PORTLAND, Oregon. After a first half in which the top-seeded Gonzaga Bulldogs lost to the 9th-seeded Memphis Tigers on Saturday in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament second-round game, top scorer Drew Timm took it upon himself to set the tone for a second-half comeback.
First, Timme gave a motivational message in the hallway before his team returned to the court, which he cleaned up in a post-match interview with CBS reporter Andy Katz and summed it up like this: “I don’t care what happens at the end of the match. game, win or lose, we don’t come out like no… soft guys.”
Timme then followed up with production as Gonzaga rallied for an 82–78 win advancing to the Sweet 16 for a seventh straight NCAA Tournament – a streak that is one of the four longest in tournament history to be joined by the 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.
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After Memphis started the second half with a bucket, extending their lead to 12, Timme scored the next seven points in the game. Overall, he scored 14 of the Zags’ 16 in a row when they closed the gap to two with a three-pointer and shots from various difficult angles.
“It seemed like he was getting every offensive rebound, every foul, every bucket for them in a row,” Tigers coach Penny Hardaway said. “We’ve seen it on TV a lot, just watching him dominate and to see it in person… he made some fantastic shots. Great defense, and he still landed them. That’s why he is the way he is.” “
For his part, Timme would have preferred not to need heroism in the second half.
“I would like to stop doing this,” he said. “I would like to work better in the first half because it’s not a recipe to go far and win a lot of games.”
“I think sometimes he likes to delve into these games,” Gonzaga’s coach Mark Few said.
It was Zags’ second consecutive slow start in Portland. Facing Georgia State’s 16th seed in Thursday’s first-round game, the Bulldogs led just twice at halftime before turning the game into a 21-0 rout in the second half. Timme scored 10 points in the first half of that game but shot 3-of-7 from the field and missed five of nine free throws.
Timme was even more relaxed in the first half on Saturday, scoring just four points on 1-of-3 shooting and 2-of-4 free throws. , this time Gonzaga had no such margin for error.
Despite the Zags losing 3-0 at halftime this season, Fuu didn’t deliver a fiery speech at halftime.
“I don’t think I was yelling and yelling,” Few said, “but I was a little excited that we were playing soft, so that wasn’t Drew’s original idea.”
“It’s been repeated,” Timme interjected.
After all, few people had grounds for confidence. Gonzaga ran into many obstacles during last year’s unbeaten run in the national championship, where the team was finally defeated by the Baylor Bears.
“These guys are battle-tested,” Feu said, referring to senior Timme and security guard Andrew Nembhard. “These two have been through everything.”
On the opposite side, Hardaway realized what had happened to his team in the second half.
“They have reached the championship level,” he said. “We were the more aggressive team in the first half. We sort of shocked them, took away their confidence. After the break, I knew they were going to make adjustments because they are a great team and they did. take shots and they had to stop and they did it in both directions.”
Despite a surge led by Timme, the Tigers were still in the game until the final seconds. A three-pointer from Lester Quinones pulled Memphis within two points at 78–76, and two free throws from Landers Nollie II again resulted in a two-point play with just over six seconds remaining.
Both times, Nembhard hit a couple of free throws, robbing the Tigers of the opportunity to equalize or take the lead—no guarantees on a night when Zags converted 13 of 24 (52%) from fouls. line, after a score of 16 out of 30 (53%) on Thursday.
“For him to come forward and hit those free throws when literally everyone on our team was smoking them was probably the most impressive thing of the night, if you ask me,” Feu said.
On the other hand, Hardaway was definitely impressed with Timmy.
“We understand that we were underdogs and we have to fight these guys and we started the break to 10 points and then got to 12 and then the Drew Timm effect came into play,” Hardaway said. “He made some strong shots, controlled the game, gave our guys trouble, and the rest is history.”