SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Graham Ike scored 16 points as No. 7 Gonzaga overcame early shooting trouble to beat Loyola Marymount 82-47 on Sunday night for its ninth consecutive victory.
Mario Saint-Supery added 13 points and Jalen Warley 12 points for Gonzaga (16-1, 4-0 West Coast Conference), which was coming off an 80-72 overtime win over Seattle on Friday night, and had a slow start against the Lions.
Rodney Brown scored 11 points to lead Loyola Marymount (10-7, 1-3), which defeated Gonzaga in Spokane during the 2022-23 season. The Lions shot just 30% in the game, compared to 54% for Gonzaga.
Gonzaga’s only loss this year was to No. 2 Michigan in Las Vegas.
The Bulldogs made the first basket of the game, then missed its next nine shots to fall behind 10-2. But Gonzaga went on a 12-0 run to take a 16-14 lead midway through the first.
Loyola Marymount was scoreless for more than eight minutes, missing 11 consecutive shots, before Brown’s basket broke the drought. They tied the score at 19-19 on Nakyel Shelton’s 3-pointer.
NO. 4 UCONN 73, MARQUETTE 57
STORRS, Conn. (AP) — Solo Ball scored 11 of his 17 points in the second half and Tarris Reed Jr. finished with 13 points and nine rebounds as UConn rolled to a win over visiting Marquette to extend its winning streak to 10 games.
Silas Demary Jr. had 14 points for UConn (14-1, 4-0 Big East).
Nigel James had 13 points and Chase Ross added 11 points for Marquette (5-10, 0-4), which opened conference play with four consecutive losses for the first time since dropping its first five Conference USA contests during the 1998-99 season.
Ball had seven points in the first 5:15 of the second half as the Huskies began to pull away. He took an outlet pass from Reed and converted on a three-point play to put the Huskies up 48-33 with 14:45 left in the second half. Baskets by Reed and Eric Reibe pushed the lead to 19. UConn’s first 20-point lead came on a J aylin Stewart dunk with 8:12 remaining.
UConn took its largest lead in the first half on a 3-pointer by Demary to put the Huskies ahead 31-19 with 4:12 left in the first half. Ross had five points as Marquette chipped away at the lead. Baskets by Ross and Joshua Clark pulled Marquette within five points. Reed hit a free throw and then dunked with 2.7 seconds left to give the Huskies a 37-29 lead at halftime.
Four Marquette starters and three UConn starters were whistled for at least two fouls in a choppy first half. Marquette had a chance for three three-point plays, but only converted the foul shot in one of those three layups while being fouled.