UW Basketball Faces Another Test Against No. 7 Gonzaga
On Tuesday night, Washington coach Mike Hopkins felt confident enough after his basketball team earned its fifth win of season to jokingly ask who was next on the schedule.
"Oh yeah, who do we play Saturday?" Hopkins said with a grin.
That would be No. 7-ranked Gonzaga (7-1), which visits Alaska Airlines Arena at 8 p.m. to face the Huskies (5-3), who have lost all five games against the Bulldogs by an average of nearly 11 points under Hopkins' tenure.
The only game between GU and a UW-coached Hopkins team decided by one possession came three seasons ago in December on a two-point defeat in Spokane, when the Zags' Rui Hachimura hit a game-winning jumper with 0.6 seconds left to seal an 81-79 victory.
With four of Gonzaga's five starters averaging double figures in scoring, led by 6-foot-8 senior forward Anton Watson's 14.8 points per game, Hopkins knows he'll need all hands on deckon Saturday night.
"We are not doing our job if all our players aren't playing at their highest confidence level within our system," Hopkins said.
Both teams come off convincing victories with Gonzaga defeating Arkansas Pine-Bluff 111-71 and UW downing Montana State 85-61.
Gonzaga played most of its bench players in the second half after rushing out to a 31-point lead at one point in the opening 20 minutes.
Former Eastside Catholic High School standout Nolan Hickman, a 6-foot-2 junior, played 27 minutes, the most of any starter, in the 40-point victory and finished with 13 points, 5 assists and 2 steals.
UW likewise built a 31-point margin over Montana State, but didn't reach it until the 11-minute mark of the second half when Rutgers graduate transfer Paul Mulcahy converted a layup to give the team a 69-38 lead.
Mulcahy, a 6-foot-6 guard, will be crucial for the Huskies to come out with a victory against the Bulldogs, especially on the defensive end in containing Hickman and 6-foot-6 freshman guard Dusty Stromer, the latter starting all but one of Gonzaga's eight games this season.
The guard duo has hit a combined 25-of-70 3-point attempts for GU, including 5 of 10 against Arkansas Pine-Bluff.
UW have veteran guards in Kentucky grad transfer point guard Sahvir Wheeler and Mulcahy, who rank second and third, respectively, in the Pac-12 in averaging 6.8 and 6.1 assists per game.
With both teams possessing strong guard play, the game could be decided in the post.
Gonzaga's 6-foot-9 forward Graham Ike, who has averaged 14 points and 8.3 rebounds per game over the past three games, will present a challenge inside.
The UW will counter with Keion Brooks Jr., a 6-foot-7 forward who leads the team with 20.3 points per game and just under 8 rebounds.
In the lead-up to this game, UW has faced five teams that made the 2023 NCAA Tournament, including San Diego State, which lost in the championship game to Connecticut, and the Huskies have won three. Now comes Gonzaga.
"We've played a really though schedule," Hopkins said. "We've had a lot of reps against some really good teams. We'll have another good one coming in on Saturday. We talked about getting over the hump and we're being close and hopefully we can play our best game."
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