Broncos beat the Zags 85-71

By Tom Schreier

For the first time since 2000, Santa Clara defeated West Coast Conference rival Gonzaga at home, winning 85-71on Thursday night in front of a packed crowd at the Leavey Center.

Red-shirt sophomore Kevin Foster led the team with a career high 36 points including hitting 6-14 three pointers. The win was the first for Santa Clara Head Coach Kerry Keating, who is 1-8 against the Bulldogs, and means that he has now defeated every team in the WCC.

As expected, Foster used a late game three to drill the final nail in Gonzaga's coffin.

"I was just full of excitement," he said. "I haven't won against Gonzaga in three years."

Foster played a complete game, hitting 8-10 free throws and adding five assists to his stat line. He added two important steals in key moments during the game while remaining disciplined.

His first foul came with 1:25 left in the game.

"It's just a constant effort," said Foster. "[Just] being solid on defense and not fouling because they need me on the court. I'm not going to be as valuable if I pick up cheap fouls."

Santa Clara got impressive performances from a number of players to compliment Foster. Freshman point guard Evan Roquemore added 13 points and five assists without missing a shot from the free throw line. He was a perfect 8-8. Senior Ben Dowdell had10 points and six rebounds and fellow senior Troy Payne added 11 points and six boards.  

Junior forward Marc Trasolini, who also scored 11 points, was full of praise for his teammate, Foster.

"He really stepped up," said Trasolini. "We needed him so badly and he just performed above everyone's expectations and carried us on his shoulders tonight."

Foster also received admiration from Gonzaga senior guard Steven Gray.

"When a guy has taken 20 threes in a game before, they're going to get the guy shots and they do a great job finding him and really setting screens on their guy," said Gray, who led all Gonzaga players with 17 points. "You can definitely see that's something they spend a lot of time on."

Against USF the Broncos put up 37 threes and played soft inside. In a similar big-game atmosphere against Gonzaga, Santa Clara forced the ball inside and shot 8-20 from beyond the arc. The first team in the country to make 300 free throws, the Broncos got to the line 33 times against Gonzaga, shooting 12 more free throws than they did against USF. Santa Clara hit 27 –f 33 free throws on the game, nearly 82 percent.

"It's about time," said Keating. "We've had three really good games with them and had some unique circumstances in all three of them so we wanted to make sure we did everything we could do so that wouldn't affect the game."

The win may be a watershed moment for Bronco basketball.

"If you want to establish yourself in this league, Gonzaga has established you have to do it through them," said Keating. "They've withstood the test of time and set the [bar]… and that bar is pretty high.

"[It's] a good start knowing if you're going to take a stab at it that you can beat them."

Gonzaga head coach Mark Few appeared unfazed after the loss.

"We've had teams every year that have pressed us and pushed us and we've lost games," said Few, whose team has been in the WCC Tournament final every year since 1999. "We've had several years when we've been fortunate enough to go undefeated [in the conference], but we've dropped games before so this is nothing different."

Before this game there was little expectation for Santa Clara to win against big-name programs. Keating's teams have a reputation for letting close games slip through their fingers in the final few minutes.

"We're going through stages of the building process," said Keating, who has yet to have a winning season in three years as the head coach of the Broncos. "To build a program takes a long time at this level. With high academic restrictions and not as many resources as other teams, but we don't make excuses for that. We get what we get and take pride in that. It takes time."

The announced attendance of 4,017 was 500 under capacity. But the Santa Clara student section was out in full force, rocking the bleacvhers so violently at one point that the entire section was shaking and swaying.

"There were a lot of students here," said Keating, a nod to the packed Ruff Rider section. "Hopefully we can build on that so everyone here knows that even though Gonzaga only plays here once, we play here a lot more than that."

Santa Clara will get another opportunity to prove themselves when Portland visits the Leavey Center Saturday for a 3:00 pm matinee contest.

Kurt Wagner contributed to this story.