Gonzaga Basketball: 3 takeaways from Zags impressive victory over No. 5 Texas
In the second tilt between top five teams in as many days, top-ranked Gonzaga Basketball shut down the fifth-ranked Texas Longhorns on Saturday night in dominant and shocking fashion, 86-74 – in a game where the Zags led for all by nine seconds and built a double-digit lead seven minutes in.
This game was never really in question for Gonzaga, despite the Longhorns trimming the Bulldogs’ lead down to 11 late in the second stanza. The Zags’ advantage ballooned to as large as 22, courtesy of a Rasir Bolton three-pointer towards the start of the second half. Bolton’s 16 points – in his second game in a Gonzaga uniform – ranked second among Bulldog scorers.
No play may have been more backbreaking to Texas and more monumental to Gonzaga than Bolton’s broken half-court heave at the end of the opening half – and no play may have embodied just how heavily this game was in the Zags’ favor. Bolton was not even the start of the evening, however, as teammate Drew Timme took off for a career-high 37 points. Anton Watson contributed 10 points off the bench to round out those in double-digits.
Little went right for Chris Beard’s Texas Longhorns, outside of an 18-point (7-12 FG, 2-4 3PT) showing from Timmy Allen, who also added six boards and four assists. Minnesota transfer Marcus Carr tallied 11 points in his debut for Texas, while Jase Febres provided a 10-point boost as the Longhorns’ sixth man. The Longhorns were, by no means, woeful from the field – they shot 44.1% on FGs and 37.5% on three-pointers – but the Zags were just that much better.
Behind a 54.2% shooting clip, the Bulldogs snagged – obviously – their most impressive victory of the young season, and it bodes well for a team that returns 44.8% of its offensive production from last season’s dominant 31-1 team. With a handful of games left on Gonzaga’s schedule before their highly-anticipated late November duels against UCLA and Duke, the Zags have heaps of positive takeaways from Saturday night’s tilt.