Tonight the Zags answered most of these questions in an impressive fashion with a 90-75 win over a solid Eastern Washington squad, possibly the best opening game performance of any Zags team in recent memory.

Traditionally the Bulldogs have trouble containing star guards, such as Eastern’s Rodney
Stuckey. For the first time in recent years it appears the Zags may have the guards to defensively match up against explosive scorers. Jeremy Pargo did a commendable job against Stuckey when the Zags were man-to-man and in the zone all the Bulldogs did a nice job of locating Stuckey and not giving him any easy looks. Defensively the Zags looked as good on opening night this year as the team did at any point last year, rotating nicely and for the most part containing dribble penetration, against an Eastern really tried to attack the basket and shoot three pointers. (This will be key in the next game as the Zags face high scoring Morris Almond of Rice.)

One of the key ingredients to the Zags’ success over the past few years has been their ability to out rebound their opponents by fairly significant margins, and on the glass the Bulldogs had to replace a large portion of last year’s production with the loss of Adam, Erroll, and JP. Coming into tonight this was a major concern, as the team lacked a dominant rebounder. However, the team got great rebounding from the guards, a key to be a good rebounding team, especially Pargo and Matt Bouldin. The key on the glass though was Pendo, who immediately began pulling down boards and also set the tone for the rest of the team in effort and on the glass. Pendo’s hard nosed play will be especially key for this years team who need someone to establish a workman like attitude.

Finally and most prominently people were wondering who could replace the scoring that moved on with Adam and JP. Those questions were put to rest, at least for a night, by a very balanced scoring attack which hung 90 points against a potential NCAA tournament team. Josh showed the vast array of offensive talents which people have waited two years for him to have a chance to display,
Raivio was back to his old self- knocking down numerous jumpers with defenders draped all over him, Pargo showed his maturation as a point guard, and Bouldin showed passing abilities that the Zags haven’t had since Blake Stepp graduated three years ago. Not only were there solid individual performances but the Zags executed their offensive sets much better than they had in the two exhibitions, and showed more flow and continuity than last year’s team did offensively.

After coming into the season with many questions, and facing an
Eagles team which seemed to be more experienced and ready to end the Bulldogs’ home court winning streak, the Zags answered with an inspired effort which should make the coaches and players both as happy as is possible after an opening game.