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| Former walk on guard and current Assistant Director of Basketball Operations for Gonzaga, Brian Michaelson, carries the WCC Tournament Championship trophy from the floor after the game. Yeah, I don't have the money to pay for AP Photos. |
The Zags proved to be too much, for the third time this season and third time over the past five WCC Tournament Championship Games, for the Gaels to handle.
Saint Mary's jumped out to a four point lead in the first minute of play but couldn't hold on for long. It took Gonzaga one minute and eight seconds after Saint Mary's took the 4-0 lead to tie the game at 4-4.
At the 12:48 mark Matthew Dellavedova scored his first bucket of the night and the Gaels took a one point lead. The Gaels would not lead again. Matthew Dellavedova would not score again.
That's right, Matthew Dellavedova, last year's WCC Player of the Year, starter for the Australian Olympic Team, Cousy Award Finalist and 16.2 points per game scorer managed only two points. Mike Hart scored two points for goodness sake!
Hart was given the honor of cutting down the net in the post game celebration, probably because of his exceptional effort tonight. He drew the defensive assignment of stopping Matthew Dellavedova, and stop him he did. "He makes great decisions... so we just tried to kinda alter his decisions and pressure him." Kelly Olynyk said about his and Hart's double teaming of Dellavedova, a tactic the Zags used successfully all game long.
Gonzaga pushed the lead to twelve once and ten twice before halftime. In the first half the Zags had 26 points in the paint to the Gaels' 14, the Gaels had only 29 points all together. Saint Mary's was simply overmatched. The Gaels turned the ball over five times leading to eight Gonzaga points, six of which came on fast breaks.
The second half picked up right where the first left off. Gonzaga kept expanding the lead. First to 14 at the 18:38 mark, then 15 at the 16:10 mark, then 17 after two Kelly Olynyk free throws at the 14:07 mark then a game high 19 with 13:40 left in the game. That 19 point lead came on a David Stockton bounce pass to Kelly Olynyk, who's dunk would come in at number two on Sports Center's Top 10.
That dunk capped a 6-0 Gonzaga run over nearly five minutes and caused Randy Bennett to call his second to last timeout while there were still 13 minutes left in the game. The Zags were up 53-34 at that point.
Stephen Holt was doing everything he could to keep the Gaels in the game, and he scored right out of the timeout, unfortunately Matt Hodgson picked up his third foul on the scoring play. Hodgson, a little used big man, averaged just 10.4 minutes per game in the regular season but saw increased action tonight because of the depth of the Zags down low. He and the Gaels two other bigs, Brad Waldow and Mitchell Young picked up four, three and four fouls respectively trying to battle with Gonzaga's front court of Olynyk, Elias Harris, Sam Dower and Przemek Karnowski.
The Gaels managed to stop the expansion of the Zags' lead but didn't manage to claw back into the game. Gonzaga pushed their lead to 19 once more, 64-45, with 2:48 left on a Gary Bell Jr. jumper. After that bucket the Zags subbed out their whole team. The starting five of Bell, Harris, Hart, Olynyk and Kevin Pangos went to the bench and Drew Barham, Kyle Dranginis, Guy Landry Edi, Przemek Karnowski and David Stockton checked in to run out the last couple of minutes of the game.
That's exactly what those five did. The Zags only scored once more during that span, a Karnowski free throw, but the Gaels only managed to score twice. Beau Levesque knocked down two three pointers to cut the final lead to 14. Both of Levesque's threes came off of Dellavedova assists, Delly was well under his average scoring pace but managed dish out more dimes than usual (7 tonight, 6.4 average per game).
Saint Mary's guard Jorden Page was injured early in the first half trying to save an errant Jordan Giusti pass from going out of bounds. He landed awkwardly on his right knee, the same knee that he injured in the 2010 WCC Tournament Championship Game. Page redshirted the 2010-11 season due to the injury. He would not return to this game after the injury but did manage to walk, by his own power, back to the bench from the locker room.
With the win Gonzaga moves to 31-2 on the season, the most wins in program history. The Zags sweep the Gaels 3-0 this season. The Gaels won the series last season 2-1 including a win in the WCC Tournament Championship Game. Before tonight only five points separated the Zags and Gaels over their past ten meetings, now the spread is 19 points.
Elias Harris was voted WCC Tournament Most Outstanding Player. He had 19 points on three of thirteen shooting from the field and three of three shooting from the line to go with four rebounds and three assists tonight. In his other WCC Tournament Game, the WCC Semis on Saturday, he had 21 points on six of nine shooting from the field and eight of twelve shooting from the line to go with eight rebounds an assist and two blocks.
He was joined on the all-WCC Tournament Team by two other participants in the WCC Tournament Final, Kelly Olynyk and Brad Waldow.
Gonzaga earns an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament with this win.
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