National Basketball Association
Gonzaga 92, Utah Valley 69
When: 9:00 PM ET, Friday, November 11, 2016
Where: McCarthey Athletic Center, Spokane, Washington
Officials:
# Mark Cook, # Justin Shamion, # Horace Shields
Attendance:
6000
By The Sports Xchange
Gonzaga's starting five on the opening Friday of the college basketball season featured four newcomers -- and the players made their presence felt quickly in the 14th-ranked Bulldogs' 92-69 win over Utah Valley at McCarthey Athletic Center.
Junior point guard Nigel Williams-Goss, fresh off a redshirt year after transferring from Washington, controlled the tip and scored the first five points of the game en route to a stat sheet-stuffing night in his Gonzaga debut.
After posting up for two and drilling a 3-pointer for his first five points, Williams-Goss subsequently hit a wide-open Jordan Mathews, a sharpshooting transfer wing from California, at the top of the key. Quickly, it was 8-0 -- all points at the hands of Pac-12 transfers new to "The Kennel."
"I can score the basketball," said Mathews via ESPN. "That's what Coach wants me to do."
Mathews scored 16 points on 4-of-7 shooting from behind the arc, while Williams-Goss added 14, in addition to eight rebounds and six assists in a team-high 34 minutes.
Even in a nonconference, early November contest against a WAC opponent that won only 12 games last season, it was rocking on opening night. Gonzaga's 229th consecutive sellout watched a familiar face head their foe: Utah Valley coach Mark Pope, beginning his second season at the helm of the Wolverines, had spent the last four as an assistant for WCC rival BYU.
"They are a hard team to play against," Pope said, via ESPN. "This is a hard venue."
Pope's Cougars took three of eight conference matches from the Bulldogs, a team that didn't suffer many others. But his past success didn't matter much for an overwhelmed Wolverines' squad Friday night.
Although Utah Valley sported the game's leading scorer, junior guard Jake Toolson with 19, the Wolverines were outshot 52 percent to 36. They were outrebounded by 20, 51-31, in large part because of an impressive return to the court for Gonzaga senior center Przemek Karnowski, who hadn't played in a game since December 2015 after undergoing back surgery.
The 7-foot-1 Karnowski, still easing back into action, saw only 22 minutes but scored 14 points and collected seven boards. He and true freshman Killian Tillie towered over every Wolverine but 6-foot-11 center Isaac Neilson, who recorded 10 points and seven rebounds. Tillie, meanwhile, grabbed eight rebounds in the first half alone. Albeit, he did so while getting whistled for three fouls, allowing him to grab only one more in the second half, finishing with nine points and nine rebounds.
"I haven't been playing for so long," said Karnowski, via ESPN. "I'm excited to be out there.
"It's a great start for the season," Karnowski said. "Everyone contributed."
Gonzaga opened leads of eight, nine and 15 points in the first half. Each time, Utah Valley clawed back to turn those into manageable deficits, before a rash of turnovers that plagued the Wolverines all night eventually flipped the tides back in the Zags' favor.
Gonzaga pulled away for good in the second half, though, even with foul trouble from a pair of big men making their Zags debuts, Tillie and junior Johnathan Williams, a transfer from Missouri. The duo combined to collect 16 boards and score 15 points, despite Tillie's three early fouls and Williams fouling out with eight minutes to play.
Junior guard Kenneth Ogbe added 13 points as the Wolverines' only other scorer in double-digits, while junior guard Silas Melson added a few buckets as the clock wound down to overtake Mathews' 16 points as the Bulldogs' leading scorer, with 17.
NOTES: G Silas Melson was only in the starting lineup because sophomore G Josh Perkins is suspended for two games. Perkins was cited for a DUI last month. ... Friday was the first time Gonzaga and Utah Valley had ever faced each other. ... It was only the seventh time the Wolverines had ever faced a ranked opponent. ... The Bulldogs haven't lost a season-opener since 2003 and have not lost a home-opener since 1988.
Top Game Performances
| Utah Valley |
|
Gonzaga |
|
Conner Toolson 19 |
Scoring |
Silas Melson 17 |
|
Conner Toolson 3 |
Assists |
Nigel Williams-Goss 6 |
|
Isaac Neilson 7 |
Rebounds |
Killian Tillie 9 |
|
Kenneth Ogbe 5 |
Free Throws Made |
Johnathan Williams 4 |
|
Isaac Neilson 1 |
Steals |
Bryan Alberts 3 |
|
Isaac Neilson 2 |
Blocks |
Przemek Karnowski 1 |
Team Stats Summary
| Team |
Points |
FG% |
3PM-3PA |
FTM-FTA |
Assists |
Rebounds |
Blocks |
Steals |
Turnovers |
| Utah Valley
|
69 |
36.4 |
9-25 |
12-20 |
11 |
27 |
2 |
3 |
11 |
| Gonzaga
|
92 |
52.2 |
7-17 |
15-18 |
22 |
46 |
2 |
6 |
16 |
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