Gonzaga beats W.Virginia, advances to Elite Eight

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Top-seeded Gonzaga moved within one game of the Final Four with a 61-58 victory over West Virginia on Thursday in the West regional Sweet 16 at SAP Center.

Actually, the Zags didn’t so much move within a victory of their first-ever trip to the national semifinals.

They clawed and scrapped and clung and pushed in a brutal game—the exact game West Virginia loves to play.

“Rock fight,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. “However you want to describe it.

“Those are two really, really tough teams, two really physical teams that laid it out there on the line. And there were big shots being made right and left, and fortunately, we made the two big plays at the end.”

There were 51 fouls, which caused the game to last approximately 21/2 hours—and that was without overtime.

The biggest shot came off the fingertips of Gonzaga guard Jordan Mathews, who drained a 3-pointer from the left wing with 57 seconds remaining.

“I just let it go,” said Mathews, a transfer from Cal. “I just didn’t think about it. I just shot it, and I didn’t see it go in. But I heard it.”

Mathews and fellow guards Nigel Williams-Goss, Josh Perkins and Silas Melson struggled to find their rhythm against West Virginia’s relentless pressure and physical defense.

They combined to make just 8 of 29 shots. But center Przemek Karnowski and forward Johnathan Williams scored 13 points each. Williams, a deft ballhandler, also helped break the Mountaineers’ full-court press.

“I wasn’t really frustrated, it was just the type of game,” Mathews said. “We’ve never come across that. It wasn’t frustration; it was confusion trying to figure it out.”

The Zags (35-1) will play either Arizona or Xavier on Saturday for the West regional title.

The fourth-seeded Mountaineers (28-9) were awful offensively but in the game until the end because they blocked seven shots, forced 16 turnovers and grabbed 20 offensive rebounds.

“You tell me another team in the country who can shoot 26 percent from the field against a No. 1 seed, 21 percent from 3 (point range), and still could have, should have won the game,” Mountaineers coach Bob Huggins said.

“I think that says a lot about what kind of guys we have.”