No. 9 Gonzaga will have plenty to play for Wednesday on Senior Night.
The Bulldogs could secure the top seed in the West Coast Conference tournament as well as a share of the regular-season title in their final season before moving to the revamped Pac-12.
And, of course, they’ll have a chance to avenge their lone WCC loss of the season when they face Portland in Spokane, Wash.
The Pilots (12-17, 5-11) pulled off one of the biggest shockers of the season when they defeated the Bulldogs (27-2, 15-1) 87-80 on Feb. 4 in Portland. Freshman point guard Joel Foxwell had 27 points and eight assists to lead Portland.
Gonzaga had won 20 straight games against the Pilots — 19 by double-digits.
“I think when you have a program like ours, and we’re having a season like we’re having, I think you always feel like you’ve got to respond — but then you’ve got to respond. You can’t be talking about it,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. “You’ve got to bear down and get stops on defense.”
Graham Ike had 24 points and 10 rebounds for the Bulldogs but didn’t get much help.
“I can promise it won’t happen again,” Ike said of Wednesday’s rematch. “They had more effort, more energy than us. Kudos to them, but we’ve got to flush it. … Got to be better.”
The Bulldogs have five straight wins since, all by at least eight points. That includes a 71-62 victory Saturday against pesky Pacific.
Ike scored 20 points, his ninth consecutive game with 20 or more, breaking the school record set by Adam Morrison and Derek Raivio in 2006.
Freshman Davis Fogle came off the bench and added 18 points, one point shy of his career high.
“We needed some offense, and he comes in and gets 18 in a hard-to-score game,” said Few, whose team has been without the injured Braden Huff (knee) for the past 11 games.
“Clearly he (Fogle) has progressed well, especially being able to do it instead of maybe garbage time at the end of a game, this was a really hard game to generate any kind of rhythm on offense. He came in and was able to make some baskets and get us to stem the run.”
The Pilots followed their upset of Gonzaga with a one-point win against Seattle but have lost their past three games.
Portland coach Shantay Legans hobbled along the sideline against Gonzaga after tearing his ACL while filling in on the scout team during practice due to injuries and illnesses.
“Everything has to happen right in a game like that,” Legans said. “They have to miss some key shots and some key free throws. And our guys played with a lot of confidence and kept their cool and kept their composure. And I think it helped playing at home. We’ve been pretty good at home. But every game we’ve been in, we’ve had a turnover here, or something like that. It all came together.”
Legans, 44, said it wasn’t the first time he’d been seriously injured in practice.
“I tore my other (ACL) seven years ago playing one-on-one with one of our players. This one was worse, though. But it’s OK. It worked out. We won the game. I’ll take an Achilles (tear) for a couple of wins.”
