Gonzaga moves three wins from perfection with a masterful offensive show vs. Creighton
The Bluejays’ collapse Sunday afternoon in the Sweet 16 turned into a testament of just how superior and versatile this top-seeded Gonzaga team can be. The 83-65 victory at Hinkle Fieldhouse became a showcase for the entire crew of Bulldogs starters — both the veterans who have developed in the program for years and the youth with undeniable talent. They’ve harmonized all season to power an undefeated team toward the end goal of a national title, now just three wins away, with an Elite Eight matchup against either No. 6 USC or No. 7 Oregon up next in the West Region.
Gonzaga had built a 20-point lead before the second half reached its midpoint. The rest of the affair was merely a formality that allowed the star-studded bunch to inflate their already impressive stat lines. Sophomore forward Drew Timme dominated in the paint, racking up 22 points on 10-for-14 shooting, while those who surrounded him on the court delivered plenty of offensive support. Andrew Nembhard, a junior guard who didn’t become a bona fide starter until late this season, had one of his best performances of the season, adding 17 points and making 3 of 5 attempts from three.
And then there are the other stars — freshman sensation Jalen Suggs and senior all-American Corey Kispert — who are both projected lottery picks in this year’s NBA draft but didn’t even need to take on much of the scoring burden for this team to have success. Suggs, the Bulldogs’ point guard, played with both coolness and urgency, diving for loose balls and facilitating his team’s offense. He recorded nine points and didn’t make a three-pointer, while adding six assists and six turnovers.
Kispert, a three-year starter who has improved through his four seasons with the Bulldogs, only scored two points in the first half on one shot. But the talent around him offered plenty of support, perhaps the best indication of the danger of this Gonzaga squad. It doesn’t matter if the team’s leading scorer has a quiet half. The Bulldogs still had a 10-point lead by halftime, and Creighton missed six of its first seven shots after the break, including some from close range. Kispert then came to life in the second half, eventually finishing with 12 points. His team shot a strong 59.6 percent from the field as Gonzaga continued to take control en route to its 29th win of the season.
Gonzaga has become a perennial power as this matchup marked the Bulldogs’ sixth straight Sweet 16 and Elite Eight appearances are the norm. They’ve only reached the Final Four once in that recent run of dominance, and they lost in the national title game in 2017. That leaves an obvious hole on the program’s résumé — a national title. All season, this group has been pegged as the favorite to win it all, and so far, opposition hasn’t been able to derail those hopes.
During the Bulldogs’ run through this 2020-21 campaign, only once have they won by a single-digit margin, and by now, that lone occurrence — a modest 87-82 win against West Virginia in early December, when Suggs left with an injury scare but later returned — feels far in the past. Gonzaga has meandered through the rest of the slate knocking off each opponent by at least 10 points and often more. The team never lost hold of its top spot in the national rankings. Analytics-based ratings systems consider these Bulldogs on a tier of their own.
Creighton, the best team Gonzaga has faced in months, attempted to threaten the Bulldogs early and kept the first half tight. But the Bulldogs never panicked. Creighton had a hot shooting spurt — making 10 of 12 field goal attempts during a seven-minute stretch in the first half — and the Bluejays cut Gonzaga’s lead to two, but that was unsustainable. Junior guard Marcus Zegarowski powered that push with 11 points in that span (and a total of 19 points in the game), but then his team cooled with nine straight misses.
Creighton couldn’t maintain enough consistency on the offensive end to have a chance. The Bluejays only made 3 of 13 three-pointers during the first half, and all of those makes came from Zegarowski. A legitimate push to challenge the Bulldogs would have required far more. And even then, this Gonzaga team would be a nightmare to contain.
