UW-Gonzaga thoughts

Not really disappointed with this loss. I watched Gonzaga's game at Michigan State last week, and they played Sparty really tough before losing. They're athletic, skilled, deep, balanced, and well-coached. Might not be quite as good as some of their recent editions, but they could get to that point. Beating them would have been a huge resume builder, but losing is no big deal.

Some things to like in tonight's game:

-Jon Leuer played very well. He seems to have a good sense on where he should go on the floor in order to find 8- or 10-foot jumpers, turnaround or otherwise. Trevon Hughes didn't have his best game, but we know what he's capable of. With Pop and Leuer, we've got two go-to guys who can create their own shot in different ways, which is nice.

-Jordan Taylor was my second star of the game, he played very, very well. I still see him as more of a caretaker than a scorer, but he's shown flashes of being a go-to guy. He didn't shoot free throws well.

-Both of our point guards struggled containing Demetri Goodson's penetration. Then again, there will be a lot of guys who struggle to hang with him this year.

-Keaton Nankivil missed multiple dunk attempts for the second straight night, as Erik Olson pointed out on Twitter. My response to that was that I hope Keaton keeps trying to throw those down -- better to err on the side of being overly aggressive than trying to lay it in.

-Jason Bohannon still struggles to get his shot off against good defenders. He did get a few clean looks tonight that he missed. It's to the point where against good teams, he's got to make, oh, 75% of his clean 3-point looks if we're going to end up on top.

-The ease with which Robert Sacre caught and scored in the post is disconcerting. We don't have an elite shot blocker, and our height is average, so we can't let 7-footers catch the ball four feet from the basket.

-Still searching for a plus inbounds player from under the basket. If I drew one up and emailed it to Bo Ryan, do you think he'd use it? I've got an old Leroy Young special nicknamed Pick For The Picker.

-Did you see that shot of a shirtless Bo from the team's snorkeling trip? Hot stuff!

So we get Maryland tomorrow for third place. They're projected as an NCAA tournament team, we're not, so it's another chance to build the resume. Guessing that after two hours I'll be sufficiently sick of Greivis Vasquez, a fine player who seems too cocky for my tastes.