Pac-12 basketball is back, and Monday night gave the league a little of everything: a tight heavyweight fight, a rough home loss, and a pair of easy wins for teams that entered the season with real buzz.
The headline game belonged to Gonzaga and Purdue, and it played out like the kind of 40-minute test that can shape a team’s early résumé. Gonzaga came away with a 78-72 win, a result that looks like a likely Quad 1 victory.
Xaivian Lee made a strong debut with 18 points and three assists, knocking down three triples along the way. Davis Fogle led the Bulldogs with 22 points, and Izan Almansa added 11 off the bench.
It wasn’t clean from start to finish, but Gonzaga did enough to survive and bank a meaningful win.
The night’s ugliest result came in Pullman, where Washington State was beaten 76-61 by Davidson. The Cougars never really settled in after a slow start, and Jamari Phillips was the only starter to reach double figures with 11 points.
Washington State shot just 35% from the field and went 5-for-24 from three, a rough offensive night by any standard. Davidson may turn into a solid A-10 team, but this was still a tough loss for a program trying to climb back toward competitiveness.
Elsewhere, Utah State and Oregon State both took care of business against Big Sky opponents in convincing fashion. Utah State rolled past Idaho State 94-58 behind 26 points from Kingston Tosi.
Oregon State was even more dominant, blasting Weber State 102-61 with Daniel Freitag scoring 23 points. The competition level was lower, but for two teams with top-50 potential and at-large hopes, those kinds of wins still matter.
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