The Gonzaga men’s basketball team is moving on to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA championships.
The Bulldogs defeated Texas Christian University, 84-81, in a back-and-forth thriller in Denver Sunday night. Gonzaga now advances to the Western Regional semifinals against UCLA on Thursday in Las Vegas.
“I’m ecstatic for these guys, get to another Sweet Sixteen,” said GU Coach Mark Few in a press conference after the game. “That’s eight in a row, which is just an incredible testament by our program what we’ve been able to do these last eight years.”
Drew Timme, in his final season at Gonzaga, led the team with 28 points. Four Zags scored in double figures.
TCU led by as many as nine points in the first half, but Gonzaga narrowed the lead to 38-33 at the half.
“We were very tentative in the first half and they were definitely up into us and it looked like the first half of the first game (an 82-70 Gonzaga win over Grand Canyon University). We just were not being who we are,” Few said.
Gonzaga got it going in the second half, pulling ahead 46-45 on a three pointer by Julian Strawther with 16 minutes left. The lead went back and forth for the next several minutes until Gonzaga ran 10 points in a row, including a rare three-point shot by Drew Timme, to go up 63-55 with nine minutes left. The Bulldogs held the lead the rest of the way and held on for the win.
The Gonzaga men represent the only team of the five from the Inland Northwest to stay alive in national tournaments. The Gonzaga and Washington State women lost their initial games and were eliminated. The Washington State men lost their first game to Eastern Washington University last week in the National Invitation Tournament. But then Eastern lost on Saturday to Oklahoma State in its second round game.
