Gonzaga’s Khalif Battle takes the good with the bad in exhibition loss to Eric Musselman, USC

Oct. 26—PALM DESERT, Calif. — Khalif Battle rattled off the things that didn’t sit well with him after Gonzaga’s exhibition opener on Saturday night.

He didn’t defend well enough in a game in which a single stop could have been the difference. He was hard on himself for grabbing only three rebounds. He scored 20 points and carried the Zags through a few rough offensive stretches, but he also missed key shots that could have changed the outcome.

As for the most discouraging aspect of Gonzaga’s 96-93 loss to USC at Acrisure Arena?

“Playing against my old coach, I wanted to get this one,” Battle said. “But it’s an exhibition. Kudos to him and his team, they played hard. We’re going to go back to practice and learn from our mistake.”

It was important to keep the larger picture in mind — both for Battle and Gonzaga — after the Zags came up short in their first test against someone in a different uniform.

That might have been easier for Battle if someone other than Eric Musselman was coaching the Trojans. Seven months earlier, USC’s first-year coach was drawing up plays for Battle at Arkansas, where the transfer guard spent one year before entering the transfer portal and moving to Gonzaga for his sixth and final season of eligibility.

Musselman and Battle didn’t talk at length before or after Saturday’s game, but the two traded a few worlds in the postgame handshake line. The Gonzaga guard shared a long embrace with USC assistant Todd Lee during pregame warmups and briefly caught up with two other coaches who followed Musselman from Arkansas, including his son Michael.

“He just told me he loved me,” Battle said. “His coaching staff told me they loved me and I can always reach out. In this basketball thing when you meet a lot of people, you tend to create relationships, and that was my family last year, but this is my family this year. So I’m just happy to be where I’m at right now.”

There were plenty of positives from Battle’s debut in a Gonzaga uniform. The guard’s 20 points…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/gonzagas-khalif-battle-takes-good-035900084.html

Author : The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.

Publish date : 2024-10-27 03:59:00

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