What Gonzaga’s Ryan Nembhard said after USC exhibition basketball game: ‘It’s good to get this under our belts’

Bulldogs guard had 19 points and eight assists in loss to the Trojans

James Snook-Imagn Images

The Gonzaga men’s basketball team took the good with the bad from its 96-93 loss to USC in their charity exhibition game last week.

While competitive, the first game against a different opponent wasn’t without its sloppy stretches. The Bulldogs endured a six-minute drought without a field goal in the first half and started the night 3-of-11 from the floor to dig themselves an early hole. Meanwhile, the Trojans couldn’t stop getting in their own way with turnovers right out of the gate.

Both sides eventually settled down for an exhilarating final 10 minutes of action, in which both sides went blow-for-blow to close the scrimmage out. 

Senior guard Ryan Nembhard made a handful of timely plays in the second half to help the Zags dig out of their 11-point deficit. The All-WCC guard finished with 19 points and eight assists, shot 9-of-11 from the foul line and 5-of-8 from the field in 32 minutes of action. Despite his brilliance on offense, Nembhard expected more out of himself defensively against USC’s guards.

“I think I was pretty bad tonight playing defense 1-on-1,” Nembhard said. “We gotta learn how to level our guy off and when it’s 1-on-1, we gotta win that matchup as well as rebound … we just gotta be physical, that’s the physicality of the game and that’s something we gotta improve on for sure.”

Here’s more from the Gonzaga point guard after the team’s loss to USC.

On the team’s biggest area of growth based on the exhibition game:

“Defense. We just got to be a lot better, myself included. I gotta be able to level guys off and guard my man, and we gotta come up with those rebounds. [USC] probably out-boarded us tonight. We got a lot of room for growth, it’s good to get this under our belts. It’s an exhibition at the end of the day and we’re gonna watch the film, grow and get better from this.”

On what worked with Gonzaga’s small-ball lineup to close the second half:

“You have three guards out there that can dribble, pass, shoot, all make plays so that’s always a good lineup for us. But I’m gonna leave that up to the coaches, they know what they’re doing and they’ll find the best lineups for us.”

On the competitiveness of both teams:

“The last 10 minutes felt pretty real. I think [those were] two teams who really want to win no matter what it is so … we’re going at it in practice, but it’s just nice to go against some other dudes.”

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