It all lines up in OT for Zags

SPOKANE — Anybody unable to find sufficient sub-plots to the Gonzaga-San Diego throwdown here Sunday night in the semifinals of the West Coast Conference tournament wasn't searching very hard. They seemed almost to equal the points put up in the Zags' gasping, fretful 96-92 overtime victory:

• Guard Derek Raivio, a key piece to Gonzaga's hopes later this month, had 21 points — his best offensive output since Jan. 16.

• J.P. Batista missed the first nine minutes of the second half after taking a knee to the quadriceps, then pulled what his coach called his best "Willis Reed" in returning to finish with 21 points and 13 rebounds. GU coach Mark Few termed Batista "questionable" for tonight's final.

• Gonzaga's Erroll Knight continued to save his best for San Diego, hitting his second three-pointer of the season against the Toreros. He has a grand total of three, one of them a dagger that dropped USD 64-63 in January at the wire.

But let's face it, all that was window dressing to the undercurrent coursing through the San Diego bench and the locker room afterward.

"Make sure you write that they shot 26 more free throws than we did," boiled San Diego coach Brad Holland.

That's code for: You'd stand a better chance to beat the Cuban national baseball team in Havana with Fidel Castro calling balls and strikes.

Last week, San Francisco coach Jesse Evans raised the notion that it's 5-on-8 when you play the fifth-ranked Zags at McCarthey Athletic Center. He said officials get "intimidated" by the crowd.

It can't be said unequivocally that Holland would agree with that piquant observation, but all you had to do was look at the writhing contortions and the skyward looks on the USD bench to know the Toreros weren't buying a lot of what faced them against the Zags and player-of-the-year candidate Adam Morrison.

Do they get the breaks? "Oh yeah," said USD freshman guard Brandon Johnson. "Forty-five free throws explains it."

Statistically, the debate is not easily proven. In their 10 true road games, the Zags shot 23 free throws a game. In their 13 games at the Kennel, they attempted 25 per, hardly a dichotomy you wouldn't have figured.

Try to tell that to the Toreros. The guy who defended Morrison, Cory Belser, lamented that Morrison, who finished with a hard-earned 25 points, "got the best of me tonight."

"Cory," Holland interrupted almost testily, "he didn't get the best of you."

If Morrison's NBA career goes bust, he and Belser might want to look up Vince McMahon. Any trash-talking they did on the floor was multiplied in the post-game.

Said Belser, "If I was guarding anybody else in the nation, I feel there really wouldn't be a call. He's always saying to me, 'Welcome to Spokane. We get the calls.' It kind of shows, I feel like. He's constantly talking to the refs, saying I'm hooking him, I'm holding him."

Belser wasn't done.

"He says some personal things," Belser said. "The last game when we lost to them, he told me if I got hit by a train and died, he wouldn't care. Tonight, he was like, 'You're a role player. Did your family come to watch you play your last game?'

"His tactics are a little unclassy. He's not what college basketball should be."

Belser got a technical foul in the second half, a costly fourth, when the officials caught him tossing the ball at Morrison. Belser said Morrison had shoved the ball at him and he was caught retaliating.

For his part, Morrison denied the "train" comment, adding that Belser, the Bethel High product, called him names that couldn't be printed.

"It's over and done with," he shrugged. "Like I always say to him: 'Scoreboard.' I've never lost to him, and losers never get a chance to talk trash."

Somewhere in all this potty-mouthing, Morrison hit two free throws with 1:53 left in overtime to give his team a 91-89 lead, and they creaked to the finish against a gutty San Diego club that had played 125 minutes in 48 hours.

When Loyola Marymount survived St. Mary's in the nightcap, the lively crowd at the MAC had thinned out dramatically. Apparently, they'd had enough sub-plots for one night.

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