[ad_1]
INDIANAPOLIS – Joel Ayayi, a young guard from Bordeaux, France, with a smirk and a silky sweater, poses as the enfant terrible of the Gonzaga men’s basketball team.
In a powerful team where everyone knows their roles – Corey Kispert is the dead-eyed shooter, Jalen Suggs the whirling dervish, and Drew Timme the mustached wizard in the post – Ayayi rides the merry prankster.
He could knock on a hotel door and sneak down the hall. He could slap a teammate on the right shoulder when standing to his left, or jump from behind a door to surprise someone. He racked his brains to understand the rest.
“I take all the ideas,” Ayayi told reporters on a conference call last week.
While the antics seem childish, his teammates tolerate Ayayi as his pranks are about the only trouble they’ve endured this season. Admittedly, there have been few on the basketball court this season in the way they have waltzed their schedule.
It was no different on Sunday when the No.1 seeded Zags passed No.5 seeded Creighton 83-65 at Hinkle Fieldhouse to earn a place in the round of 16 against the winner of a Sunday night game between the sixth. – seeded from southern California and seventh from Oregon. Gonzaga and the winner of this match will meet in the West Region final on Tuesday night at Lucas Oil Stadium.
The other seed to play Sunday, Michigan, capitalized on a 50-point performance in the paint to crush fourth-seeded Florida State 76-58. The Wolverines’ next opponent will be the winner of a Sunday night game between the No.2 seed Alabama and the No.11 UCLA seed.
Gonzaga (29-0), who is trying to become the first undefeated national men’s basketball champion since Indiana in 1976, has had only a margin of less than 10 points this season. His three tournament wins came from 43, 16 and 18 points.
“We’re not hanging on to the undefeated at all,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said, adding, “As you go further and further with this the pressure comes from a lot of places. I think the biggest place it comes from is that you don’t want it to end. I bet if you ask them, they wish they could play 25 more games together. So you just don’t want it to end.
Gonzaga played that way on Sunday.
On an afternoon when Kispert was unusually calm, trying just a single 3 points in the opening 30 minutes, and Suggs committed six turnovers, the lesser-announced starters joined Timme, the game’s top scorer with 22 points, at front and center.
Point guard Andrew Nembhard scored 17 points and had 8 assists, and Ayayi contributed 13 points and 8 rebounds. Their six 3-pointers combined were a retort to Creighton who had challenged them to shoot. And it was also a platform to showcase Nembhard’s skills, a transfer that could be overlooked but who was the first Florida freshman since Bradley Beal to start every game.
Few have repeatedly put Nembhard in pick-and-rolls with Timme, and sat and watched him make one good decision after another, as the ball spun around the pitch quickly. Of Gonzaga’s 34 baskets, 23 came with an assist.
“If you make a mistake they’re going to charge you with the pass and create an easy opportunity for the teammates,” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said last week, calling the Zags one of the better teams. pass he had seen. . “It’s one thing to be selfless; it is another thing to be altruistic and to have the ability to issue the pass on time and in the right place.
McDermott is no stranger to Gonzaga. It was the third time in the past four seasons that they had met. Creighton led each of the previous games by 7 at halftime, only for Gonzaga to accumulate 54 and 62 points in the second half to walk away with wins.
There was no such drama on Sunday.
Whatever problem Gonzaga might be facing, the answer is always more offensive.
After Marcus Zegarowski sank a 3 point halfway through the first half to draw Creighton to 27-25, the Bluejays just couldn’t keep up. The Bulldogs’ lead was a comfortable 43-33 at halftime and only got bigger as the ball swept through the field with ruthless efficiency.
“It has been our identity all season,” said Nembhard. “We play the best when we move the ball because we have so many pieces and so much versatility. It’s like playing in the park with a bunch of guys clicking. “
The question over the next eight days, at the end of the tournament, is who will challenge Gonzaga?
Teams in his quarter of the fork have been crippled by the coronavirus. Virginia Commonwealth was eliminated from the tournament by positive cases and was unable to play its first-round match against Oregon. Third-seeded Kansas and fourth-seeded Virginia were compromised by them before the first round and retired early (although both lost to Gonzaga early in the season).
Creighton also experienced his own disruptions this month when McDermott was suspended for telling his players after a loss to Xavier that “I need everyone to stay on the plantation,” a metaphor that conjures up images of players like slaves. McDermott, who was only suspended after widespread scandal – including some of former Creighton players – was reinstated after missing a game and apologizing.
Creighton qualified for the Big East tournament championship but was routed by Georgetown. The Bluejays were nearly upset with No.12 UC Santa Barbara in the first round of the NCAA tournament, before moving past Ohio in the second round.
The Zags’ defeat has often been teams defensive length and forcing the Zags to defend themselves. Texas Tech used that formula to take down the Zags in the Western Regional Finals in 2019, and the state of Florida upset them in 2018. Southern California has the height to bother Gonzaga at one end and Oregon has the quick dribble to make it to the other end. But they’re also not meant to reach that point for a reason.
Few of those who have underlined all the upheavals of this tournament.
“I hope people realize how difficult it is; it’s literally the hardest thing we do in our sport is to move forward in this tournament, ”said Few, a coach whose team makes it look easy.
Alan blinder contribution to reports.
[ad_2]
Source link