No Yvonne, no problem: With star forward Ejim away, Gonzaga women show they can still play

It was confirmed last week that the Gonzaga women’s basketball team is quite good without its top scorer and rebounder.

This much was already confirmed: The Zags are exceptional with senior forward Yvonne Ejim.

Ejim spent last weekend in Hungary with the Canada Senior Women’s National team as it tried to qualify for the Paris Olympics.

With some help, Canada earned a spot in the Olympics this summer. Whether Ejim is part of that team is still to be determined. More on that later.

It was obvious in the Zags’ two wins over Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount that Ejim was missing. Not because they missed her, but because she commands attention from opposing teams.

What fans see on the court every time Gonzaga plays is proof enough of Ejim’s value to her team. But assistant coach Craig Fortier said what Ejim does in practice wows coaches and teammates every day.

Fans see a 40-minute glimpse every game. But Fortier said Ejim does much more in practices.

Suffice to say the coaches and teammates are glad that Ejim will be back on the court this week.

Head coach Lisa Fortier stressed her team’s balance following the two-game stretch without Ejim.

“We don’t rely on one person to do anything,” she said. “We don’t rely on one person to run our offense or to anchor our defense. Or to do the rebounding. It may be a fine tactic (to scheme against one person), but it just doesn’t work against our team.”

True. If teams try to take Ejim away inside – and it hasn’t happened to this point – the Zags’ perimeter game is more than able to step up.

“Obviously, we’re a problem if we get it going from 3,” Fortier said. “We have a lot of players who can shoot it from there.”

So the question had to be asked: Was it a confidence boost to play without Ejim and not miss a beat?

“When (Yvonne) gets back, we’ll expect her to be (Yvonne). But when (Yvonne) is here, we don’t expect her to do all the things that she does all the time,” Fortier said. “It’s not like we’re asking her to do what she does on paper. We’re asking our team to be our team. Hopefully, our team realizes – and I think they know this – we can be very good if we don’t have a certain player. Last season really taught us that. We have a lot of people who were around last season, and many of them (were) hurt. We’ve done this before and we’ve been able to find a way.”

Fortier said the key is the Zags are focused on their goals.

“We’ve stuck with the game plan, that we is better than me kind of attitude,” Fortier said. “Hopefully, coming out of this (playing without Ejim) they just have confidence in themselves. Calli (Stokes) had a good weekend. She played a lot of forward this week, (Destiny Burton) got plenty of minutes and was very good in the minutes that she had, (Maud Huijbens) got some valuable experience. Some of the guards, because Calli was playing more forward, got more minutes, too. Bree (Salenbien) played well. Hopefully, it boosts a little bit of confidence of the other players and we’ll add one back and continue marching forward.”

Fortier has no problem praising her team.

“We’re playing really good basketball,” Fortier said after the Zags’ win Saturday. “We’ve been a tough offensive team all year. And the way we’re guarding, we’re just getting better. We’re a team that is eager to get better.”

The 17th-ranked Zags (24-2 overall, 11-0 WCC) hit the road for two games this week, beginning Thursday at Saint Mary’s (10-14, 3-7) and finishing Saturday at Pacific (13-10, 5-5).

Ejim received a little more than 7 minutes and 7 seconds of playing time in three games in Hungary. She didn’t score in any of the games.

Perhaps it was because most of the team had played together before. It certainly wasn’t because she couldn’t hold her own against players of equal or better ability.

The Canada Senior National team doesn’t automatically roll over into the team that will represent at the Olympics. Whether Ejim will spend part of her summer in Paris is still to be determined.

• Ejim has been named to the Naismith Trophy Player of the Year midseason team, it was announced Tuesday.

She is one of 30 players in the nation named to the list. Ejim is averaging 20.3 points and 8.3 rebounds per game. She is third in the country in field goals made (209) and ranks sixth in points (487).

Eji has scored in double figures in 30 straight games and has scored at least 20 points in 14 games this season while shooting 65.4%, which ranks sixth in the country and first in the WCC.