Gonzaga Basketball: How much does Anton Watson’s absence hurt the Bulldogs?

Gonzaga Basketball has one of the best rosters in all of college hoops. But how much will they suffer without forward Anton Watson?

Four dislocations later, Gonzaga Basketball’s Anton Watson will end his season and have surgery on his shoulder (as he likely should, for the sake of his own health and career). Coach Mark Few’s eight-man rotation is now seven.

And that’s unfortunate because what he could do in his first year was impressive in multiple areas. Ignore the 4.9 ppg and 3.1 rebound average, diluted from diminished playing time — his IQ and vision are far ahead of most freshmen and he possesses immense physical tools and mobility that fit well with any lineup on the court, big or small. His ability to move the ball rapidly to both posts and guards catalyzed the offense, and his length on the press in Hachimura’s spot from last year was just silly. He was aggressive on defense, able to consistently generate turnovers without overcommitting.

We saw those assets displayed the most when Watson started the first four games in place of Killian Tillie and played with a good amount of confidence (albeit against cupcakes). But he just hasn’t been the same player since, and it was starting to feel like Watson being shut down was rapidly becoming a foregone conclusion.

Watson’s shoulder problems continued to manifest themselves as the season progressed, and his playing time gradually decreased as they worsened. He started the season playing upwards of 25 minutes in each game, but after Atlantis, the most he played was 20 minutes once against Detroit Mercy. His usage rate plummeted, and five minutes against Loyola Marymount (in which he re-injured his shoulder for the fourth and final time) was the sixth time this year that he played single-digit minutes.

At this point, his defensive versatility is a luxury the Zags have largely weaned themselves off of.

Whether Few will reach deeper into his bench to fill the void — namely with freshmen forwards Martynas Arlauskas and Pavel Zakharov — remains to be seen for sure. But it’s a safe bet that their minutes will not increase much, if at all.

In the four games that Watson had missed so far, the two played just as sparingly as they did with him available. Arlauskas plays more and brings considerable raw talent, but his seeming lack of feel for the game is apparent even in late-game situations in blowouts. Zakharov is a big body and could be useful in terms of defensive utility, but Few has kept a considerably tight leash on him as well for similar reasons. There’s time for one or both of them to develop and maybe carve out something, but it wouldn’t be surprising in any sense if they remained the same.

And to be fair, in the two games since Watson was shut down, GU has played exceptionally well. The Bulldogs steamrolled Santa Clara by 50 and then won by 23 against a BYU team that is top-30 per KenPom (although with no Yoeli Childs).

Going forward, Drew Timme is going to be the player that the burden will fall on the most. Now that the four-man frontcourt is down to three, he’ll have to split his minutes as a backup to both Tillie and Petrusev. Timme’s strength and athleticism is a work in progress, but he is crafty when driving and is able to get solid, high-percentage shots off at the rim even against contact from bigger and stronger posts.

We’ll get a larger sample size from Timme versus Pacific with Petrusev out, but he’s been equally as reliable and efficient as Watson, if not more so.

Playing Kispert more at the 4 spot makes sense as well, and it’s something that we’ve seen more and more recently when Few trots out a smaller lineup with all three guards. Kispert’s shooting alongside Ayayi, Woolridge and Gilder Jr. should be the reasoning there, but at this point, it feels like it’s mostly out of necessity.

With Tillie and Petrusev dealing with mild/chronic injuries, upping their minutes at this point in the season is counterproductive. The Zags are better off “load-managing” their two most important bigs and overwhelming middling WCC teams with a shooting-heavy lineup.

The lack of rebounding in an Ayayi-Gilder Jr.-Woolridge-Kispert-Tillie or Petrusev lineup is overstated. All four perimeter players rebound at least above-average for their position — Ayayi especially (12.3% TRB%).

Tillie and Petrusev will play when they need to, but minimizing burnout with the thinner roster is crucial as the Zags enter the second half of WCC play and start looking towards bigger things.

Speaking of the tourney, foul problems might be the biggest complication, at least on paper. The Timme one-man backup show becomes problematic there, too, because he averages more personal fouls per 40 minutes than anyone else on GU’s team. If he sits with foul trouble early in an NCAA tournament game, Kispert at the four isn’t just an option, it’s the only one.

As stated before, that lineup is not bad in any sense. But the versatility becomes more and more limited and easier to manipulate by good coaches in the tournament. But there’s nothing that can really be done about that at this point.

In short, not having Watson isn’t great. But it’s not the end of the world and it’s certainly not a fatal flaw — especially in the most chaotic college basketball landscape that we’ve seen in years. Few still has all that he needs to make a run, and Watson being guaranteed to be around next year with more time to focus on his game can only benefit next year’s team as well.