What Gonzaga's Mark Few said after West Virginia loss in Battle 4 Atlantis

Bulldogs head coach blamed himself for not taking a timeout on the second-to-last possession that led to the Mountaineers tying the game in the final seconds of regulation

Nov 27, 2024; Paradise Island, Bahamas, BHS; Gonzaga Bulldogs head coach Mark Few reacts during the first half against the West Virginia Mountaineers at the Atlantis Resort. / Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

Despite leading by five points with 25 seconds left in regulation, the Gonzaga Bulldogs were stunned by the West Virginia Mountaineers, 84-78, in overtime on Wednesday in the Battle 4 Atlantis quarterfinal round.

The Zags (5-1) led by double-digits in the second half, only for the Mountaineers (4-1) to strike back swiftly behind Javon Small and Tucker DeVries. WVU went on a 17-2 scoring run to pull ahead 50-45 at the 12:26 mark, sparking a back-and-forth battle that appeared to be settled in the final minute, when Gonzaga took a 71-66 lead off a pair of free throws from Ryan Nembhard. Braden Huff had put the team in position to close out the victory by scoring six straight points prior to Nembhard's appearance at the charity stripe.

However, West Virginia's swarming defense wasn't going down without a fight. The Mountaineers did just enough to rattle Gonzaga's backcourt into a turnover with under 20 seconds remaining, as DeVries was sent to the foul line for two free throws after coming away with a loose ball and getting fouled on a layup attempt in a 2-point game. DeVries knocked down both shots at the charity stripe to force overtime. By that point, though, the Zags had nothing left in the tank.

Here's what head coach Mark Few had to say after the loss.

On how Gonzaga's final possessions of regulation played out:

"In tournaments like this, you're gonna be in a bunch of different situations. We were obviously in one there, and on me, I should have called the time out as that thing was progressing, and it didn't look great on the press break. I should have probably burned one. We had it in our two guards' hands. I trusted them, but it just was just kind of junky, and I need to call timeout."

On West Virginia knocking down 11 3-pointers:

"That's kind of what they're capable of doing. We knew that going in if we just weren't tight all game with our kind of switching and what we like to do there, our communication and kind of executing our plan, I didn't feel great even in the first half when our defensive number was pretty good. I thought we kind of left some guys that we shouldn't have left. But then we had stretches when we changed our coverage that was very good. And then again, we just made some mistakes at the end."

On what the Zags can learn from the adversity they faced vs. WVU:

"These tournaments provide a vast array of different situations, like I said earlier. We had some in-game ones. We had some situations with our switches that we didn't execute. We had some coverages just that have been rock solid for us that probably weren't quite as rock solid. And like B Huff said, some of our actions got bogged down. They did a nice job kind of bogging them down a little bit. We got to have the wherewithal to get to the next one and trust the next one and do another purposeful action, whether it's a ball screen or a pin down or a post touch. But again that game came down to kind of execution at the end. I just should have jumped up there and used that timeout when I saw they were struggling against the press, so, yeah, that one's on me."