What Gonzaga players said after pivotal win over Saint Mary's

Saturday night's monumental showdown with Saint Mary's at McCarthey Athletic Center was personal for Gonzaga forward Graham Ike.

As if it wasn't clear by the way he egged on the crowd after big plays and exchanged words with Gaels players, the 6-foot-9 All-America candidate was determined to beat the Zags' arch nemesis at the Kennel for the first time in his career and keep his squad atop the West Coast Conference standings.

And so, Ike poured in a game-high 30 points — the most he's ever scored against Saint Mary's — and iced the game with a 3-pointer followed by an emphatic block, sealing a 73-65 victory for the Zags (22-1, 10-0 WCC) in another thrilling battle involving the Gaels (19-4, 8-2 WCC).

Here's what Ike, as well as Jalen Warley and Mario Saint-Supéry, had to say after the game.

Ike on what it meant to defend home court against Saint Mary's

"It was extremely personal. We know how much this means to the university and also to us, everybody here in Spokane, and we definitely want to take care of business. Personally, I had never beat these guys before on the home floor before this, and that was definitely something that I wanted to do in my last year, and I'm glad we could get that done."

Saint-Supéry on overcoming turnovers, coming up clutch down the stretch

"Well, as I always say, I'm always trying to help the team. I think I'm shooting good from the 3-point line. The coaches are telling me to keep hunting 3s and to stay ready on the 3-point line. I thought [the 3-pointer with 12 minutes left] was a good shot. I took it, I made it; it was good."

Warley on defending Paulius Murauskas, Emmanuel Innocenti's impact

"Big shout out to E-Man. I think he came up really big, because when he wasn't guarding Murauskas, he was guarding [Joshua] Dent and he was really making life difficult for him. [Murauskas] is a great player, and I knew we weren't going to shut him out. He was going to score, but just trying to make his life difficult, trying to not let him get the shots that he's used to all year. He knocked down some shots, but I think we did a good job of kind of knocking him off his normal spots."

Ike on Gonzaga's rebounding

"We understood that coming in, the staff have made a good point of that. Obviously, with the past couple years the way that they've been rebounding, that's just something that they do. So if we could just clear their big guys off the boards and just have our guards come in and rebound — that was the plan. And I think we did execute that."

Warley on the game's physicality

"Shoutout our scout team. They really got us ready this week, we're beating up on us; we kind of were ready for the physicality, and we knew in those really exciting type of games that it's gonna be physical. There's going to be foul calls, so we just really tried to kind of set the tone physically on the glass and with our aggressive drive."