SPOKANE — It’s time to rewrite part of the scouting report on Gonzaga.
Guy Landry Edi came off the bench to score 15 points and spark the Bulldogs to a 74-63 win over San Francisco on Thursday night.
“It feels good to knock my shots down,” the 6-foot-6 junior from the Ivory Coast said. “The scouting report was to not guard me. Coach told me before the game to be ready because they weren’t going to guard me.”
Edi, a junior college transfer, had two 3-pointers and 10 points in the first half, one more than his previous Gonzaga high, as the Bulldogs used a closing 10-1 flourish to build a 41-32 halftime lead. He started the second half and promptly knocked down another 3.
“Guy can do some things,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. “He brings energy on defense, flashes of brilliance on offense and then other things (four turnovers). We’re just trying to get those other things out of there, but he really helped us tonight.”
Three starters reached double figures for Gonzaga (15-3, 5-1 West Coast) — Elias Harris and Robert Sacre with 14 apiece, and Kevin Pangos with 12.
Angelo Caloiaro had 14 points and nine rebounds and was the only player to score in double figures for San Francisco (12-9, 2-5), which hasn’t won a game at Gonzaga since Feb. 10, 1989. The Bulldogs have won 25 of the past 28 meetings between the schools.
It was the defense that pleased Few the most.
“For the most part we got a lot of deflections, we got in the gap,” he said. “They’re a hard team to play against; they really spread it out. That’s a good basketball team — that’s the same team that got third in the league last year.”
The Bulldogs had 14 steals among the 19 turnovers they forced.
“A pretty good effort from everybody,” Edi said. “We knew we had to help, stay in the gaps, because they’re drivers and have the ability to kick out the ball. Stay in the gap and it was pretty easy.”
The Dons, who got points from all eight players who got into the game in the first half, gave the Bulldogs fits, tying the game at 31 on a pair of free throws by Cody Doolin with 4:01 to go. Then three straight turnovers led to the first six points of an 8-0 run.
Gonzaga went on an 11-0 run early in the second half, including back-to-back dunks by Sacre on feeds from Harris and David Stockton, to lead 57-37 with 13:32 left.
The Bulldogs needed that burst as a host of turnovers — six in nine possessions — and a drought of 7:12 without a basket allowed the Dons to get back within 59-50 when Caloiaro hit a 3-pointer at the 7:15 to play. It could have been much closer, but USF missed four straight free throws when trailing by 11.
Marquise Carter and Sacre had three-point plays in a 9-0 spurt as the Bulldogs weathered the storm.
Down the stretch Gonzaga got every rebound, winning the battle of the boards 36-27, with Pangos, a 6-foot-1 freshman, grabbing a game-high seven.
The Bulldogs also hit their free throws in the closing minutes, finishing 23 of 32 from the line while the Dons were just 12 of 21.
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