Post-Game Interviews and Highlights

SAN FRANCISCO – The Dons might not be in any mood to look at the silver lining wrapped around a 102-94 overtime loss to 24th Gonzaga Saturday night in War Memorial at The Sobrato Center.
 
On a night when a young USF squad gave the nation's 24th-ranked team all it could handle for 32 minutes, Gonzaga took the last eight minutes of regulation and a five minute overtime to give the Dons a lesson in how to close out a game.
 
It was a bitter lesson because USF had everything going its way to hand the powerful Zags their first conference loss of the season. The Dons held a 16-point lead at 74-58 with 8:49 remaining when Gonzaga flexed its muscle and went on a 23-5 run to take a 81-79 lead on a Kyle Wiltjer put back with :37 left in the game. 
After a missed three-pointer by Devin Watson, Kyle Dranginis made 1-of-2 free throws with :20 to give the Zags a 82-79 lead with just :20 left. The Dons got the three-pointer it needed to send the game into overtime when Tim Derksen connected from the top of the key, giving USF new life and hope.
 
However, Gonzaga outscored USF, 20-12 in the extra period and came away with a hard-fought eight-point victory. The Zags improve to 12-3 overall and 4-0 in the WCC while the Dons slip to 8-6 and 2-2 in conference play.
 
Four Dons scored in double figures, led by a career high 33 points from Watson, who made 12-of-26 shots from the floor, including five 3-pointers. Ronnie Boyce III was 5-for-8 from distance and finished with 20 points, while Uche Ofoegbu scored a career-best 18 points. Derksen, who was hampered by foul trouble for much of the game, finished with 12 points.
 
Dont'e Reynolds grabbed a team high 11 rebounds.
 
Gonzaga's Domantas Sabonis (35) and Kyle Wiltjer (30) combined for 65 points, while Josh Perkins and Eric McClellan added 15 and 14, respectively. Sabonis made 12-of-16 shots from the floor and 11-for-14 from the line en route to his second game of 30 or more points on the season.
 
The Zags shot 54.4 percent from the field for the game, compared to USF at 44.7 and used their size to outrebound the Dons, 49-35.
 
The Dons canned 14 three-pointers, with Watson and Boyce accounting for 10 of them.
 
After leading 38-34 at intermission, USF quickly built and 11-point lead after Boyce hit a pair of three-pointers and Ofoegbu drilled one of his own to boost the lead to 47-36 less than two minutes into the second period.
 
Leading 51-41 with 17:04 left, USF used an 11-5 run to grow its lead to 62-46 with 13:40 left. Boyce's three-pointer with 8:49 left gave the Dons their largest lead of the night at 74-58. USF led by 10 points at 79-69 with 3:02 left when Gonzaga scored 13 straight points to take a 82-79 lead with :20 left in regulation.
 
Derksen game-tying three-pointer with just :07 left sent the game into overtime, but USF never led in the extra period. Back-to-back three-pointers by Wiltjer and Dranginis gave Gonzaga a 92-85 lead with 2:23 left and took the wind out of the Dons.
 
"We were better than they we're for 36 minutes but it really doesn't matter," said USF head coach Rex Walters. "Their experience showed but we didn't execute down the stretch. We didn't play well when we needed to and they are a good team that will capitalize on mistakes.
 
Walters admittedly finds it hard to take satisfaction out of any loss, especially in a game that was seemingly in the Dons grasp for much of the night.
 
"We played one of the top 25 teams in the nation and were up 10 with three minutes to go," he said. "The sad thing is we stopped doing the things we needed to do to win. For 36 minutes, I thought it was pretty good."
 
USF will return to action Thursday night when they meet the San Diego Toreros at Jenny Craig Pavilion beginning at 7:00 p.m. The road trip will conclude with a stop in Provo for a date with the BYU Cougars one week from tonight.