THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Zags need to escape zone to compete for titles

It feels like blasphemy to fault Mark Few.

Even a little bit.

I mean, he’s now a first-team nominee for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

The man has hauled Gonzaga to 25 straight NCAA tournaments, gone to the championship game twice in four years, and holds the current mark for most consecutive appearances in the Sweet Sixteen (nine).

He knows what he’s doing.

Well, most of the time — and in most situations.

Few’s teams, however, DO display some weaknesses that can be exploited, even if it takes really outstanding teams to pull it off.

Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett knows the formula, even if he doesn’t always have the athletes to take down Gonzaga.

When the Zags get beat, it’s usually because their post-game is negated, they’re forced to take 3-pointers at the wrong times (and by the wrong shooters), and whole offense lapses into a fog.

One method teams use to force that scenario is by playing zone defense.

I don’t know how much time Few and his staff work on offense against various zones, but the results this year have been poor.

KENTUCKY crawled out of an 18-point hole for 90-89 overtime win, in part by using a zone in the second half.

OK, not everybody can paralyze Gonzaga teams, no matter what the defense.

Few lands solid prep talent and fills gaps with proven transfers, and the result of coaching these groups has been evident in a string of 25-win seasons.

The goal isn’t winning the WCC anymore, though.

The Zags want to beat the Kentuckys and Baylors en route to a national championship — not just play competitive games against the country’s best teams.

I used those two teams as examples for a reason.

We’ve mentioned the loss to Kentucky, but the Zags also opened the season by pounding Baylor.

They got into a rhythm that night at the Spokane Arena and handled Baylor in every way possible.

It was surprising, actually, because Bears coach Scott Drew — a good friend of Few’s who knows the Gonzaga system inside and out — didn’t really try anything meaningful to stop the landslide.

Kentucky’s Mark Pope, who also knows the Zags well from his days at BYU, decided to make Gonzaga uncomfortable.

Pope switched to a zone.

Now, once again, you need terrific athletes to play ANY system successfully against Gonzaga.

Kentucky has them, so when the zone made the Zags stutter and stall, the Cats could take advantage.

The zone worked in a number of ways.

First, it made Gonzaga stop and think.

The Zags had been flying during a 50-point first half, but against the zone, point guard Ryan Nembhard had to walk the ball up the court and look for some way to run the offense.

Far too often, the result was a rushed 3-pointer as the Zags tried harder and harder to make a couple.

In almost all Gonzaga’s losses over the past few years, cold outside shooting was the difference.

I’M SURE some of the players who were stacking up those misses are actually excellent shooters.

When a team loses its flow, however — and finds it tough to get easy hoops at the rim — even real marksmen can struggle.

And the more you clank them, the less your chances on the next ones.

Gonzaga needs to play up-tempo.

For his part, Few has to find ways to keep that flow going, even against zones and teams that want to hold the ball on offense.

Khalif Battle is an amazing athlete, and a fine outside shooter when he’s playing an up-and-down game.

Battle is not a stand-still threat, however, and teams will dare him to shoot in a slowdown pace.

Ditto Michael Ajayi.

Mentioning the two transfers makes me think, also, that Gonzaga may not be getting the most out of Dusty Stromer, who has a reliable stroke and plays a neat all-around game.

Stromer doesn’t get enough minutes to really feel the rhythm and do serious damage.

I admit I’m just guessing now, but I suspect Few finds his top seven or eight players in practice, then sticks with them in games.

No matter what.

Emmanuel Innocenti and Jun Seok Yeo are fine all-around athletes who SEEM like they could fit into the Zags’ high-octane game.

I wish we could see them with the regular group, instead of merely in garbage time.

Innocenti, Yeo and Few’s son, Joe, came into Wednesday night’s 102-72 blowout of Nicholls with 2:39 left to play.

Why not give them minutes earlier, see how they can contribute?

I think what I’m saying is that Few seems to be locked in his ways.

He’s got a formula that’s won him a gazillion games.

I get it.

He might be 10-0 instead of 7-2 this year, though, if he’d gone outside that box when things went haywire.

Why not?

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press four times each week, normally Tuesday through Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”