MEN'S TOURNAMENT: Bulldogs get physical, push Lions aside.

LAS VEGAS – The last time Gonzaga and Loyola Marymount met, matchups gave the Bulldogs fits. The Lions beat the Zags to loose balls, beat them into the paint, and beat them 74-66 for the school's first win over a ranked team since 1990.

But the West Coast Conference Tournament semifinal was a different story.

Gonzaga defeated LMU 77-62 at the Orleans Arena Sunday night in front of 7,941 to advance to the tournament championship game.

Facing a streaking Lions team after watching the first two rounds of the tournament, the Bulldogs shook off any semblance of rust by doing what they didn't do last time: they got deep – deep in the paint, and deep with their bench.

"It was hard-fought, and hard-earned," Gonzaga Head Coach Mark Few said. "We knew we were facing a team that was very confident, and really hot. After taking it to us down there a few weeks ago, they've been playing very well. Outscored in the paint 18-12 in the teams last meeting, the Bulldogs came out physical, determined to control the interior.

And they did just that, outscoring the Lions 28-10 in points in the paint."Coach made it really simple: Be in attack mode: That means getting into the paint finishing strong, sealing the post, always attacking rather than reacting. That was definitely a point of emphasis the last couple of weeks," guard Steven Gray said.

Gray, who turned in what Few said was one of the best performances of any Gonzaga player he's seen, scored 18 points, pulled down six rebounds and doled out seven assists after bruising and scraping his elbow and nearly losing two fingernails on his shooting hand. (For more on Gray's performance, check out Travis Lucian's story, "Zags shine when it's Gray").

Mismatches appeared to be dooming Gonzaga again, as Robert Sacre went to the bench with two fouls after five minutes of play, and Matt Bouldin followed minutes after with two of his own.

"It was really physical, we knew coming in it would be a fist-fight," Bouldin said. "They play really hard, they play with a chip on their shoulder, and we just needed to match up." 

And Gonzaga did match up, continuing the physical play on both sides in a game that had 46 total fouls, and Loyola lost freshman Ashley Hamilton to foul trouble in the first half as well.

"They took it to us, and when Ashley (Hamilton) got into early foul trouble, it kind of took us away from having the post presence offensively," LMU Head Coach Max Good said.

The game then became a battle of the benches, which favored Gonzaga heavily.

The Bulldogs' bench, led primarily by the combination of Manny Arop and Bol Kong, outscored LMU's bench 15-2. Arop scored four points and had eight rebounds, while Kong scored nine points and made a 3-pointer with minutes left in the midst of an LMU run to stretch the lead back to double digits.

"Our bench has helped us all year, people don't realize how young we are," Few said. "They see Matt runnin' around out there and think we're old, but we're young. I thought Manny (Arop) and Bol (Kong) helped us a ton. It's big. Especially when you get into foul trouble like we did tonight."We had a lot of lineups in that we didn't even had in practice but the guys did a great job with that."

Though the team faced what Few called the craziest foul trouble of the season, physical play came as no surprise.

"It's that kind of basketball in March, I was telling the guys afterward," Few said. "It's probably not going to be real pretty, but I thought we were very effective. We held them to 36 percent field goal shooting and then we shot 52 percent."

Harris said his first taste of March basketball lived up to what he expected.

"I had heard a lot about it, of course, because I would watch basketball and follow NCAA baskeball and yeah, it was exciting tonight, to play here it was an exciting atmosphere," he said.Despite pulling away to a 41-25 halftime lead, Gonzaga wasn't able to dispatch the Lions quickly. LMU mounted a second-half run, pulling to within six points with five minutes left.

Junior Drew Viney led LMU with 15 points, eight rebounds and four steals.

Yet with Gray at the helm of the offense, he, Bouldin and Harris led Gonzaga back into comfortable lead, as Bouldin scored 10 of his 12 and Harris scored 12 of his 16 in the second half. Gonzaga next plays Monday at 6 p.m., against the winner of the Saint Mary's and Portland semifinal game.

Loyola Marymount, meanwhile, hopes that its season hasn't already come to an end. With a win over a ranked opponent like Gonzaga, a streak of conference wins and a semifinal run in their conference tournament, the Lions are hoping to earn a bid to a post-season tournament in some form or another. Viney said after all his team has accomplished, he's confident his team will be playing basketball somewhere next week.

"They're playing very very well right now, and for them to be invited to a tournament would be huge," Few said.

Good said it's crucial for his young team to be playing next week in order for it to continue to grow, and added that he goes into depression when the season ends."We'll go to the Dust Bowl if we're invited," he said.