The Bulldogs do their business and come back into the house ready for the next round

Bulldogs advance
By John Chagaris
March 18, 2006


America's team handed Mike Davis his ticket home to clear out his office and leave Indiana forever as the Gonzaga Bulldogs defeated Indiana 90-80. The bigger story was Adam Morrison was ice cold only scoring 14 points.

J.P. Batista took the team on his back with Morrison cold by scoring 14 points and having 9 rebounds, seven of them on the defensive end, while creating three steals and a blocked shot that is still being talked about.

"It's not going to be my night every night," said a cheerful Morrison. "We [can] still survive and win."

It certainly was not his night as his first two point basket came with 5:05 left in the first half, his only point before that came on his second free throw after blotching the first one. J.P. Batista began the game by making a jump shot and then just 61 seconds later makes a layup to give the Bulldogs a 5-2 lead. Batista had 6 of his teams first 7 points.

"People [teams] commit so many resources to stopping Adam [Morrison] that we try to play off that," explains Bulldogs head coach Mark Few. "If you really watched up, you can see that he's done a nice job of it, and the group has done a nice job of it."

Gonzaga either led or was tied for Thirty-nine minutes thirty-six seconds, keep inmind a college game is only forty minutes. Indiana's only lead came with 13 minutes remaining in the first half as Earl Calloway nailed a three pointer to give the Hoosiers a 10-9 lead, a lead that Erroll Knight would errase by hitting two free throws after he was fouled by Robert Vaden.

Mike Davis did give the BUlldogs some much needed dap, "they were a three seed and they probably should have been a one seed. They were the best three seed in the tournament for sure."

After Knight's free throws, the Bulldogs never trailed nor did the Hoosiers get closer than two points. They got to two points in the first quarter of the second half when Vaden hit another three pointer to cut the lead to 42-40, which sparked a Gonzaga 6-0 run to be matched by a Hoosiers 6-0 run ended by a three pointer by A.J. Ratliff. From there the closest they would get was three after a three pointer by, you guessed it Robert Vaden.

The only thing that keeped this game from being a blow out was the three pointers by Vaden and his teammates, hitting an amazing 13 in the second half, while only scoring 10 points inside the three point arc.

AFter the game Mike Davis was asked if he was upset this was his last game at Indiana. "My first thought was, I was just proud of the boys. Don't be sad for me. You should be happy for me because I had a great opportunity to coach one of the greatest schools in college basketball."

With less than 20 seconds left in the game, Davis pulled senior guard Marshall Strickland and the two hugged and Marshall burried his head into Davis' shoulder.

After the game, Sttickland and Robet Vaden had tearful goodbyes for their coach.

"[After losing my father last summer] He's like a father to me. I love him with all my heart. I'm sure he loves me forever. You've just got to move on," said Vaden.

"He helped me grow up. He tested me and really brought a lot of great things out in me," said Strickland.

Gonzaga moves on to face the number two seed UCLA Bruins on Thursday.