Gonzaga and UCLA will restart their intriguing nonconference men’s basketball rivalry in December for the next two seasons.
In May, the West Coast powers agreed to play a two-game series. The dates have been set: December 28 at the new Intuit Dome in Los Angeles and December 13, 2025, at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, according to a Gonzaga statement.
The West Coast Hoops Showdown will take place in December and will be the inaugural college game at Intuit Dome, the Los Angeles Clippers’ new home.
Game times, television schedules, and ticket information will be revealed at a later date, but fans may learn more by registering at www.intuitdome.com/hoops2024.
Most preseason rankings place the Zags in the top ten. They return six of their top seven scorers, have added transfers Michael Ajayi (Pepperdine) and Khalif Battle (Arkansas), and wing Steele Venters is due to return from an ACL injury that kept him out last season.
UCLA was 16-17 overall and 10-10 in the Pac-12 during coach Mick Cronin’s sixth season. The Bruins, who join the Big Ten this season, return three of their top four scorers — Dylan Andrews, Sebastian Mack, and Lazar Stefanovic — while adding six transfers, including former Gonzaga guard Dominick Harris.
Other noteworthy transfers include Kobe Johnson (USC), Skyy Clarke (Louisville), Eric Dailey Jr. (Oklahoma State), Tyler Bilodeau (Oregon State), and William Kyle III (South Dakota State).
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To complete the individual reviews, the award winner
Yvonne Ejim was entering her fourth year at Gonzaga with high expectations, not only from her coaches and teammates, but also from herself.
Yvonne, a Calgary native, was a standout high school athlete who scored more than 20 points per game beginning in her sophomore year, won Miss Basketball Alberta, and represented Canada’s youth teams at the under-17 and 19 levels. Despite her accomplishment, there are no records of her high school recruitment ranking available online, unlike the other players studied so far, which is surprising given the improvement she has made while in Spokane.
After averaging only 6.5 minutes per game her freshman year, Yvonne has demonstrated near-exponential progress year after year in our program. She averaged 20.8 minutes, 10.1 points, and 5.6 rebounds in the 2021-22 season, and 27.5 minutes, 16.8 points, and 8.4 rebounds the following year.
LeBron James and Jae Crowder clashed in playoff bouts.
That’s not to say she wasn’t perfect in those two seasons; she was still developing her feel for the game, as evidenced by her low A/T ratio, 0.6 across both seasons, and high foul rate, which saw her foul out of 7 games in the ’22-23 season, as well as 7 games with four fouls, limiting her time on the floor below her season average. Her 103 fouls that year put her on the humiliating list of Gonzaga players with the most fouls in one season.
One may also argue that her impact on the game was variable, as she scored less than fifteen points in 12 of the team’s 33 games that year, including losses to Marquette and Stanford, despite her team-high points per game average. So, going into the ’23-24 campaign, one had to question how much opportunity for growth Yvonne Ejim had left to show us.
As it turned out, the 6’1″ Canadian forward hadn’t yet begun the show. A quick look at her season-ending averages may not reveal much, given that her rebounding numbers remained essentially the same, 8.7, and her scoring increased slightly, 19.7 (good enough for 27th nationally), but I would urge anyone concerned about her quality to look deeper into her boxscore numbers.
Shooting Efficiency — After averaging 51.6% and 53.4% in her sophomore and junior years, Yvonne burst this year to 60.1%, ranking thirteenth in the NCAA and breaking Gonzaga’s all-time record of 56.1% set by Kayla Standish in 2010-11. She exceeded the threshold by 4%! To put this in context, the tenth place finish is only 3.4% lower than the previous record. Yvonne didn’t simply beat the Bulldog’s all-time record; she obliterated it.
Ball Distribution – Ejim is an outstanding bucket-getter, and we want her to spend the majority of her time on the floor doing so. However, it’s comforting to know that your primary post-scorer isn’t a black hole when she gets the ball. Following her abysmal A/T ratios in previous years, Yvonne made significant progress in this area, averaging 2.3 assists per game and only 1.8 turnovers, both career bests. An exceptional player must be able to score, distribute, and protect the ball, and Ejim is doing just that.
Foul Trouble – While reducing her fouls per game from 3.1 to 2.6 may not appear significant, I believe this evolution had a significant impact in Ejim’s development and in helping this squad reach its best. She fouled out only four times this year and had four fouls in five games. If we eliminate the first month of the season, the figures drop to 2 and 3. Having Yvonne on the court was critical for this team to realize its offensive and defensive potential.
Her defensive box plus/minus of 3.7 doesn’t really provide a whole picture of her contribution on that end, but if you watched some of the games this year, you’ll recall how the team’s defense appeared a little off without her in the paint.
Consistency – while I may be accused of being overly critical of her ups and downs during the 22-23 season, it’s difficult not to be when compared to her performance this season. Yvonne scored at least ten points in each of 34 games, less than fourteen in only four, and more than twenty in seventeen. She also set the Gonzaga all-time season record for player efficiency rating (43.5), surpassing Courtney Vandersloot’s rating of 41.3 in 2010-11.
Fortunately, readers of this site weren’t the only ones who recognized Ejim’s contribution on and off the court this year, as she received so many honors that she’ll need a new showcase:
WCC Player of the Year.
WCC Defensive Player of the Year and All-WCC First Team.
6 Time WCC Player of the Week.
Becky Hammon named Player of the Year by the Associated Press All-American Honorable mention.
Katrina McClain Finalist for Power Forward of the Year and Academic All-American status.
With the additional year afforded to athletes who attended school during the Covid-19 pandemic, Yvonne Ejim decided to return to Gonzaga for her fifth year. While this is certainly fantastic news for a program that has lost a lot of players due to graduation and transfer, I believe it is even more incredible that we will be able to see this dynamo develop and play another year for our program.
What was your favorite Yvonne Ejim moment during the 23-24 season? Was it her 27-12 performance in the upset against Stanford? Was it her 25-14 explosion versus UCI in the first round of the NCAA Tournament? Was it her contagious energy and smile as they roared off the bench to celebrate the team’s victory in Spokane that helped them advance to the Sweet 16? Was it anything else entirely?
