Gonzaga Nation

Gonzaga readies for UCLA in West Coast Hoops Showdown: ‘This is the perfect game to come back to’

The Bulldogs close out nonleague play as they renew their West Coast rivalry with the Bruins

Cole Forsman

Gonzaga Bulldogs senior guard Nolan Hickman.
Gonzaga Bulldogs senior guard Nolan Hickman. / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
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For all that the holiday season offers, many college students around the country look forward to a break from school so they go home, spend time with family and tackle that giant pile of laundry that’s been accumulating in the corner of their dorm room.

For a majority of the Gonzaga men’s basketball team, however, that wasn’t necessarily the case this year. With a pivotal matchup against UCLA (10-2) looming on Dec. 28, there wasn’t a whole lot of time for players to travel back and forth from Spokane if they wanted to make it back in time for practice on Christmas Day.

“I’m not going home,” Aurora, Colorado, native Graham Ike said after the Bulldogs beat Bucknell on Dec. 21.

“I’m not going home yet,” Seattle native Nolan Hickman added. “We’ll be here. We got the gym.”

Gonzaga’s two seniors were far from the only players who stayed on campus for the holidays. As Hickman put it, “more than usual” stuck around Spokane instead of going home for the brief hiatus. 

“We gotta be locked in when we come back,” Hickman said. “Some guys are still gonna go home, enjoy themselves, enjoy their time with their families and Christmas and whatnot. But I'm sure they'll still be working, getting their work in and finding time to take some time off.”

Even if only for a few days, the Bulldogs could’ve used some time away from the court for a change. Especially considering the team’s travel schedule over the past two months — Gonzaga went 28 days in between home games at one point — and the level of competition Mark Few and company have gone up against was quite the slew of heavy hitters. Already the Zags have played seven games combined between Quad 1 and Quad 2 (4-3 in those games), many of which occurred at neutral site venues.

Following a close 77-71 loss to UConn at Madison Square Garden, Gonzaga returned to the McCarthey Athletic Center last week for a pair of opportunities to get back on track before it heads out on the road again to close out nonleague play. Safe to say the Bulldogs put their back-to-back losses to Kentucky and UConn behind them with comfortable victories over Nicholls (102-72) and Bucknell (86-65). 

Up next: another high-profile matchup with the Bruins.

"It's always a good time playing against UCLA ... all my guys are looking forward to it,” Hickman said. “This is the perfect game to come back to, I feel like. So we're ready."

Saturday marks the fifth consecutive season the two West Coast basketball powers will meet on a neutral court. If history is to repeat itself, fans are in for quite a treat when Gonzaga and UCLA square off this time — three of the previous four head-to-head contests have been decided by four points or fewer. The Bulldogs have come out victorious in every scenario thus far, including last season’s 69-65 win in the Maui Invitational. The season prior, Julian Strawther knocked down a go-ahead 3-pointer in the Sweet 16 round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament; in the 2021 Final Four, Jalen Suggs sunk an incredible heave from near halfcourt to keep Gonzaga’s undefeated season alive in a 93-90 overtime final.

While the Zags have prevailed in close games in the past, executing in crunch time hasn’t always been a strong suit for the 2024-25 squad. Particularly on the offensive end of the floor, where the Bulldogs inexplicably struggled down the stretch in their overtime loss to the Wildcats and 6-point defeat to the Huskies. In both scenarios, Gonzaga shot worse than 40% from the field in the second half. 

“[We’re] a couple possessions away from being able to be undefeated,” Gonzaga assistant coach Brian Michaelson said after the Nicholls game. “But we also can't be satisfied on another end and say, ‘Oh, we're really close to being undefeated.’ We got to get better in a lot of facets.”

UCLA enters Saturday’s matchup coming off a tough loss of its own: a 76-74 letdown to North Carolina at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 21. Despite leading by 16 points with less than 13 minutes to play in regulation, the Bruins were handed their first loss since Nov. 8 (9-game winning streak) after they failed to score a field goal over the final three minutes and change. 

Tyler Bilodeau led UCLA with 26 points on 9-of-14 from the field. The Oregon State transfer also paces the team in scoring through its first dozen games at 15.1 points per game and is far and away the leader in field goals made (70 — the next closest is Eric Dailey Jr. with 49). Bilodeau also rips down 5.3 boards per game.

Defensively, the Bruins have showcased the typical grit and toughness that’s expected out of a Mick Cronin-coached squad. UCLA is top 10 in the country in adjusted efficiency and scoring defense (58.4 points allowed per game, seventh-best). Forcing 11.3 turnovers per game, the Bruins are also No. 1 in turnover rate (26.9%).

On the other side, Gonzaga ranks near the top of the sport in numerous offensive categories. The Bulldogs are among the top three teams in efficiency on that end of the floor and are averaging a nation-best 89.2 points through their first 12 contests. 

“It's one another one of these high level games,” Few said of the matchup with UCLA. “We've had unbelievable history of games [with UCLA] … it's certainly what TV wants to see and fans want to see.”

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Cole Forsman
COLE FORSMAN

Cole Forsman is a reporter for Gonzaga Bulldogs On SI. Cole holds a degree in Journalism and Sports Management from Gonzaga University.

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