NCAA Basketball: Gonzaga exposed, DePaul unbeaten among key takeaways

Gonzaga is not perfect

This would have been a much hotter take if Gonzaga did not lose to Duke on Friday night, but the same thing would have been written, although there is no reason to believe that. Now that Gonzaga has suffered their first loss, it does not make this any less important.  Even as Gonzaga was running through Texas and UCLA, their shortcomings were prevalent, if not altogether obvious.

The first red flag – whether it be out of preference or necessity – is that Mark Few only plays eight guys during games that are not close. Against Duke, Hunter Sallis only played four minutes despite averaging 15 per game. This, while Timme’s minutes staying the same despite foul trouble and Holmgren actually exceeding his yearly average by playing 29 minutes. At some point in the tournament, the Bulldogs’ will have to face two top-10 teams in the same week – as they did with UCLA and Duke – and if they think they will do that with just seven players, it will not work.

As noted after week 1, the Gonzaga Bulldogs do not have a lot of success from behind the three-point arc. Entering the game versus Duke, Gonzaga was connecting on 36 percent from beyond the arc. That percentage dropped a bit after the game as the Bulldogs made  6 of 21 for 29 percent. A bigger concern should be the fact that Holmgren is not even averaging one made three-pointer per game, a stat that should be jeopardizing his status as a ‘unicorn’.

Granted he can still put the ball on the floor and dribble from the perimeter, but if he is unable to be a threat from the outside, defenders can play off him, thus expanding the number of players that can match up versus him. If the Bulldogs cannot improve their three-point shooting they remain vulnerable to big frontcourts.