Unfamiliar territory: No. 13 Gonzaga aims to stop slide vs. Nicholls

Gonzaga has dropped consecutive games for the first time in six years.

The No. 13 Bulldogs will be striving to stomp out that rare occurrence when they face visiting Nicholls on Wednesday night at Spokane, Wash.

Gonzaga (7-3) is winless this month. The Bulldogs lost 90-89 in overtime to then-No. 4 Kentucky in Seattle on Dec. 7 and then fell 77-71 to UConn last Saturday in New York.

Back in December 2018, Gonzaga lost to unranked Tennessee and then-No. 12 North Carolina during a seven-day span when Rui Hachimura and Brandon Clarke were the team's star players.

Current star big man Graham Ike registered season highs of 28 points and 11 rebounds in the game against Kentucky. But he fell into early foul trouble against UConn and had just three points and no boards in 12 minutes.

"Just the way the game was," Gonzaga coach Mark Few said of Ike's struggles. "It was a physical, hard-fought game."

Michael Ajayi, a transfer from Pepperdine, made all six of his field-goal attempts while scoring 14 points. The rest of the Bulldogs combined to shoot 37.3 percent (19 of 51) from the field.

"Yeah, we missed some shots we'll make," Few said. "The ones at the rim, I think we'll make a very, very high percentage of those."

Khalif Battle scored 21 points against UConn and sank his first five free throws to run his streak to 35 in a row this season. He missed the second of two shots with 23 seconds remaining to end it.

Battle leads the Bulldogs with a 14.2 average in points, just ahead of Ike (14.1). Braden Huff (11.8), Ryan Nembhard (11.4) and Nolan Hickman (10.1) also are scoring in double digits.

Nembhard leads the nation with 10.3 assists per game. He has 103 against just 17 turnovers.

The game against Nicholls is Gonzaga's first home game since routing Long Beach State 84-41 on Nov. 20.

The Colonels (7-4) have a five-game winning streak as they arrive in the Pacific Northwest.

Nicholls routed Southern-New Orleans 110-66 on Dec. 10 in its most recent contest.

Prior to that contest, the Colonels won their previous three outings by a total of seven points.

The toughest opponents Nicholls has faced this season are New Mexico and then-No. 17 Cincinnati. In the season opener, the host Lobos beat the Colonels 91-84.

The visit to Cincinnati wasn't the least bit close as the Bearcats routed Nicholls 86-49.

Against Southern-New Orleans, Robert Brown III scored a season-best 28 points and Sincere Malone added a career-best 23 points on 9-of-10 shooting off the bench.

Byron Ireland leads the Colonels with a 13.2 scoring average. Brown (11.4) and Jamal West Jr. (10.4) also average in double figures.

Nicholls went 20-14 last season in Tevon Saddler's first season as coach. Prior to the season, Saddler was confident the Colonels would enjoy another strong season.

"I think we have a chance to be very, very special," Saddler said. "I'm always ready to work and I think special things are on the way."

This is the first meeting between the schools.

–Field Level Media