Before you write off Gonzaga, before you say the Zags were exposed by No. 7 Duke yesterday, 76-41 at the Garden, before the NCAA Tournament selection rhetoric gets dialed up in March, know this:
No. 15 Gonzaga went into this clash with its best player, the closest thing the Zags have to a point guard, as cloudy as a Seattle afternoon.
Matt Bouldin, who Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski described as one of the best players on the West Coast, not just the West Coast Conference, missed the Zags last game against Davidson after suffering a concussion on Dec. 9.
A rusty Bouldin, combined with Duke’s trademark defense accounted for the worst loss for Gonzaga (8-3) since a 121-84 dismantling at the hands of Loyola Marymount in 1990. The 41 points are the fewest since a 62-40 loss at Iowa in 1984.
“I thought we got throttled in every aspect of basketball,” said Gonzaga coach Mark Few. “An old-fashioned, take you out to the woodshed and beat you down.”
That is what Duke (9-1) has done almost from the day Krzyzewski, the West Point grad, arrived in Durham.
He said this team understands defense better than any squad he’s had in seven or eight years.
“They talk it out,” Coach K said of his team’s defense. “It is not a new assignment, They actually talk to each other when we go through a walk through. It is kind of like, not on that level, how our Olympic team is.”
Olympic-like defense?!
Bouldin said it felt that way. He recognized early on that the Blue Devils were determined to keep him and ball in separate zip codes.
“That’s how I felt all night, that they didn’t want me to touch the ball,” Bouldin said. “I don’t know what their coach told them, but it seemed they wanted to keep it out of my hands. You’ve got to appreciate the way they play defense. They certainly worked a lot harder than we did.”
Bouldin had just four points on 1-of-7 shooting and five turnovers. He did not use injury as an excuse.
“Embarrassed,” he said.
Duke won all the hustle stats (fast-break points, points off turnovers and second-chance points) 39-14. Nolan Smith led Duke with 24, but it was Jon Scheyer who had the quintessential game for a Dukie with 20 points, eight assists, five rebounds and two steals.
“In the late-’70s Duke had a player like him, he was better than Jon, he’s one of the great players at Duke, Jim Spanarkel who didn’t have a position but when the ball was in Jim’s hands, good things were going to happen,” said Krzyzewski. “That’s the kind of player Jon is. They don’t have a position, they’re just darn good basketball players.”