a tough loss to Oregon State followed by an impressive performance against Pepperdine
The Holiday Season carries various memories and meanings to people across the world. For some, we travel long and far to see friends or family. For others, like our Zags, they can’t see their loved ones because of work responsibilities.
Three days after Christmas, the Zags prepared to host the first of their two WCC conference home matches as the Oregon State Beavers traveled to Spokane with the second occurring 2 days later against the visiting Pepperdine Wave.
We’re going to review both games here today because I did travel across the country to visit my family and could not gather the time to compile my thoughts in a quiet space.
Gonzaga 67 / Oregon State 71
In my game preview, I did not give the Beavers much credit and suspected that their chances of securing a victory would be slim. Well, as the final score indicates, the Bulldogs were unable to secure their own victory at home against the Beavers for various factors, some of which we’ve seen thus far into the season and some not.
This team has had issues with turnovers all season and this match was no different as the Bulldogs coughed up 20 to the Beavers. Interestingly though, Oregon State was only able to turn these mistakes into just 17 points, which is quite different than Gonzaga’s 26 points from OSU’s 15 turnovers.
So while the turnovers aren’t a good, unlike some other matches, I don’t think these represented the death blow in this battle, particularly since the Zags cleaned up their mistakes in the second half with just 7 compared to 12 in the first half.
No, the real issue in this matchup came in the form of fouls as the Bulldogs were called for 21 fouls. This resulted in Oregon State seemingly living at the charity stripe as they went 17-22 compared to Gonzaga going just 2-4. Yvonne Ejim and Maud Huijbens fouled out trying to stop senior forward Kelsey Rees who went off for 21 points while grabbing 5 offensive rebounds. The perimeter defense seemed hesitant to try and lockdown defenders like sophomore Kennedie Shuler who dropped 16 points and dished out 8 dimes.
These fouls combined with the general inconsistency of this year’s team to date led to a tough fourth quarter that saw the Bulldogs cough up a 7 point lead and the Beavers force this game into overtime. In crunch-time, only Allie Turner showed up as she scored the only two baskets, three pointers of course, in the final period as the team went 2-7 from the floor in those ending minutes.
This was a tough loss to swallow. Oregon State hadn’t looked particularly impressive and the Bulldogs looked overmatched for much of the game. Some of the disappointment would be eased in the Bulldogs’ next game, but also in the form of OSU’s next game against the then-undefeated Portland Pilots that saw them eek out another overtime victory. So while my pregame expectations were for a Gonzaga victory, maybe I need to be a bit more cautious in the future.
Gonzaga 75 / Pepperdine 54
After their loss against the Beavers, I’m sure the coaching staff and team leaders must’ve had a sit-down about expectations because this match against Pepperdine was very different.
With a simple glance, one should note that this 21 point margin of victory represents the second-best of the ‘24-25 campaign trailing the team’s outstanding performance against Eastern Washington. Additionally, the team’s 63% mark from two point field goals must be one of the season-high numbers while the 15 turnovers, which isn’t necessarily a great number, ranks third-lowest across this campaign.
The lineup looked primed and ready to go from the start as the team dropped 23 points in a first quarter that featured notable contributions from Claire O’Connor (7 points, 3-5 FG) and Ines Bettencourt (6 points, 2-2 3FG). I’m convinced that getting one of these two players involved in the offense early should be a priority going forth. In the 9 games where one of these two have scored 10+ points, something neither player has done in the same game until this match, this team has won 7 of the contests.
Against Pepperdine, Claire and Ines both reached double digits with the Washingtonian reaching 11 points on an efficient 4-7 shooting while the Portuguese dropped 14 points on her own efficient 5-8 shooting. Interestingly, O’Connor also grabbed 9 rebounds to almost get her second double-double of the season while Ines snagged 3 steals, dished out 2 assists, and didn’t commit a single turnover!
As expected, Yvonne Ejim led all-scorers with 23 points on 9-15 shooting while also adding 8 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, and 2 steals. Maud Huijbens didn’t have a particularly good game on the offensive end as she finished just 2-10 from the field, but she contributed well with on defense. Allie Turner took a much larger role as a distributor this match as she took just four shots that amounted to just 7 points, but managed to connect for 6 assists and just 2 turnovers. I believe it was Osco that commented a couple games back about Allie playing out of position as a point guard, which I agree with wholeheartedly, but the true freshman did her best impression on Monday.
It was awesome to see this team bounce back with conviction after their overtime loss against the Beavers and I hope that this impressive victory can serve as a launching pad for similar performances moving forward.
The Zags will travel to Portland soon to take on the Pilots on January 2nd at 6 PM PT. Look out for a game preview coming soon.