Gonzaga Looks to Dictate Terms in Road Trip to Portland

The Gonzaga Bulldogs head to Portland on Thursday night for a 7:00 PM PST tip against the Portland Pilots, the first of two February meetings between the programs and Gonzaga’s lone trip to visit UP this season, with local coverage on KHQ and national streaming via ESPN+. Portland enters the matchup on a three-game skid following losses to Washington State, Pacific, and Saint Mary’s, while Gonzaga arrives ranked sixth nationally and fifth in the NET, sitting behind Iowa State, Michigan, Arizona, and Duke as the regular season moves into its grind phase.

With Braden Huff still sidelined by injury, the focus shifts to how the Bulldogs manage Graham Ike’s workload after last week’s punishing, whistle-heavy battle with Saint Mary’s, particularly with Oregon State and Santa Clara looming on the schedule, a stretch that makes a moderated minutes approach feel inevitable barring chaos. Gonzaga would welcome a cleaner night that allows Mark Few to stretch the rotation, keep legs fresh, and bank a road result without adding unnecessary mileage after one of the most physical games of the season.

Meet the Pilots

The Portland Pilots currently sit at 3-10 in WCC play and near the bottom of the standings, yet that record does a disservice to a season that has featured a far wider range of outcomes than the conference table suggests. Portland opened league play by getting run out of the gym in Eugene, absorbing a 35-point loss to Oregon, and has mixed in a handful of true clunkers since, including a couple recent blowout losses to Washington State and Pacific. At the same time, the Pilots have quietly made life uncomfortable for several of the conference’s best teams, taking San Francisco to the wire in a five-point loss, pushing Santa Clara to the final possessions in a seven-point defeat, and hanging within six against Saint Mary’s one week ago.

That volatility shows up in how Portland plays. The Pilots operate at a guard-centric pace, leaning heavily on ball movement and shot volume rather than size or rim pressure, and when the offense hums it looks sharp, coming in waves rather than steady accumulation. 

Personnel wise, this is a deeper and more evenly distributed group than most teams sitting near the bottom of the league. Five Pilots average double figures, led by Joel Foxwell, a high-minute lead guard putting up 15.3 points and 6.8 assists per game while shouldering the bulk of the offense’s decision-making load, a responsibility reflected in both his usage and his turnover rate. Cameron Williams provides a steady interior-adjacent scoring presence and leads the team on the glass at 5.5 rebounds per night, while Timo George and James O’Donnell add efficient secondary scoring, particularly around the rim, giving Portland multiple ways to punish defensive lapses. Mikah Ballew rounds out the double-figure group as a streaky perimeter option capable of swinging short stretches with shot-making, and the collective result is an offense that rarely feels empty even when efficiency dips. The issue, as the season has shown, arrives on the other end, where stops remain inconsistent and extended defensive slippage quickly erases whatever margin the offense manages to create.

Storylines to Watch:

The Ike Conundrum

The central question still revolves around Graham Ike’s workload and how Gonzaga chooses to manage it as February wears on. Ike logged 37 of 40 minutes in last weekend’s bruising Saint Mary’s game, yet Portland presents a matchup where the Bulldogs can afford to be selective, especially given how effective their small-ball groups have looked since the recent loss of Braden Huff.

Portland’s size starts and largely ends with 7’1″ senior Jermaine Ballisager Webb, a true center by measurement who averages under 17 minutes per game, 3.7 rebounds, and roughly half a block, a profile that reads more as situational length than a consistent interior deterrent. Ike’s footwork and patience around the rim have consistently played well against similar bigs, but Gonzaga’s small-ball depth and ability to push pace further reduces the need to lean heavily on post offense or extended center minutes.

That combination makes this a spot where Gonzaga can exploit speed and depth, mix lineups freely, and keep Ike’s usage deliberate rather than reactive, with the broader priority remaining unchanged: keeping their interior anchor healthy, sharp, and fully engaged as the games ahead grow louder and tighter.

The shooting, until it changes

This stays the storyline until it stops being one. Steele Venters and Adam Miller opened WCC play by combining to go 7-for-10 from three against Oregon, a night that hinted at a perimeter breakthrough for a team that struggled to get north of 30% as a team last season. Since the Oregon game, the numbers have cratered, with the pair shooting a combined 16-for-71, good for 22.5%.

It’s been just plain ugly. Miller sits at 31.9% from deep on the season, putting him ahead of only Tyon Grant-Foster and Emmanuel Innocenti for the title of Least Efficient Shooter on the roster. Venters and Miller were the dudes Gonzaga explicitly imported to stretch defenses, and the misses have begun to look rougher and rougher, with airballs and shots dying short or drifting off-line right out of the hand.

Miller still brings value through poise and situational defense, which keeps his minutes justifiable, but Venters has struggled to impact games on either end since conference play began, even proving a frequent liability in on-ball coverages and defending downhill drives. Davis Fogle’s steadier two-way play has started to feel more trustworthy than anything either player has brought to the table of late, and the math may eventually force the issue entirely. Gonzaga cannot keep funneling 34-plus minutes per game at dudes shooting this poorly while Emmanuel Innocenti, Tyon Grant-Foster, and Davis Fogle wait behind them with better defense, more versatile offensive arsenals, and ridiculous upsides to offer.

A Gonzaga team shooting this way from the perimeter will not advance past the round of 32. And until that shift arrives, the tension remains unresolved, hanging over every possession that ends with another open three. 

Containing Joel Foxwell

Everything in Portland’s offense begins with point guard Joel Foxwell, positioning him as the primary problem Gonzaga has to solve. Foxwell has been one of the nation’s leading assist men in all of college basketball this season. All that to go along with 15 points per game and playing roughly 35 minutes a night. He stays in attack mode from buzzer to buzzer, a workload that places him among the league’s most ball-dominant guards. He has led the Portland Pilots in scoring in each of their last four games and has topped the team in assists in all but one outing this season.

If Gonzaga can park Emmanuel Innocenti (or, perhaps, even Jalen Warley) on Foxwell, pressure him at the point of attack, and take away his comfort dribble on the perimeter, Portland’s secondary creation options thin out quickly. The Pilots rely on Foxwell to kickstart every action, and when that engine sputters the offense tends to flatten into late-clock shots rather than structured counters.

The danger, of course, arrives if Foxwell gets comfortable. He dropped 27 on a very stout Saint Mary’s defense just over a week ago, doing his damage through persistence rather than efficiency, finishing 8-for-22 from the floor but a perfect 7-for-7 at the line while committing zero fouls in 39 minutes. He keeps coming, absorbs contact, and forces defenses to defend him honestly for the full game. If Gonzaga allows him to settle into that rhythm, the night grows longer than the standings suggest. If they disrupt him early and often, the Pilots struggle to find a credible plan B.

Final Thoughts

The Pilots have already shown they can stay attached against the league’s upper tier when their guard play remains organized and their shot profile stays balanced. This matchup rewards defensive discipline for the Zags more than offensive force, particularly if Portland can slow tempo just enough to keep Foxwell involved deep into the clock.

If Coach Few elects to be conservative with Ike’s minutes, the Gonzaga Bulldogs have the personnel to win with speed, spacing, and depth, an approach that also opens space to continue evaluating backcourt combinations, including the Braeden Smith and Mario Saint-Supery pairing that surfaced briefly last week.

Gonzaga has multiple functional paths to control the night, and the challenge revolves around selecting the right lineups at the right moments rather than leaning on any single solution. How the Bulldogs sequence those choices, when they press advantages, and how deliberately they manage minutes may reveal more about their priorities for the back half of conference play than the final margin itself.