Gonzaga men open NCAA tournament with hard-fought win over Kennesaw State

PORTLAND — Emmanuel Innocenti tilted his head back and exhaled.

Gonzaga wasn’t in the clear against Kennesaw night when the junior’s three-pointer dropped through the net with 11 minutes to play, but it felt like an important breakthrough for an offense that had been harnessed much of the night.

The defense was solid throughout and the offense eventually came together for the third-seeded Zags, who used scoring runs at the end of the first half and midway through the second to pull away from the 14th-seeded Owls for a 73-64 victory at the Moda Center.

The result gave Mark Few’s team its 17th consecutive victory in an NCAA tournament opener — a run that stretches back to Stephen Curry’s sophomore season at Davidson, when the Wildcats beat the Zags 73-66 in a first-round game in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Like most of Gonzaga’s other regular-season and NCAA streaks, it’s another one Few isn’t willing to take for granted.

“Always, always, I understand just how hard it is to win a game in the tournament,” Few said. “I think that’s one of the things I’m most proud of, this streak of 28 straight (appearances) now for our program, but then also the fact we’ve won games in this thing for whatever you said it was, 17 straight.

“You watch today and you watch 16 seeds give 1s all types of problems and it’s tough. It’s really, really tough to win games in this tournament. I’m really happy we got through this one, it wasn’t pretty but bottom line is you just win and now we get to move on.”

Gonzaga (31-3) advances to Saturday’s Round of 32 game against 11th-seeded Texas (20-14), which overcame a 35-point outing from BYU freshman AJ Dybantsa to beat the sixth-seeded Cougars 79-71 on Thursday. Few’s teams have a 5-4 record against teams coached by Texas’ Sean Miller, most recently beating Miller’s team 88-84 in a game that was played less than 100 yards from Saturday’s venue at Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

Gonzaga had to overcome early and late pushes from a Kennesaw State team that created constant foul pressure on Few’s nine-man rotation.

The Zags established a game-high 14-point lead with under seven minutes remaining in the second half, but the Owls mounted a last-ditch rally and created some tense moments down the stretch.

Point guard Mario Saint-Supery fouled out with under two minutes to play and two other Gonzaga starters — Graham Ike and Jalen Warley — were on the verge of doing so, both playing with four fouls.

Both still delivered for the Zags with the Owls closing in on them late in the game. Warley converted an offensive putback with 2 minutes remaining and Ike had a floater rattle in with under 90 seconds to play, extending the lead back out to seven points.

The Zags trailed much of the first half, but went on a key 10-0 run with Ike on the bench to take a 33-27 lead into halftime. Freshman Davis Fogle knocked down Gonzaga’s first three-pointer of the night with 10 seconds remaining in the half to open up a two-possession lead entering the break.

“It’s awesome, you come here to play in the big moments, the big games,” Fogle said. “Come to play in the tournament. It’s just super cool and then especially being from (Washington), seeing the Zags be successful in the tournament, it’s awesome.”

Ike finished with a team-high 19 points, making 6 of 13 shots from the field, but the Zags also got major contributions from Fogle, who finished with 17 points on 6 of 13 shooting in his NCAA tournament debut. Warley, who was making his first March Madness appearance in his fifth college season, registered 12 points and 12 rebounds for his second double-double of the year.

“It’s huge. When we had that little lull last time we were in Portland and here was because Jalen was injured,” Few said, referencing Gonzaga’s 87-80 loss to Portland on Feb. 4 at the Chiles Center — the game Warley suffered the quad contusion that limited him down the stretch of the season. “It just shows what he does for us. He’s extremely versatile. He can play one through five on offense, he can play through one through five on defense.

“The greatest thing he does is he makes plays. I think at the start, running their 1-3-1, we made a couple mistakes, he comes in and punches a gap, throws a lob, we dunk it. That’s a guy that can make plays. He’s breaking on balls, getting steals on the defensive end.”

Saint-Supery supplied seven points, eight assists and four rebounds before fouling out of the game. Tyon Grant-Foster added nine points and five rebounds off the bench and Innocenti had seven more for the Zags.

Kennesaw State had four players finish in double figures: Amir Taylor (15 points), RJ Johnson (15), Kaden Richard (14) and Frankquon Sherman (13).

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