LAS VEGAS – Charles Minlend lay, face-down, in the middle of the herringbone key at The Orleans Arena.
 
As the buzzer sounded following a wild, desperate try by the redshirt junior an exhausted Minlend spent a moment reflecting. 
 
Twice, this season, the University of San Francisco men's basketball team have given Gonzaga a first-half fight, but hadn't been able to upset the conference-leading Bulldogs.
 
On Monday, in the semifinals of the West Coast Conference Tournament — an event Mark Few's Bulldogs have owned for more than two decades — USF (22-12) nearly toppled the No. 2 team in the nation. Though they fell 81-77 to Gonzaga (30-2), the Dons and first-year head coach Todd Golden made a statement.
 
"I'm proud of the way our guys competed," Golden said. "On a big stage, with a Gonzaga-dominated crowd, withstanding that early rally that they had, we competed."
 
With 22 wins on the year, San Francisco has tied the 2017-18 team for the program's most wins in a season since the program was reinstated in 1985.
 
And with a postseason run still ahead, Golden has a chance to tie or pass Pete Barry for the most wins by a first-year head coach in San Francisco history. Barry, the last Dons head coach before Golden to be hired before turning 35, went 24-7 in 1980-81.
 
Golden's team on Monday was exactly what Few expected: tough, scrappy and pesky on defense. Senior Remu Raitanen dove for loose balls, redshirt sophomore Khalil Shabazz showcased the quickness and clutch shooting that will soon make him a star in the league and redshirt junior Charles Minlend turned in his third straight superlative performance.
 
Over the last two seasons, in fact, no team has regularly challenged Gonzaga — who will now appear in their 23rd straight WCC Tournament title game — as much as the Dons. The Bulldogs' average margin of victory over San Francisco is the lowest run the conference (16 points), lower than their average margin against Saint Mary's (17.8) or BYU (18.5). This year, the Dons have led Gonzaga by an average of 8.5 points in first halves.
 
When Few prepared his team to face San Francisco again on Monday, he counseled them: Don't let up, don't give San Francisco any room down low and deny the three ball — the Dons are 12-0 this season when hitting 10 or more 3-pointers in a game.
 
The Bulldogs did all of that early, scoring on easy layups and running sniper Jordan Ratinho off the line while getting Jimbo Lull in foul trouble, en route to a 21-9 lead.
 
San Francisco then switched into a 2-2-1 press zone on defense, shaking Gonzaga out of its groove in the half court and outscoring the Bulldogs 16-4 over an eight-minute span to tie things at 25-25. USF finished the first half trailing just 40-35 despite shooting just 42% (14-for-33) from the field and 3-for-13 from long distance. All three triples came from Raitanen, who finished with 11 — one of four Dons in double figures — in his fourth straight start.
 
"It just took a while for us to get comfortable with the physicality of the game," Golden said. "I thought they were letting Gonzaga be really physical early, and it took us a little bit to understand that, and then we were able to match that. We out-scored them by four over the last 35 minutes of the game."
 
When Lull got dinged for his fourth foul early in the second half, seemingly giving conference player of the year Filip Petrusev a wider berth, San Francisco still kept pace, in part thanks to the defensive play of Taavi Jurkatamm. The Dons tied the game at 47 when Shabazz (17 points) knifed through the defense for a left-handed layup high off the glass with under 14 minutes to go. After the Bulldogs inched ahead again, sophomore forward Dzmitry Ryuny kissed a left baseline jumper off the glass to keep the Dons within two, and a three-point play by Minlend gave the Dons the lead with 11:50 left. 
 
There were nine lead changes and five ties over the next 10 minutes, until Lull — going over Killian Tillie's back for his own rebound — was called for his fifth foul with two minutes to go. The Bulldogs extended their lead to five, their highest of the second half, but with 1:03 to go, Shabazz hit a running three curling at the top of the arc to get to within one possession of arguably the best team in the nation.
 
The Dons, though, could get no closer. Minlend fired a wild jumper in the lane off the top of the backboard, then fell to the floor as time expired, having scored a game-high 19 points on 7-of-16 shooting, with seven rebounds in 28 hard-fought minutes. With a potential postseason tournament run coming, Minlend has averaged 18.7 points and 5.7 rebounds, shooting 21-of-38 from the field.
 
"He was able to create baskets, especially late, when we needed it," Golden said. "He stepped up his game over the last couple weeks to another level, and he's getting better and better. Without him, it wouldn't have been as close of a game."
 
The Dons now play the waiting game. USF will away the NIT selection committee to see where they play next.  The NIT selection show is at 5:30 p.m. PT on Sunday, Mar. 15 on ESPNU.