With the Gonzaga basketball team dreadfully losing to the Michigan Wolverines last Wednesday, 101-61, the team would come out with full force against the University of Kentucky, and dominated them on Friday, 94-59. As the season for the program has been filled with great outings, such as the Gonzaga basketball team's upset of the Alabama Crimson Tide on Nov. 24, the team is still looking to forget the Michigan loss, although the history they made with that game is unforgettable.
Despite that not being the most recent performance from the Bulldogs, combining the 40-point loss with Friday's 35-point win, that marks a first for the team against ranked opponents, per ESPN Insights.
“Gonzaga is the first team in AP Poll history to play a ranked matchup in back-to-back games and have one 30-point loss and one 30-point win,” the account on X, formerly Twitter, posted.
Still, it might not come as a shock to see a team like the Bulldogs get taken back down to Earth after a fast start to the season and humbled by the Wolverines by 40 points, only to have the hunger and motivation to come back next game strong.
Even head coach Mark Few would echo the same sentiments, even saying that the practices before “were not fun” and players got their “frustrations” out,” according to The Spokesman-Review.
How the win for Gonzaga basketball was a “big reset”
While the Gonzaga basketball team was led by Graham Ike and the 28 points that he scored, the team would also get a big contribution from Braden Huff, who scored 20 points, shooting nine of 11 from the field. He would describe the win as a “big reset” for the Bulldogs.
“I think it was just a big reset for us,” Huff said. “We just kind of went back and watched the film of that last game we played, and just looked at things we needed to improve on. So, I think it was good for us. We needed to kind of get back to how we were playing prior to that. Ten days is a long time, so we were excited to get back on the floor and compete tonight.”
At any rate, No. 11 Gonzaga is now 8-1, looking to keep the winning ways going against North Florida on Sunday.
