Zags find confidence again, avoid devastating loss to Tennessee

Matt Bouldin had a career-high 26 points to help the Zags top No. 15 Tennessee in Knoxville. AP Seth Davis's Mailbag Seth Davis will periodically answer questions from SI.com users in his Hoop Thoughts column. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- When a situation grows dire and panic starts to set in, Gonzaga coach Mark Few likes to reboot his team's mindset with two simple words: "Saw wood." The phrase serves to remind his troops to stay focused on the immediate task at hand, one possession at a time, rather than contemplate the greater implications of what might be happening.

When the situation grew dire midway through the first half of Wednesday night's game at Tennessee, however, even Few couldn't keep from losing sight of the trees to peek at the forest. The Bulldogs had come into the game having gone from being ranked fourth in the country to losing four out of five games. They took a quick 6-0 lead over Tennessee but soon found themselves trailing 31-16 with eight minutes remaining in the first half. For a moment, Few thought to himself, Uh-oh, here we go again. "It's just human nature," he said later. "But the one thing I wanted our guys focusing on was to get back to savoring competition. That's what it's about."

Other Zags players later confessed to having the same dreaded thought, but momentary panic aside, the veteran team did a remarkable job keeping its poise in a hostile environment. Their shots started falling while Tennessee freshman guard Cameron Tatum, who scored the Vols' first 14 points, cooled off, and the Zags steadily chipped away at Tennessee's lead. Gonzaga trailed by seven at halftime and then took a a six-point lead midway through the second half, only to see the Volunteers force overtime in the final minute. Gonzaga countered with its best five minutes of basketball of the night, making 9 of 10 free throws in the extra session to come away with a 89-79 victory that improved their record to 9-4 and might get them back into the Top 25 next week.

It's probably an overstatement to say this win saved Gonzaga's season, but it's not an exaggeration to say their season could have been ruined if they had let another close one slip away. "It would have been terrible," 6-foot-5 junior guard Matt Bouldin said. "We've been doing two-a-days all week. We've been practicing early. We've been doing individual work after practices. I guess we've been trying to get our edge back. It's a grind, but it pays off when you come out and play like we did tonight."

Nobody played better than Bouldin, who showed toughness and versatility in the win. When the Zags needed outside shooting, Bouldin drilled long jumpers and a pair of three-pointers. When they were in need of a post-up presence, he set up shop down low and spun his way to the basket. He ran the point, took every big shot and played all but three minutes. The result was a 26-point, five-assist, four-rebound effort that may have been his best performance in his three years at Gonzaga.

The groundwork for that effort was laid Wednesday afternoon in a banquet room on the first floor of the Knoxville Marriott. Few spent much of the day behind closed doors holding his standard, mid-season individual player meetings. Most of the meetings lasted around 10 minutes, but his tete-a-tete with Bouldin stretched to half an hour. "I told him, you've got to be the best, the savviest guard in the country," Few said. "You can break presses, you can score off the drive, you can hit threes, you can post up ... I think sometimes he just plays. I want him being more accountable for how a game ends up, not just be anonymous out there and in the flow."

Said Bouldin, "The meeting was really constructive. I learned a lot about how I needed to change my approach to the game. It was good to get things off my chest as well."

The mental toll Gonzaga has been enduring the last few weeks resulted from a brutal schedule that included the Old Spice Classic in Orlando (which the Zags won by beating Tennessee by nine points in the final), a heartbreaking overtime loss to UConn in Seattle on Dec. 20 that started the swoon, plus road dates at Washington State, Arizona and Utah. (They lost the last two by five points and one point, respectively.) Few said his players welcome the challenge of playing tough teams, but he also acknowledged the schedule has taken a cumulative toll. "They realize we could be 13-1 if we chose to be," Few said, "but they haven't backed away from that."

Still, it can be disheartening to lose so many close games, especially when conference play hasn't even started. As a result, Few literally ordered his players to lighten up. Ira Brown, a 26-year-old backup forward who played some minor league baseball, had been trying to set up plans for the players to get together outside of practice, but his efforts kept falling through. Finally, last week Few insisted to the players that they go out and have some fun. They went bowling, and they enjoyed it so much that they went out twice more, once to play laser tag and again to see a movie.

The nights out enabled the players to blow off steam while reminding them how much they like each other. "We're really close," said senior center Josh Heytvelt, who had 15 points and 12 rebounds in the win over Tennessee. "We haven't really strayed from being friends, but I think we forgot who we were the last month and a half. It was good for us to just get out and have fun."

That kind of team-building pays off in those tense moments where the difference is made between winning and losing. Said senior point guard Jeremy Pargo, "Being in that huddle tonight and looking in guys' eyes and seeing how much they want to win, you don't want to be the reason that this team loses."

More than anything, Gonzaga's great escape at Tennessee halted what was quickly becoming a crisis of confidence. Even Pargo, the swashbuckling floor general from Chicago, was feeling the effects of the losing skid. Pargo played well against UConn, but he made some bad decisions down the stretch, and he took the loss hard. Few was so concerned that a few days ago he checked in with Pargo to see if that loss was still affecting his psyche. "I told him, it's over with, coach. I can't do anything about it now," Pargo said. "I had my time where it bothered me, but now it's over. You have to play basketball and be confident no matter what."

That, alas, is easier said than done. "I know [the losing] has been on our minds. It's hard, especially at a program like this when you're not used to it," Bouldin said. "We have a lot of confidence in ourselves and each other. We were starting to lose that a little bit. That was something we needed to get back to."

Gonzaga has learned the hard way these last few weeks that success can be fleeting. The flip side to that, however, is that failure need not last long, either. That's a good lesson to remember the next time they face a dire situation. Sawing wood is hard work, but it's the only way they'll get the job done.