PORTLAND, Oregon — After a first half in which the top-seeded Gonzaga Bulldogs fell behind the No. 9 seed Memphis Tigers 41-31 Saturday in an NCAA tournament men’s basketball second-round matchup, leading scorer Drew Timme took it upon himself to set the tone for a second-half comeback.
First, Timme delivered a motivational message in the hallway before his team returned to the court, one he cleaned up in a postgame interview with CBS reporter Andy Katz and summarized as “I don’t give a flying F what happens at the end of the game, whether we lose or win, we’re not going out as no … soft guys.”
Then Timme followed up his words with production as Gonzaga rallied for an 82-78 win, advancing to the Sweet 16 for the seventh consecutive NCAA tournament — a streak that is one of the four longest in tournament history, joined by two from Duke under Mike Krzyzewski (nine and seven, respectively) and a record 13 consecutive Sweet 16s for North Carolina from 1981 to 1993 with coach Dean Smith.
After Memphis opened the second half with a bucket to extend the lead to 12, Timme scored the game’s next seven points. Overall, he scored 14 of the Zags’ 16 points in a stretch when they cut the deficit to two, making a 3-pointer and hitting from a variety of difficult angles.
“It seemed like he got every offensive rebound, every foul, every bucket for them consecutively,” Tigers coach Penny Hardaway said. “We’ve witnessed it from the TV a bunch, just watching him be that dominant, and to see it in person … he made some fantastic shots. Great defense and he still made them. That’s why he is who he is.”
For his part, Timme would prefer not to need second-half heroics.
“I would like to stop doing that,” he said. “I would like to do a better job in the first half because that’s not a recipe to go far and win a lot of games.”
“I think sometimes he likes to feel his way into these games,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said.
It was a second consecutive slow start for the Zags in…
Source : espn
