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ST. LOUIS - Gonzaga All-America Adam Morrison scored 14 of his game-high 18 points in the second half as the eighth-ranked Bulldogs held off stubborn Saint Louis 60-57 tonight in a non-conference men's basketball game at Savvis Center. Morrison poured in seven of those points in a critical 90-second span late in the game that finally gave the Zags some breathing room.
"The story is that their All-American decided to win the game, and he stepped up and made shots," said Billikens head coach Brad Soderberg. "I'm proud of the effort, because I thought that we would need to play a near perfect game to win, and we weren't very good offensively yet we still had a chance."
Trailing by three after Zags center J.P. Batista missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with 4.6 seconds remaining, SLU freshman guard Kevin Lisch missed a 25-footer as time expired in a vain attempt to send the game to overtime.
The Billikens led 28-27 at the half after Gonzaga guard Nathan Doudney drilled a long threeball as the horn sounded. The Zags got the ball out of bounds with eight-tenths of a second remaining after a tied up ball on the floor after a scramble, but Doudney managed to get the ball off in time.
In a first half that featured eight ties, the Billikens had their season-best crowd of 15,707 energized as they surged to a 28-24 lead just prior to the break. But the Bills lost their senior leader when guard Anthony Drejaj left the game with a right foot injury and did not return.
Gonzaga netted the first two baskets of the second half on forward Sean Mallon's lay-up and guard Pierre Altidor-Cedspedes' trey. SLU freshman guard Tommie Liddell gave SLU its last lead at 42-41with a lay-up at the 11:19 mark. Morrison hit a jumper to give Gonzaga the lead for good, and the Zags led by as many as seven with 2:03 to play.
The Bills held the Zags scoreless the rest of the way, and got a pair of free throws and a lay-in from junior center Ian Vouyoukas with 53 seconds to play to pull within 60-57. SLU sophomore guard Dwayne Polk attempted to tie the game with a long trey with eight seconds remaining, and in the scramble for the rebound, Vouyoukas was charged with a foul to the astonishment of the Billiken bench.
Mallon was the only other Bulldog in double figures with 10 points as the Bills limited the Zags to 39.7 percent shooting from the field and 28 percent from the arc. A national Player of the Year candidate, Morrison snagged a game-high nine rebounds as the Zags shaded the Bills on the glass 36-35. Gonzaga improved to 9-2.
"Tommie got the defensive assignment on Morrison, because Tommie is long and quick, and that's a pretty big assignment for a freshman, but he did well," Soderberg said. "We helped him with a variation of a triangle-and-two defense that we concocted this week with some consultation from my dad, who specialized in junk defenses as a high school coach."
Vouyoukas paced the Bills with 16 points. Junior forward Justin Johnson posted career highs with 10 points and eight rebounds. Liddell and Polk each finished with 11 points. The Bills shot 38.2 percent from the floor, 18.2 percent from 3-point range and 92.9 percent from the free throw line.
"I'm not in to moral victories, but we're in the process of building something special," Soderberg said. "I think people saw that tonight when you look on the floor at the end of the game and see two freshmen, a sophomore and two juniors. We hope that people see us put forth an effort that is worth supporting, and that the people who came out tonight will come back."
Saint Louis (5-5) continues its five-game homestand by hosting Chicago State on Wed., Dec. 28, at 7 p.m.
