Bulldogs lock up berth in NCAAs

PORTLAND — The final TV timeout came with 3:55 remaining here Monday night in the West Coast Conference championship game, when Derek Raivio sent a message to those who might have doubted Gonzaga's resolve.

Or maybe he was imparting a subliminal shot to the guys who seemed to sabotage the Zags' season 25 days ago.

Raivio hurled, gloriously, into a garbage can behind the Gonzaga bench.

"I asked him if he wanted me to take another timeout," said Zags coach Mark Few. "He kept shaking his head no."

So it hasn't always been classic. So it hasn't been very pretty. So it hasn't been with a lot of the traditional help from big guys. Gonzaga just did what it does against Santa Clara, soldiering on to its ninth straight NCAA tournament with a 77-68 victory over the Broncos.

To the Zags (23-10), dancin' never felt so good.

"Like I told the team," said Few, "that's the most satisfying win and accomplishment I've ever been a part of."

Few was into superlatives, and he launched another when somebody asked about Raivio.

"He strapped us on his back and delivered us," Few said. "He played the best game he's ever played."

Raivio, on the same University of Portland campus where his dad, Rick, was a bruising forward back in the 1970s, was next to unreal. He ran Broncos around screens all night, darted to daylight and scored a season-high 28 points on 8-of-12 shooting and his usual spotless free-throw shooting (10 of 10).

Two of those came right after that timeout to remember.

"I felt something come up," Raivio said.

Maybe it was just a lump in his throat. He was a senior, the leading scorer on this team, and when Josh Heytvelt and Theo Davis got pulled over in Cheney and charged with drug possession Feb. 9, it looked quite possible that Gonzaga's season was another missile headed for that garbage can.

"This is the best one [NCAA berth], by far," said Raivio, who played on recent teams dominated by Adam Morrison. "All the guys on the team are like brothers. That's why we feel so good."

Or, as Few put it, "I think they felt everybody out there was thinking they were going to drop off the table just because we lost one guy [Heytvelt]. But there's a lot of pride and character in those guys that are out there."

Apparently. They cut a piece out of the roster, but it wasn't the heart. With guys like Raivio, freshman Matt Bouldin and improving Micah Downs, the Zags are still vastly skilled, if egregiously undersized.

So they've patched it together inside with Sean Mallon, Abdullahi Kuso and David Pendergraft and turned it into a smaller guys' game. And their smaller guys were eminently superior to Santa Clara's, as Raivio, Bouldin and Jeremy Pargo combined for 51 points on 16-of-29 shooting, while the Broncos' Brody Angley and Danny Pariseau teamed to go 3 of 19.

For Pariseau, a Spokane kid who transferred from Eastern Washington, that's the ultimate gall. His avowed goal when he arrived at SCU was to "beat Gonzaga," and he had helped Santa Clara do that last month when it ended GU's 50-game home-floor winning streak.

"It was nice," affirmed Pendergraft, who joined Downs on the all-tournament team, with Raivio named MVP. "After all the fuss he's been making, it was nice to go out there and beat him."

Pariseau was one of the unfortunates assigned to contain Raivio. He couldn't. So was Angley. He couldn't.

One of Few's ongoing struggles with Raivio has been to get him to perfect the fine art of curling off screens ready to shoot. Suddenly, as his career winds down, it was there.

"Tonight, he came off screens better than he ever has," Few said, shaking his head.

Gonzaga trailed 30-21 with seven minutes left in the first half as Santa Clara (21-10) sizzled. Then the Zags tightened down and went on a 19-5 run to end the half, a burst begun with a perimeter jumper by Raivio.

In two plays of the second half, after Santa Clara had cut a 10-point deficit to 56-52 with 6:27 left, Raivio changed the game.

First, he nailed a tough 17-foot jumper. Then, pressured hard on the perimeter, he spied Pendergraft floating alone to his right, and Pendergraft drained a three to make it a 61-52 game. Santa Clara chased the rest of the way.

"He's such a competitor," said Santa Clara forward Scott Dougherty. "He capitalized every time we made a mistake. He does a tremendous job pushing it at you, pushing it at you, and he makes his money at the free-throw line."

It might have been the last game for Santa Clara coach Dick Davey, forced out after 15 years with the Broncos. Said Davey haltingly, "I don't want it to be about me."

It wasn't. It was about the Zags. As usual.

Bud Withers: 206-464-8281 or bwithers@seattletimes.com