The most important shocker of the week — if not longer — in school basketball transpired within the Pacific Northwest on Thursday evening when Loyola Marymount upset No. 6 Gonzaga 68-67 at The Kennel. An upset of this magnitude means streaks and droughts galore received detonated in Spokane, Washington.
Gonzaga entered the night with the longest house successful streak in males’s Division I basketball. The NCAA formally acknowledged it to be 76 video games, although the streak was 75 in a row at The Kennel, Gonzaga’s on-campus house venue. Earlier this season, Gonzaga beat Kentucky at close by Spokane Area, thus contributing +1 to the streak, which is now kaput.
The win for LMU (14-7, 4-3 WCC) marked the primary time a customer beat the Bulldogs (16-4, 5-1) on the McCarthey Athletic Heart since Saint Mary’s virtually 5 years in the past to the day: Jan. 18, 2018.
The Lions, who had been 16.5-point underdogs, ended a 32-year drought of futility on Gonzaga’s campus. Their final win at GU got here in 1991, when LMU was on the descent from its peak as a program within the late ’80s. LMU additionally snapped a 25-game total shedding streak to the Zags; its final win on this collection got here on Feb. 18, 2010, at LMU.
LMU senior guard Cam Shelton was excellent Thursday evening, scoring a game-high 27 factors along with 9 rebounds. The Lions additionally received 15 factors off the bench from junior guard Jalin Anderson. Shelton’s right-handed runner with 14.7 left proved to be the game-winner.
For Gonzaga, All-American candidate Drew Timme had a team-high 17 factors and 7 rebounds. On the sport’s ultimate possession, Timme set a tough display screen on Shelton on the prime of the important thing, which freed him for a pick-and-roll drive to the rim — however his shot in site visitors was blocked by LMU reserve Michael Graham. A desperation recovery-and-heave from Julian Strawther by no means had an opportunity.
Thursday evening additionally marked the primary time in 93 video games that Gonzaga misplaced to an unranked opponent; it final occurred in November 2019 towards Michigan within the Battle 4 Atlantis event within the Bahamas. Gonzaga had been flirting with an in-conference defeat all month. It wanted second-half rallies on the highway to flee towards San Francisco, Santa Clara and BYU, successful these three video games by a complete of eight factors.
Gonzaga’s loss additionally means Saint Mary’s, which is but to lose in convention play, is in first place within the WCC. The final time the Zags weren’t atop the WCC standings was Feb. 10, 2018, after a win at Saint Mary’s leveled the rivals within the loss column.
To beat a top-10 crew is uncommon for a program like Loyola Marymount, which final pulled off the feat within the 1961 NCAA Match towards USC, in line with ESPN Stats and Info. The end result, a Quad 3 loss for the Bulldogs, dropped Gonzaga from ninth to 14th at KenPom.com. Auburn’s 28-game house successful streak is now the longest within the nation.
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