Dec. 3—The NCAA keeps all sorts of pertinent college basketball statistics.
As it regards the Gonzaga women, three turnover-related categories sum up their struggles — particularly what handcuffed the Zags in three losses at Paradise Jam last week.
After the Zags’ opening loss to Missouri State, they were ranked last — 353 out of 353 — in forced turnovers. That’s a statistic that measures defense.
As of Tuesday, Gonzaga moved up one spot to 352, forcing 10.44 turnovers per game.
Two other alarming statistics has Gonzaga 267th at 18.8 turnovers per game and 349th at minus-8.3 turnovers a game against those committed by opponents.
Gonzaga coach Lisa Fortier stood in the middle of the court at McCarthey Athletic Center during FanFest and told fans the Zags would be a good defensive team.
Through nine games, the statistics don’t back up Fortier’s declaration. And with no signature victory, as was the case a year ago, Gonzaga is likely not a candidate for an at-large NCAA Tournament berth. Winning the West Coast Conference Tournament will likely be the Zags’ lone shot at an NCAA berth.
Gonzaga’s trip to the tropical Virgin Islands was anything but a memorable experience on the court. The Zags committed 67 turnovers in three games — a little more than 22 per game.
For the season, Gonzaga is averaging 18.8 turnovers per game, a little more than five more per game over last year. It may not seem like a significant increase, but when the Zags have had 20 or more mistakes, that means fewer shot opportunities. And in their case, opponents have been turning the mistakes into points. Opponents are averaging 12 more points than the Zags on turnovers.
Against Florida State, likely the best team Gonzaga has played, the Zags were outscored 43-5 in points created from turnovers in a 95-54 defeat.
A tough nonconference schedule, designed to challenge the Zags like it did a year ago, has exposed liabilities. The Zags are without two potential starters with mysterious foot injuries — redshirt freshman forward Lauren Whittaker of New Zealand and Saint Mary’s graduate transfer guard Tayla Dalton, who has yet to practice any significant time since arriving at Gonzaga.
It’s difficult to determine what the Zags are missing without Whittaker and Dalton since they have yet to play this season.
Redshirt junior guard Bree Salenbien continues to rehab from a third ACL surgery, but she hasn’t publicly announced if she intends to try and play.
A light roster with much inexperience coming into the season continues to pile up minutes. Much work and progress must be made in the Zags’ final two nonconference matchups before WCC play begins.
“Our team has a lot of work to do,” Fortier said from St. Thomas. “That’s what it’s like this time of year … when you’re tested. We’ve been tested several times and we just have to get back to work and do a little bit of a gut check and, hopefully, play tougher and figure out what areas we can clean up.”
It starts with taking care of the ball and defense. If those two areas don’t improve, the Zags aren’t likely to pile up wins.
It’s the worst start (4-5) by a Fortier-coached team and worst overall since a 3-6 mark through nine games in 2005-06. It grew to 3-9 before the Zags fought back to finish 16-14 overall, 11-3 in WCC.
This week
November was a challenging month for area teams.
Now they have a couple of final nonconference games to polish up for conference play.
Gonzaga heads to Colorado State (6-3) on Sunday. Tipoff in Fort Collins is at noon .
The Zags hope to put the brakes on a three-game losing streak. It’ll be interesting to see what a week’s worth of practice does in dealing with the issues listed above.
Colorado State has close wins over two WCC teams, Oregon State and San Francisco, which were picked to finish fourth and sixth, respectively, in the WCC.
Washington State (4-4) hasn’t been home since Nov. 10, and the Cougars finished a string of six straight road games Wednesday when they visit Oregon (6-2).
They return home Friday against BYU (6-2) and entertain Saint Martin’s (6-1) on Sunday in their final nonconference games.
Coach Kamie Ethridge is sitting at 99 career wins in her seventh season in Pullman.
Eastern Washington (2-5) has two games in the Big Sky/Summit League Challenge, beginning Wednesday at defending Summit champ South Dakota State (5-2) and at Reese Court on Saturday against North Dakota State (4-3).
Chasing milestones
Gonzaga fifth-year forward Yvonne Ejim continues to close in on the all-time scoring and rebounding records.
Ejim scored 51 points and had 21 rebounds at St. Thomas. She was named to the all-tournament team.
She’s fourth in all-time scoring with 1,817 points, 348 from record holder Heather Bowman. If Ejim averages 15.8 points per game, she’ll reach the top.
Ejim is third in all-time rebounding at 901, 31 out of second and 82 out of first. She’ll own the mark in about 10 games.
WSU senior wing Tara Wallack is closing in on 1,000 points and 500 rebounds.
Wallack needs 33 points and 13 rebounds to reach those numbers and likely will do so with three games in the next five days.
Pilots soar
The hottest team in the Pacific Northwest resides in the Rose City.
Portland is off to an 8-0 start and will likely add three more wins before beginning WCC play. The Pilots, who topped EWU 74-62 in Cheney on Nov. 17, finish nonconference action with consecutive home games against Princeton, UTEP and Portland State.
EWU transfer and Liberty (Spangle) High graduate Maisie Burnham, a 6-foot senior guard, is the Pilots’ second-leading scorer at 16.4 points to go with 5.4 rebounds. She has 1,190 career points to go with 420 rebounds.
Portland was picked to finish third in the WCC behind Gonzaga and WSU. ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme has the Pilots winning the conference tournament and automatic NCAA berth.
