Zags hosting 11-18 Chicago State (3-18 away from home).
I understand the desire to have a tune-up game because of the triple-bye, but seems that they could’ve scheduled someone better? I hope Gonzaga loses.
I’ll be heading down to Vegas to watch the WCC tourney, hopefully will see some of y’all as well.
Zags just wanted a light scrimmage to keep the rust off before heading down to Vegas.
I’m not sure if that was wise. Clearly Chicago State was no challenge. The only advantage is that your players can work on some things. I would rather face a more challenging prospect so as not to have my players slack off. Thinking this scrimmage may work to our advantage. Thoughts? Heck, when our boys practice one another, they are not nice.
It’s simply a way for Zags to stay sharp and effectively scrimmage against someone other than themselves. I see no downside for them, nor an advantage for us.
Scheduling a decent mid-major caliber team to play at this time in the season on a specific date (± a day) is nearly impossible.
Most schools are either still in the middle of their own league play or are gearing up for their own league tourney that starts soon.
Chicago St. was willing and able because they are playing as an independent D-1 team this season. For them, scheduling games in Jan/Feb/March is a challenge as nearly all other schools are in the middle of league play so they’ll take whatever they can get. And I suspect received a nice paycheck for their trouble.
Random semi-related sidenote: I was in the Bay Areas this past weekend. This Chicago St. team was on my flight home to Spokane. A couple of the coaches sat across the aisle from me…heard lots of Timme this and Timme that…trying to scheme up ways to defend him.
Only downside could be an injury
Gonzaga typically plays either BYU or SMC for their last home conference game, and I can think of at least two times where those schools spoiled their senior night. There are plenty of reasons they decided to do this game that you’ve all listed already, but I think one other part of this game was giving their seniors a proper ceremony, without the emotional intensity of a game with conference title implications.
In the past they’ve started their seniors, which sometimes includes walk-ons. This year it was just Malachi Smith, who certainly could, or some argue should, be a starter. Better to do that against Chicago State than SMC!