Gonzaga star Drew Timme carried the Bulldogs into the Sweet 16 after Saturday night’s win, using some foul language at halftime — and after the game.
Timme scored 21 of his 25 points in the second half of No. 1 seed Gonzaga’s 82-78 win over ninth-seeded Memphis in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday night in Portland, Ore.
But it was the motivation Timme provided at halftime that also helped Gonzaga, who were trailing by 10 points at the break, avoid a rough upset loss.
At halftime, the 6-foot-10 junior forward gathered his Gonzaga teammates at midcourt, pointed at the scoreboard showing a 10-point halftime deficit for the top overall seed and expressed a few choice words.
A pumped-up Timme at first gave a censored version of what he said to his teammates at the half.
“I don’t give a flying ‘F’ what happens,” Timme told a TBS on-court reporter after the game, referring to his halftime pep talk. “What happens at the end of the game, whether we lose or win. We’re not going out as no soft guys. Leave it all on the floor. [Because] it could be your last 20.
“Hey, man if you go all out and we still lose … play with no regrets. We took that to heart and came out with the win, fortunately. Give credit to Memphis, they really brought it and the way they turned their season around, it’s pretty remarkable.”
The 21-year-old, however, couldn’t censor himself throughout the entire interview.
Timme, who was also being interviewed with teammate Andrew Nembhard, repeated an expletive a couple of times while be asked about the performance of Nembhard, who chipped in with 23 points and some clutch late free throws.
“They were talking all crap on him, and you know what, that’s what we expect from him. He brought us home. He got us the s–t, man. Good s- -t, boy.”
Nembhard appreciated the compliment and didn’t mind the expletives, saying, “Man, I love this guy.”
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 Portland. Facing No. 16 seed Georgia State in Thursday’s opening-round game, the Bulldogs led by just two at halftime before turning the game into a rout with a 21-0 second-half run. Timme had a team-high 10 points in the first half of that game but shot 3-of-7 from the field and missed 5 of his 9 free throw attempts.
On Saturday, Timme was even quieter in the first half, scoring just four points on 1-of-3 shooting and 2-of-4 on free throws. Facing a talented Memphis team that had won 13 of its previous 15 games after a 9-8 start, Gonzaga didn’t have the same kind of margin for error this time.
Although the Zags were 0-3 so far this season when trailing at halftime, Few didn’t deliver a fiery halftime speech.
“I don’t think I was screaming and yelling,” Few said, “but I was somewhat mildly agitated that we were playing ‘soft,’ so that wasn’t an original thought by Drew.”
“It was reiterated,” chimed in Timme.
After all, Few had reason for confidence. Gonzaga faced a variety of obstacles during last year’s undefeated run up through the national championship game, where the team was finally defeated by the Baylor Bears.
“These guys are battle tested,” Few said, referring to upperclassmen Timme and guard Andrew Nembhard. “These two have been through everything.”
On the opposing sideline, Hardaway recognized what happened to his team in the second half.
“They went to the championship level,” he said. “We were the more aggressive team in the first half. We kind of shocked them, took their confidence. I knew coming out after halftime that they were going to make an adjustment because they’re a great team and they did. They had to make shots and they had to get stops and they did both ways.”
Despite the Timme-led surge, the Tigers still stayed in the game until the closing seconds. A 3-pointer by Lester Quinones pulled Memphis within two at 78-76, and two free throws from Landers Nolley II again produced a two-point game with a little over six seconds remaining.
Both times, Nembhard made a pair of free throws, preventing the Tigers from ever having an opportunity to tie the score or take the lead — no guarantee on a night when the Zags shot 13-of-24 (52%) from the foul line, following up a 16-of-30 (53%) performance on Thursday.
“For him to step up and hit those free throws when literally everybody else on our team was smoking them was probably the most impressive thing of the night if you ask me,” Few said.
From the other side, Hardaway was certainly impressed by Timme.
“We understand that we were the underdog and we were going to have to fight these guys and went into halftime up 10 and got it to 12 and then the Drew Timme effect came into play,” Hardaway said. “He made some tough shots, controlled the game, got our guys in foul trouble and the rest is history.”
Gonzaga guard Andrew Nembhard shoots during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against BYU, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, in Spokane, Wash. (Young Kwak, Associated Press)
Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
PROVO — No, this wasn’t the Pleasantville High boys’ basketball team, but you can be excused for thinking it was.
Playing the role of star forward Skip was Drew Timme, and Gonzaga simply could not miss Thursday night against BYU.
Julian Strawther and Andrew Nembhard threw a couple of haymakers early, and the Zags’ own heavyweight champ — Timme himself — finished off Spokane’s version of the Thrilla in Manila.
Thanks for playing, BYU Joe Frazier.
Timme poured in 30 points on 13-of-14 shooting, Nembhard added 22 points and 12 assists, and Gonzaga shot 69% from the field in rolling past the visiting Cougars 110-84 at the McCarthy Athletic Center in Spokane, Washington.
Strawther supplied 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting with three 3-pointers for Gonzaga (14-2, 2-0 WCC), and former top-rated recruit Chet Holmgren dealt 12 points, seven rebounds and five blocked shots for the Zags.
💪. @drewtimme2pic.twitter.com/6mt18acfeX
— Gonzaga Basketball (@ZagMBB) January 14, 2022
“We had no answer for Timme. We just didn’t have any answers,” BYU coach Mark Pope said. “They’re really good here, and we could not find a defensive answer. Our guys fought and competed and battled. We just couldn’t find an answer.”
Alex Barcello led BYU with 19 points, five rebounds and four assists, and Te’Jon Lucas added 10 points and four assists.
Caleb Lohner had 17 points and five rebounds, his best game since scoring 19 Nov. 20 against NAIA Central Methodist, for a BYU squad that shot 43% with 13 3-pointers.
Fousseyni Traore had 8 points, seven rebounds and a block in the freshman’s fifth-straight start for BYU (14-4, 2-1 WCC), and Seneca Knight and Gideon George each added 8 points for the Cougars.
BYU competed; Gonzaga was just better. The Zags did what the No. 2 team in the country is supposed to do at home against an unranked opponent.
“We came in here knowing it would be a fight,” Lohner told BYU Radio after the game. “This team is one of, if not the, best teams in the country. We just got our ass kicked; I don’t think there’s any way around it.”
Gonzaga forward Drew Timme, left, shoots in front of BYU forward Caleb Lohner during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, in Spokane, Wash. (Photo: Young Kwak, Associated Press)
BYU scored the first 7 points of the game, including a stepback 3-pointer by Lohner in the first minutes. But the Zags responded with a 10-0 run, including Strawther’s own 3-pointer off a turnover with just under three minutes into the game.
The Cougars opened by making 4-of-6 3-pointers and — even if for a brief moment — showed they could hang with the second-ranked Zags, who made seven 3s in the first 10 minutes of the game en route to a 31-22 lead.
But that helped Gonzaga take control with a 17-3 run, scoring 14 points on six turnovers en route to a 37-25 advantage with 7:03 left in the half.
Pick your poison — and even then, it might not matter.
working hard @JulianStrawtherpic.twitter.com/2aJBph54R5
— Gonzaga Basketball (@ZagMBB) January 14, 2022
“We made a conscious decision in game planning to do everything we could to try and protect 2-point land, especially around the rim,” Pope said. “They shot 10 for 15 from the 3-point line in the first half. That’s what a great team does.
“There are so many issues that they cause for teams. We tried to make an adjustment in the second half, and then they make every single shot inside the 3.”
This game was in every way unlike the Cougars’ defensive rock fight against Saint Mary’s Saturday.
BYU shot 50% from the field in the first half, including 10 of 18 from beyond the arc, led by Barcello’s 14 points, four assists and three rebounds — and still trailed 61-49.
The Zags were just hitting shots at Pleasantville-like rates: 68% from the field, 67% from 3-point range, assisting on 14 of 23 made baskets. Gonzaga simply couldn’t miss. Two good teams were playing in the Kennel, but the Bulldogs were out to show only one team was great.
“I think our commitment on the defensive end and them hitting shots, it was a combination of everything, and it got out of control,” Lohner said. “We cut it to seven and were feeling good. Then the wheels kind of fell off … and they got it back.”
BYU 40 – GON 53 | 2:02 1H
Cougs have hit 6 of their last 8 shots. #BYUhoops#MACU3pic.twitter.com/mH2l6voOx9
— BYU Men’s Basketball (@BYUMBB) January 14, 2022
The Zags got up by as much as 33 midway down the stretch and never looked back in deferring to role players like former Wasatch Academy guard and McDonald’s All-American Nolan Hickman, who had 4 points and three assists in 19 minutes, as Gonzaga finished off their 61st consecutive home win.
BYU continues its road trip against the third of the top-three teams in the conference Saturday against San Francisco. Tipoff from the Hilltop is scheduled for 9 p.m. MST on CBS Sports Network.
The Cougars haven’t lost back-to-back games in the regular season in three years under Pope. That streak may be in jeopardy come Saturday night.
“This is not the first time we’ve come up here and had a major setback. We’ve got to respond,” Pope said. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. It’s very humbling. It gives us a very clear picture of things we’ve got to address if we want to get better.”