The wait is over: Zags season tips tonight

LAST WEEK

NOW THEY have played together under the lights.

The Zags’ 116-61 pounding of Lewis-Clark State College last Friday night was technically only an exhibition, but you couldn’t tell it from the way Mark Few used his starters, regular rotation and bench.

The usual howling mob inside The Kennel gave it the feel of a regular-season game, as well.

Admittedly, if you want to begin counting wins (and Gonzaga’s worst total over the past five seasons was 28), then you have to wait until tonight.

The Zags cut the official bow on their 2019-20 season this evening at home against Alabama State.

Still, Gonzaga hoops junkies surely managed to get their first deep inhale with that rout of Lewis-Clark.

Both old and new Zags took starring roles in the exhibition — as you find in most seasons — but this year is a little different, with four newcomers considered absolutely critical for any kind of major success.

Before we go any further, though, it’s worth noting that Lewis-Clark didn’t exactly show up with a bunch of stiffs who would be particularly awed by the noise and surroundings of The Kennel.

The Warriors were coming off an 88-73 beatdown of Idaho in Moscow, a game in which they led pretty much from start to finish.

LCSC HAD shown off a couple of nice flourishes in that win over the Vandals, too.

Trystan Bradley, a 6-foot-8 forward, had 28 points against the Vandals, and the Warriors proved they could shoot by hitting 14 of 27 3-pointers to keep Idaho at bay.

Lewis-Clark obviously was going to be smaller than the Zags, and they’re an NAIA team so winning in Spokane was never going to be in the cards, but LCSC was 30-7 last year and made it to the NAIA Final Four semifinals.

Some downers during the week for Gonzaga …

Muscular freshman center Oumar Ballo from Mali was ruled ineligible academically because some of his transfer credits from overseas will have to be redone; star forward Killian Tillie sat out as a precaution after undergoing a minor knee procedure; and most surprisingly, freshman guard Brock Ravet – an absolutely deadly 3-point shooter with unlimited range – took an indefinite leave of absence from the program for personal reasons.

The Zags thus had only nine scholarship players available for the LCSC exhibition.

That wasn’t such a bad thing, since Coach Mark Few likely will use an eight-man rotation in most games this year — and seven of those players were present Saturday night, with Tillie being the only absentee.

Essentially, we saw just about what we expected, although freshmen Anton Watson (Gonzaga Prep) and 6-10 bull Drew Timme from Texas perhaps looked even better than advertised.

THE FROSH pair combined for 46 points on an astounding 21 of 23 shooting, and they bagged nine rebounds each.

Corey Kispert, Filip Petrusev, the two grad transfer guards — Admon Gilder Jr. and Ryan Woolridge — plus returning soph guard Joel Ayayi rounded out the group that, along with Tillie, should get most of the time under live fire.

Lewis-Clark got off to a nice start, staying within arm’s length of the Zags until Few put his team into a 1-2-2 full-court press.

With the 6-foot-8 Watson matching his 7-foot wingspan with great anticipation, the Zags went on a 20-0 run. Watson scored 12 of his points in that stretch while playing at the top of the press, and things just snowballed from there.

“Even in high school, we noticed he has great hands, some great anticipatory skills, so it’s great to have a guy like that that you can play up front on a press,” Few said of Watson.

“But then we also have some guys like Admon (Gilder) and Ryan (Woolridge) that will break on balls that maybe we haven’t had in the past. That’s nice also.”

Gonzaga eventually got any shot it desired, and led 65-29 at the half with Timme and Ayayi the only substitutes to see action.

In the end, the Zags shot 68 percent overall, hit 7 of 18 from deep (though Kispert was only 2 of 7) and outscored LCSC by a whopping 74-12 in the paint.

The victory was the predictable breeze, and there was plenty to like — although Few no doubt will talk just a bit sternly to his team about boxing out on the defensive glass, as the much smaller Warriors grabbed 12 offensive rebounds (to 11 for Gonzaga) and thus trailed the Zags by just 17-16 on second-chance points.

There’s still work to be done and cohesiveness to be tightened up, but that sellout crowd came to see the talent, and couldn’t have been disappointed.

THIS WEEK

It’s still tuning-up time for the Zags, who will face Alabama State in the regular-season opener tonight and then get a helping of Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Saturday — with both games in Spokane.

Those two opponents figure to be a bit taller and maybe a touch more athletic than Lewis-Clark, but it would be a shock if they didn’t meet something close to the same fate.

We’ve seen that seven members of Few’s preferred rotation can use multiple offensive sets and defend with a hounding 1-2-2 press because of Watson’s height and skills up top, but still …

To borrow a sentence that’s been uttered too many times over the past couple of seasons, “You really wonder what they’d look like with Tillie out there.”

BARRING some kind of rehab setback, Tillie should appear in one or both of the games this week.

It’ll be interesting to see what kind of “basketball shape” he’s in, and how much Few will risk him in an attempt to work his gifted Frenchman into the flow of things.

The good news is that Tillie spent a lot of time with his new teammates during the summer — and they were impressed, with Gilder watching Tillie burst out of the corner for a vicious slam and saying, “Oh, my!”

The top story this week, then, should be how Tillie looks — and beyond that, how does he fit with this team.

Just looking at the players available, you’d assume the Zags will line up in similar positions as last year, with a single point guard running the offense (Josh Perkins then, Woolridge now), a pair of wings, with one of them matching up with a guard on defense (Kispert and Zach Norvell Jr. then, Kispert and Gilder now, with Ayayi getting time at both guard spots), along with two bigs for the heavy work near the basket (Rui Hachimura and Brandon Clarke then, Tillie plus some combination of Petrusev, Timme and Watson now).

Until Tillie is totally fit — and remember, he scored 19.7 points per game two years ago and is a career 47 percent shooter from 3-point range — Few can simply juggle his other interior options.

WATSON is the outlier, since despite his size and length he can play out on the floor, and with more experience could be tasked with stopping an opponent’s high-scoring wing player.

Watson started with Petrusev against Lewis-Clark, although it didn’t really matter in that game.

If you wanted to draw a conclusion from the exhibition, though — dangerous, but what the hell? — it would be that Few might eventually abandon seniority and use Timme as his top post player ahead of Petrusev.

For one thing, Timme is the only player from this group who appears to have the instincts as a rim protector (he had four blocks against LCSC, with zero for the rest of the team).

Just off that one game, Petrusev seems to be a slightly smoother version of himself from a year ago — which is to say, he’s a beast offensively on the low block and can step out to hit a jumper, but he still can get lost on defense and doesn’t do a particularly good job boxing out on the boards.

THE ZAGS were far more imposing around the hoop on Saturday night when Timme — who also can handle the ball in the open court, a bit like Rui — was playing inside instead of Petrusev.

Note the warning label: We’re talking about one game, and an exhibition at that.

It was worth noting, however, that Petrusev retains at least a bit of his weaknesses from a year ago, and no doubt will be worked to exhaustion on them in practice all year long.

And remember, Tillie wasn’t part of the mix against LCSC.

It will be fascinating how he clicks with either Petrusev or Timme, or both.

The mega-talented Watson basically can play well with anyone, since he’s comfortable everywhere on the court except maybe point guard — and who knows, maybe he can do that, as well.

So this week, all eyes will be on Tillie — what kind of shape he’s in and where he seems to fit best in this team.

It doesn’t matter much who starts a game in basketball, it’s who finishes it.

ONCE TILLIE is fit, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that in the rugged non-conference games coming up soon (Texas A&M, Washington, Arizona, North Carolina and the brutal tournament test at Battle 4 Atlantis), you might find Woolridge, Gilder, Watson, Tillie and Timme on the floor at gut-check time — as long as they can all hit free throws (Gonzaga was an unsightly 13 for 23 on Saturday).

All of that, however, assumes that Tillie will be healthy.

There is also the issue of fouls, since Tillie picked up way too many of them last season when he was fighting back from each of two nasty injuries.

The Frenchman is almost certainly the key to whether these new-look Zags will be pretty good or downright lethal once they’ve played a couple of months together.

If he hadn’t been hurt last year, Tillie probably would have been a major NBA contributor this season, just like his pals Hachimura and Clarke.

Assuming the Zags can resurrect the Tillie of two seasons ago (or he’s even better) this team really could be rolling by March.

We’ll get to see those first baby steps this week.

Hopefully.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns for The Press appear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Steve also contributes the “Zags Tracker” package on Gonzaga basketball each Tuesday.