PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas – Three time zones away and 3,000 miles from home, a Gonzaga team that hadn’t encountered much resistance in its first five games of the season finally ran into trouble in Wednesday’s opener against West Virginia at the Battle 4 Atlantis Water .

The turmoil came early for Gonzaga, dogging the third-ranked team in the country for 40 minutes – and five more in overtime – before the Bulldogs found themselves battling a deficit that was too big in the final minute of a surprising 86-78 loss was to overcome the mountaineers in the Imperial Arena.

The result sets up a matchup many expected on Thanksgiving Day in the Bahamas, albeit not in the losers bracket, as Gonzaga (5-1) faces No. 14 Indiana (4-1) at 11:30 a.m. PT (ESPN2). 1). after former GU center Oumar Ballo and the Hoosiers were defeated by Louisville 89-61 in an earlier game on Wednesday.

The Battle 4 Atlantis first place trophy was still in play for Gonzaga with 25 seconds left in regulation time.

In a game that featured 14 lead changes, the Zags had fallen short of their standard on both ends of the floor, but were still in control of a five-point lead thanks to a timely goal from Braden Huff, who converted four straight touches during a span of 1 minute and 42 seconds.

From there, it was miss after miss for Gonzaga, who drained a long three-pointer to Tucker DeVries and turned it over on the ensuing possession. Nolan Hickman narrowly avoided a 10-second violation in the backcourt, but couldn’t fend off defensive pressure from DeVries, who took the ball away from the Gonzaga guard and drew a foul as he drove to the basket.

“This game came down to execution at the end,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. “I should have just jumped up and used the timeout when we were sitting there fighting the press. That was one of mine.”

DeVries’ free throws tied the game at 71-71 with 5.9 seconds to play, and Gonzaga’s Khalif Battle lost possession while driving around the basket, sending the Bulldogs to their first overtime since the 2022-23 loss at Saint Mary’s.

“We wanted to take (Battle) downhill,” Few said.

Downhill would also be an apt description for Gonzaga’s play on both sides once overtime began.

Unable to channel the offense through Huff – the strategy that saved GU in regulation – the Zags stagnated, shooting just 2 of 10 from the field and 0 of 4 from the 3-point line in overtime .

During the same period, West Virginia made three of its five field goal attempts and continued to get to the foul line, making nine of 10 shots from the charity stripe.

“They executed, we messed up a couple of transitions, we weren’t connected very well defensively and then we had some issues scoring,” Gonzaga’s Ryan Nembhard said. “They were simply the better team in overtime. We have to learn from it, we still have two games left, we have to finish this game and move on to the next two.”

Huff, whose 30 minutes doubled starting forward Graham Ike’s total, scored 19 points to lead the Zags and made 9 of 14 shots from the field. Ike struggled in 14 minutes, scoring just five points on 1 of 6 from the field. Battle had 16 and Hickman added 13 more for Gonzaga. Ryan Nembhard had 12 assists and just one turnover, but the GU point guard struggled to get off the field, scoring 1 of 10 points.

Javon Small scored a game-high 31 points for the Mountaineers by making 9 of 18 field throws while shooting 4 of 10 from the 3-point line and 9 of 11 from the free throw line. Most of Small’s performance came in the second half after the transfer guard scored just eight points on one of six shots in the first frame. He followed with 18 points in the second half and five more in overtime.

DeVries, the son of the WVU head coach, also overcame a slow start on offense and finished the game with 16 points, six rebounds, four blocks and four assists. The Mountaineers’ Amani Hansberry scored a career-high 19 points and grabbed eight rebounds.

“Really our entire game plan was to not make this a transition game,” WVU first-year coach Darian DeVries said. “As much as we love running, this was a game where we just thought they were better at it than us and we had to find a different strategy if we wanted to come out victorious tonight.

“I thought our guys did a really great job in both halves of trying to control the tempo and play at the pace we wanted to play.”

Gonzaga’s loss was the sixth this season for a team ranked in the top five of the AP Top 25 poll. According to ESPN’s Jeff Borzello, that’s the third-highest number in a season prior to December since the AP Poll was introduced in 1948-49.