Isiah Harwell and Davis Fogle Score 22 Each as No. 15 Gonzaga Routs New Mexico State 109-68

For one half, New Mexico State made the Kennel sweat. Then Gonzaga came out of the locker room and turned its home opener into a track meet. The No. 15 Bulldogs led by just five at the break, then poured in 62 second-half points and buried the Aggies 109-68 on Saturday afternoon at the McCarthey Athletic Center.

Isiah Harwell and Davis Fogle each scored 22 points, Braden Huff added 20 on 9-of-13 shooting, and Xaivian Lee ran the offense with 10 assists against one turnover. Gonzaga shot 61.3 percent from the field, made 13 of 24 from deep and handed out 23 assists on 38 baskets. It was the program's first regular-season home game as a member of the Pac-12, and the 6,000 fans in the building got a second half that looked a lot like the old days.

Gonzaga moves to 2-0. New Mexico State falls to 1-1 after its first road trip of the season.

Forty-Two Points of Resistance

The Aggies did not flinch early. Gabe Pickens opened the scoring with a driving layup, Leopold Levillain finished a Pickens feed, and New Mexico State led 4-1 inside the first two minutes. It was the visitors' largest lead of the day, but the first half stayed far more competitive than the final score suggests.

Gonzaga found its footing from deep. Harwell tied it at 6-6 with a 3 off a Fogle assist, Massamba Diop stepped out and buried a 3 to give the Zags the lead for good at 9-6, and Fogle hit two more from beyond the arc in a 37-second span. A Fogle turnaround jumper at 13:12 made it 21-11, and it looked like the rout was on.

It was not. Jason Hooten's group answered with a 10-1 run. DJ Dudley drove for a layup, Jermaine Washington converted a three-point play, Mark Lavrenov tipped one in, and Dudley drilled a 3 off a Pickens pass at 9:59 to make it 22-21. The Aggies were attacking the rim, getting to the line and making the Zags work for everything.

Gonzaga pushed the lead back to 10 when Fogle threw down an alley-oop from Lee at 5:05, but New Mexico State had one more push. KK Robinson made four straight free throws, Lavrenov and Jae'Coby Osborne scored inside, and Dudley hit another 3 off a Pickens feed with 1:14 left to cut it to 42-40. Javon Bennett settled things before the break with a 3 from Lee at 0:47 and a step-back jumper with four seconds left, and Gonzaga took a 47-42 lead into halftime.

The Second Half Was a Different Sport

Mark Few's group came out flying. Harwell opened the half with a 3 off a Lee assist, Huff scored on a Lee dish, Diop hit a short jumper and Harwell added a free throw. That 8-0 burst made it 55-42 in just over two minutes, and the Aggies never got closer than nine again.

Osborne scored twice, Adrame Diongue followed with a tip dunk and a hook, and it was 59-50 with 15:51 left. Then Gonzaga started stacking possessions. Diop slammed home a Fogle feed, Harwell buried a 25-footer from Fogle, and Huff went to work inside with a layup off a Nathan De Sousa pass and another at 12:14.

The last real Aggies moment came at 11:23, when Washington hit a 3 from Pickens to cut it to 71-60. It was also New Mexico State's final field goal of the game.

From there, Gonzaga ran off a 24-2 surge. Huff hit a turnaround, Fogle made two free throws, and Huff finished another Lee assist. After a pair of Dudley free throws at 9:34, the Zags scored the next 18 points. Fogle drove for a layup, Huff converted yet another Lee pass, and Harwell took over: a dunk, a driving layup, a 3 from Lee and another layup, all inside a span of just over two minutes. Diop capped the run with an alley-oop slam from Bennett at 5:15, and the lead was 95-62.

Luca Foster's 3 off a De Sousa assist at 4:19 brought up triple digits, Juwan Ekanga added a 3 from Bennett, and Foster's 11-foot jumper with 26 seconds left produced the final margin of 41, Gonzaga's largest of the day.

Harwell, Fogle and the Art of Giving It Away

Harwell was the best player on the floor after halftime, scoring 16 of a team-high 22 points after the break. Harwell finished 8-of-10 from the field and 4-of-6 from deep, with five rebounds and three steals.

Fogle matched the 22 points posted against Purdue five days earlier, this time on far cleaner shooting. Fogle went 8-of-13 from the field and 3-of-6 from 3, added six assists and four rebounds and turned it over only once. In the opener, Fogle needed 18 shots and the free throw line to get to 22. On Saturday the offense came to Fogle, which is exactly what a sophomore guard in a featured role should want.

Huff, a Naismith Trophy watch list pick, was nearly automatic around the rim with 20 points in 25 minutes, 13 of them after halftime. Diop gave the Zags 12 points and seven rebounds while playing through four fouls.

And then there was Lee. The Florida transfer scored 18 in the debut against Purdue; this time Lee scored only six points on 1-of-5 shooting and did not need to. Lee's 10 assists against one turnover were the engine of the second-half avalanche, and six of them came after halftime on layups and 3s that broke the game open. Bennett added 13 off the bench, including that late first-half flurry.

Where It Was Won

Start with the turnovers, because they decided this game more than any shooting split. New Mexico State gave it away 19 times, and Gonzaga converted those into 36 points. The Aggies scored five points off Gonzaga's six turnovers. That is a 31-point swing in a game decided by 41.

The Zags won fast-break points 20-4 and paint points 42-34, with 10 steals helping fuel the break.

New Mexico State did plenty right at the line, making 22 of 24 free throws (91.7 percent). Lavrenov, the transfer forward who opened the season with 17 points and 10 rebounds against Western New Mexico, led the Aggies with 19 points and went 9-of-10 at the stripe. Osborne and Dudley each scored 10. But the visitors went just 4-of-14 from 3, managed six assists all afternoon and committed turnovers in bunches, including five from Robinson in 14 minutes.

The rebounding margin was only 30-26, which tells you how many of the deciding possessions the Aggies simply gave away.

Home Sweet New Home

There was plenty of history wrapped around this one. Gonzaga entered having won 36 consecutive regular-season home openers dating back to 1988, and all 21 played inside the McCarthey Athletic Center, according to the Gonzaga Athletics game preview (opens in a new tab). Make it 37 and 22. It was also only the second meeting between these programs, and the first since Gonzaga won 80-68 in Spokane on Dec. 7, 2013.

The bigger takeaway is how quickly this rotation is coming together. In the season-opening win over Purdue in Las Vegas, Gonzaga survived on free throws and a few big buckets from Fogle. Against New Mexico State, the Zags looked like a group that already knows where everyone wants the ball. Lee is a willing distributor, Huff and Diop give the Zags two different looks inside, and Harwell and Bennett can swing a game from the perimeter in a matter of minutes.

The first half is still worth a second look for Few's staff. The Aggies scored 42 points before the break, nine of them at the line, and cut the lead to two in the final minute. Gonzaga will not get 19 turnovers handed over every night.

For New Mexico State, the second half was a hard lesson, but the first 20 minutes showed a new-look roster with real fight. The Aggies, picked sixth in the Conference USA preseason coaches poll, have Lavrenov and Dudley as reliable scorers and a frontcourt that can compete on the glass. Taking care of the ball is the obvious fix.

LSU Comes Next

Gonzaga gets a week off before facing LSU on Saturday, Nov. 14, at Spokane's Numerica Veterans Arena in the Bad Boy Mowers Series. That one will be a far sterner test of whether this second-half version of the Zags is the real one.

For full stats, see the ESPN box score (opens in a new tab).

Sources: ESPN box score, team stats and play-by-play, Gonzaga Athletics. More men's college basketball coverage on Undrafted.

Forty-two points of resistance, then 62 points of answer. In its first regular-season home game of the Pac-12 era, Gonzaga looked very much at home.

Photo: Gonzaga Athletics (file photo from a preseason event in Spokane; Gonzaga wore the same white home uniforms on Nov. 7).