2010 CBE Classic: Arop, Harris Step Up To Help Gonzaga Overcome A Resilient Marquette Team 66-63

Gonzaga fans will likely find plenty to work on after the Bulldogs’ performance at the CBE Classic.

However, for now they did figure out something important: despite uneven play throughout, they pulled out a 66-63 win against Marquette in the CBE Classic.

The two most important developments of the game might have been that Mangisto Arop started after getting inconsistent playing time in previous games to finish with an impressive 15 points on 7-for-9 shooting.

Gonzaga Takes Down Marquette – The Slipper Still Fits
In the first four games of the season, Mangisto Arop was largely pedestrian. Struggling to get off the bench, Manny appeared to be lost in the shuffle. Tonight, however, Arop stepped up to the plate and really led this team to a win. He finished with 15 points on 7-9 shooting and, as usual, did great work on the glass. Unofficially he had four boards but I would wager he had his hands on at least five more. What I liked from Manny is that he enforced his will on offense. Far too often he has deferred to teammates but tonight he drove to the rim, took the open jumper, and finished strong. This was easily his best game of the season and possibly his Gonzaga career. Similar to Elias, this is a game Manny must build on.

Arop tied for a team-high four offensive rebounds with Elias Harris who finished with 19 points off the bench and looked as comfortable as he had all season, pre- or post-injury.

Jimmy Butler led the way for Marquette with 22 points and a team-high five rebounds.

Click here for the box score.

2010 CBE Classic: Zone Helps Gonzaga Take A 42-33 Halftime Lead Against Marquette

Tonight’s game against Marquette started out really rough for Gonzaga.

Marquette was spreading the court and driving hard to the basket and although Steven Gray was hot – shooting 5-for-9 from beyond the arc – Gonzaga was getting caught up in a pace and style of play that didn’t favor them.

Then they implemented a zone defense and the face of the game seemed to change rather rapidly.

With Marquette’s strategy of driving to the rim taken away, they were forced to work the ball around longer to find gaps in the zone. With Demetri Goodson at the point and the team using its comparative length to shut down gaps, Marquette’s offense stalled.

If you were under the impression that Gonzaga’s toughness was in doubt, perhaps this game hasn’t done a whole lot to challenge that. But one thing they have done is show that they can impose their will on a game and stay with it even when they’re down, something they demonstrated for stretches last night against Kansas State.

At halftime, Gray is leading Gonzaga with 15 points on 5-for-10 shooting while Elias Harris tied him for the team-high with 15 points on 6-for-9 shooting. Jae Crowder and Darius Johnson-Odom lead Marquette with eight apiece.

2010 CBE Classic: A Loss To Marquette Would Be Even More Disappointing For Gonzaga

In theory, the Gonzaga Bulldogs should be favored to win today's game against the Marquette Golden Eagles on the strength of one clear advantage.

CBE Preview: Gonzaga vs. Marquette - College Basketball Nation Blog - ESPN
With Elias Harris and Robert Sacre in the frontcourt, Gonzaga is by far the taller, stronger team, and Marquette could again struggle to keep a bigger opponent off the glass. But the Eagles' quickness could give a plodding Gonzaga team all sorts of matchup issues on the offensive end. How that dynamic plays out -- strength vs. speed, size vs. versatility -- will determine whether Gonzaga rebounds from its second straight loss or suffers another disappointing defeat at the hands of an apparently ascendant team.

However, in practice, there might be some question among Gonzaga fans about whether they can capitalize on that advantage after witnessing last night's disappointing loss - even after cooling down a bit, Zach Bell of the Slipper Still Fits is calling out Gonzaga for a lack of toughness.

Can Toughness Be Taught? - The Slipper Still Fits
After focusing on these two points I want to open up a question to all of our great readers. Do you believe that a team is capable of developing passion and adjusting its mentality in a matter of hours? For example, do you think we will see a team that appears to care and play with heart tonight? I know it's early in the season for something like this to be discussed, but I just can't get over seeing a team playing against the No. 4 squad in the country with so little heart.

Whether you attribute it to a lack of heart or just a bad game marred by some struggles handling the ball, a loss tonight wouldn't do much to calm Bell's concerns - although it's still very early in the season to come to any sort of solid conclusions about a team, Gonzaga's performance against Kansas State does raise questions about how Gonzaga responds to more physical teams.

As something of a finesse team, losing to Marquette tonight would only add to that concern given their advantage, even if Marquette has some quickness on the perimeter - Gonzaga needs to impose their will.

2010 CBE Classic: Gonzaga Falls To Kansas State 81-64 After Poor Second Half Shooting

The story of this Kansas State's 81-64 win over Gonzaga was somewhat simple: you could reduce it to the fact that Kansas State found ways to execute their offense for long enough stretches of time that they were able to establish a rhythm and find reasonable scoring opportunities.

The Bulldogs just struggled to do that against the KSU defense throughout the game.

And after struggle to establish anything in the first half, things took a nosedive in the second half: Gonzaga shot 23.1 percent from the field in the second half while KSU shot 50 percent. It's difficult to beat anyone like that, much less a physical team that's highly regarded by the current early season polls when you are at your best a finesse team looking for backcuts.

To their credit, Gonzaga forced KSU into 23 turnovers - that's an extremely high turnover rate of a turnover on nearly 30 percent of their possessions.

However, on the other end, one area for concern for the Bulldogs is the point guard position - Demetri Goodson started as the lead ball handler, but the team struggled out of the gate, getting down 10 to 2 quickly. After a solid first half, David Stockton struggled against KSU's pressure in the second committing three turnovers on the game. But later, Steven Gray began handling the ball more and, unfortunately, that was no more effective - Gray finished with five turnovers and struggled to get he team into the offense when he was in the position of lead ball handler instead of scorer.

For the full boxscore for the game, click here.

2010 CBE Classic Halftime Report: Gonzaga Stays Within 11 Points After Impressive Kansas State Run

There is no doubt that the Gonzaga Bulldogs are being flat outplayed tonight in Kansas City in the 2010 CBE semifinals.

That said, the fact that they are only down 49-38 at halftime is something of an accomplishment.

Kansas State went on a long run of shutting down Gonzaga’s backdoor-oriented offense and shooting lights out on offense to take a 17 point lead with around three minutes left in the half. That Gonzaga took that shot – maybe not KSU’s best shot, but certainly their most focused – and got the lead down to 11 with a chance to get it in single digits on the last play before the buzzer shows an impressive amount of resilience at the very least.

The bottom line in the first half is that KSU is getting the shots they want on offense while forcing Gonzaga into a number of difficult or contested shots when they’re not allowing Bulldogs guard David Stockton to beat them with backdoor passes. KSU finished the half shooting 53.1 percent from the field and a hot 9-for-15 from the three point line, a few of which came during that late run.

Right now, center Robert Sacre stands out for Gonzaga as a player who is stepping up – he’s leading the team in scoring with 13 points and got himself to the line nine times just from being aggressive going to the basket and putting himself in scoring position, something Gonzaga will need to see more of from him this season.

For KSU, half of that 3-point production came from Jacob Pullen and Will Spradling who are tied for a team-high 11 points apiece.

2010 CBE Classic: Gonzaga Travels To Kansas City For Tournament Championship Rounds

Losing to San Diego State was absolutely not a reason to panic and even losses in upcoming games in the CBE Classic Championship Rounds won't be reason for fatalistic thinking about the Bulldogs season.

Beginning tonight with a 6:30 p.m. PST meeting with #4/4 Kansas State, #18/22 Gonzaga will get a real test of where they stand on the national landscape. And while losses aren't the end of the world for fans, Zach Bell of SBN's Slipper Still Fits suggests that it is a good opportunity to see how the Bulldogs respond to adversity.

Gut check time: Zags take on Kansas State
With that said, it's time to take a look at what could be one of the games that defines this season. I know that's early, but learning how this group will respond to adversity is going to be interesting to watch. If people thought that San Diego St. was a tough group that could dominate on the boards, then prepare to be blown away by Kansas St. This is a team that defines toughness in everything that it does, and will certainly be planning to come out and try and bully what appears to be a soft Gonzaga frontcourt. The onus is on guys like Rob Sacre, Elias Harris and Sam Dower to respond with toughness and an edge of physicality that I'm not sure they have.

So it shouldn't take much explaining to understand why the expected return of Elias Harris is important: the Bulldogs will need to be at full strength to contend with KSU tonight and Harris is obviously a major part of that.