-point deficit down to five as the Bulldogs' offense stalled without a reliable presence in the paint to lean on.

San Francisco didn't get on the scoreboard until the 12:40 mark in the first half, though a couple of 3s from Riley IV and Smiley made it a 7-point game with just over 10 minutes left in the half.

Gonzaga was able to rely on Tyon Grant-Foster to generate good looks around the rim early on. The 6-foot-7 forward had a run of eight straight points midway through the first half, including a transition dunk off a steal to make it 20-7 with just under 9 minutes left until intermission.

Three consecutive 3-pointers from San Francisco, followed by three makes at the free-throw line from Smiley, made it a 5-point game with just 5 minutes left in the first half. Gonzaga wasn't rattled, though, as it continued to attack the paint and get to the foul line, pushing its lead to 36-25 at the break.

The Zags didn't hit their first 3-pointer until Braeden Smith drained a triple roughly 25 minutes into regulation, snapping Gonzaga's streak of nine straight misses from downtown to start the game.

Another 3 from Fogle moments later made it a 12-point game, but San Francisco was able to cut that lead in half in the blink of an eye with back-to-back 3s from Abosi Veniamin and Smiley. In the span of 30 seconds, Gonzaga went from leading by 12 to sitting in front by six.

After not committing a turnover through 27 minutes of game time, Gonzaga turned it over four times in a 2-minute span, allowing San Francisco to cut its deficit to three late in the second half. The Dons had opportunities to potentially make it even more interesting but faced their share of miscues as well, including a run of turnovers and missed layups during a 4-minute field goal drought.

Gonzaga was enduring a dry spell of its own on the other end, until a strong drive and finish from Tyon Grant-Foster with 3:36 left pushed the Zags' lead back to six. A 3-pointer from the veteran wing moments later made it 67-57 with under 2 minutes to play.

Then, after missing eight straight from the field, the Dons rose to the occasion with three 3-pointers to make it a 2-point game with under 30 seconds remaining.

San Francisco had a chance to win or tie it at the end of regulation following a couple of bad possessions from Gonzaga, but Junjie Wang misfired on a 3-point attempt with 3 seconds left.

San Francisco, which entered the game making 9.4 3s per game (No. 2 in the WCC), went 14-for-28 from downtown against the league's No. 1 3-point defense and just 8-for-27 on 2-point attempts. Despite finishing with the fewest makes inside the arc since 2017, the Dons extended their streak of at least 10 made 3s to five games.

Entering Saturday, teams were shooting 29% from behind the arc against Gonzaga, the No. 12-best mark in the country.

With the win, the Zags continued their best start to a season since opening the 2020-21 campaign 31-0 en route to the national championship game. It also marked the first time Gonzaga won its first nine WCC games since the 2021-22 season, when it 13-0 before losing its regular season finale at Saint Mary's.

Saturday's result extended Gonzaga's win streak over San Francisco to 34 and improved the Bulldogs' record against the Dons under Mark Few to 57-4. The Zags put that head-to-head win streak to the test once more on Feb. 18 in a matchup with the Dons at Chase Center.

Up next for Gonzaga is a pivotal clash against the league's second-place team, Saint Mary's (18-3, 7-1 WCC), on Jan. 31 at the Kennel.

Here's what Few had to say after Saturday's game.

Thoughts on how Gonzaga finished the game

"We survived on the defensive end, which was what we were doing all night. We were playing phenomenal defense; started the game with just a phenomenal stretch of defense, and then we kept tapping into that throughout this whole game."

"We needed one stop, and we got it, and that was the difference. But we didn't finish the game ideally the way we wanted to. There's a couple bonehead plays that we could have been a little bit smarter on the defensive end."

On Jalen Warley's performance

"He's just phenomenal, inspiring, epitome of toughness. And giving this program, this town all he's got. It's just awesome to witness firsthand."

On Gonzaga's turnover problems in the second half

"It was just really bad decisions. There were just really bad decisions and trying to do too much and not reading the game, which we didn't do in the first half. We were pretty rock solid. Everybody was switching all actions, so when everybody starts switching all actions, it's hard to get edges and off plays. Neither one of us was really playing any post players, obviously, so then you kind of got to make plays in space. And some guys didn't handle that quite as well in the second half."

On Gonzaga's 3-point defense

"They were struggling to score 2s against us, so they were hunting 3s and we just, time and time again, over-helped. And then we were casual on one close out and, with a 10-point lead all of a sudden it's down to four or five."

"Not going to sit here and focus on the negative; it was a freaking gutty, gutty, gutty win for this squad that was short handed, and it feels great."

On what needs to happen before next week's game against Saint Mary's

"We just need to take some days off. I mean, Jalen's beat up through this stretch, and we'll see if and when we get Graham back, and we'll have to change the way we play again. But that'll be a welcome addition to get one of the better players in America back and certainly give us some more options on the offensive end."