Gonzaga vs. Florida State is a classic offense vs. defense matchup

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Courtesy of the matchmaking magic of the NCAA basketball committee, here they are: Yin and yang, Gonzaga and Florida State.

Mark Few, the conductor who would like to create a symphony, and Leonard Hamilton, the foreman who would prefer to prevail via the wrecking ball.

When the Zags and Seminoles meet at 4:10 p.m. Friday, it will mark perhaps the most crackling contrast of the tournament's first round: Gonzaga's consistent penchant for offense against FSU's reliance on its defense.

Whoever wins, it isn't likely to be terribly aesthetic, probably something like New Yorkers jostling their way onto a crowded subway line. That's the effect of a determined defense, and FSU's is stingiest in the nation against field goals, at 37.4 percent.

The roots of this one go back, way back, back even before Few was the point guard at Creswell High outside Eugene three decades ago.

Hamilton, the FSU coach, drew much of his defensive slant from a fellow named Lake Kelly, whom he worked for in the early 1970s at Austin Peay.

(Kelly's lasting claim to fame was, he's the guy who made Dick Vitale stand on his head. In 1987, when Vitale blithely vowed to do just that on camera if Illinois fell to Austin Peay in a 3-14 first-round matchup, the Governors came through.)

"He was just a very thorough person," Hamilton said this week. "He adhered to a lot of Bobby Knight's (man-to-man) philosophy."

Hamilton became more entrenched in that thinking during a 12-year assistant's role at Kentucky, where he had to help devise defenses against some of the regional heavyweights like Indiana and Notre Dame. His teams have generally been defense-first, and his 1998 Miami squad, like these Seminoles, led the nation in defensive percentage.

Few, meanwhile, has always been fascinated by the offensive X's and O's. His old colleague, Dan Monson, who preceded him at Gonzaga, recalled this week, "When I took over, it was a pretty daunting task to think of all of it. I split it up, and Mark was my offensive coordinator.

"By the second year (1999), he was calling a lot of the offensive plays, without going through me."

Monson said he thinks that originates from Few's point-guard days, saying, "When you watch Gonzaga's teams, he usually is talking to one guy out there."

As it happens, Few thinks there's a direct correlation between most of Gonzaga's six losses and its direction on offense. Too much of the time, the Zags have tried to enter the ball on one side of the defense without swinging it, making them predictable.

"Just trying to pound the square peg on the round hole of the first side," Few said. "Not learning from what's happening during the game."

In this game, the key to preventing that is very likely Matt Bouldin, the superlative senior and Gonzaga's best passer. Demetri Goodson is nominally the point guard, but Goodson is still developing at that position, and too often the offense stops if the ball is in his hands.

Contrary to tradition, the Zags worked last week at smoothing those rough edges, going much harder than usual during the lull between the West Coast Conference tournament and the big one.

Much of that involved rectifying those offensive tendencies — "the common denominator in our losses," Few says.

Outside the Gonzaga locker room Thursday at its short workout at HSBC Arena stood Jerry Krause, the Zags' septuagenarian director of basketball operations. In his hand was a notebook filled with his ever-present statistical analyses.

This one shows the Zags to be scoring about 1.1 points per offensive possession. The goal is 1.2, not a bad shortfall in a season of new faces and altered roles.

"I think Mark's done by far the best teaching job he's ever done," Krause said.

Friday night, he has to sustain it. If the Zags can't outslug the Seminoles, they'll have to try to outsmart them.

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