SPOKANE, Wash. -- There was no debate over who would take Gonzaga's final shot.
Adam Morrison, the team's leading scorer, hit a jumper with less than a second remaining to push No. 13 Gonzaga past San Francisco 75-73 on Saturday to bolster the Bulldog's claim to their fifth straight West Coast Conference regular season title.
Morrison scored a career-high 28 points as the Bulldogs (21-4, 11-2) avenged an earlier loss to the Dons (14-11, 5-7) and moved 2½ games ahead of Saint Mary's in the race for the regular season championship.
"They sort of set a screen and let me go to work. Derek Raivio gave me some room," Morrison said of the Bulldogs' point guard who finished with nine points and nine assists.
Gonzaga's J.P. Batista had 17 points, including two free throws to tie it at 73 after the Dons staged a furious rally in the second half. Morrison secured the win with a jumper from near the 3-point line.
Ronny Turiaf, who added 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds for Gonzaga, said the final shot was designed with Morrison in mind.
"We know what Adam can do, and he's going to get a good shot," Turiaf said. "That's the mark of a good player."
Gonzaga coach Mark Few expects those types of shots from Morrison, a sophomore.
"Adam can do that. He can really make plays and make shots, you know, just like that one at the end. It's stuff he does all the time in practice," Few said. "We wanted to go to him and wind it down and have him take the shot."
John Cox had 19 of his 25 points in the second half for San Francisco and Tyrone Riley added 23 points and nine rebounds.
Trailing by 11 points at halftime, the Dons cut into Gonzaga's lead behind the 3-point shooting of Cox. Dommanic Ingerson's 3-pointer with 1:06 remaining gave the Dons their first lead at 72-71.
"They were terrific on offense. They were hitting tough shots and they were just a handful," Few said. "Cox was making shots that were closely guarded. Riley went off on us in the first half. They were really feeling good about themselves. Luckily, we held on."
The Bulldogs built a 14-point lead in the first half behind Morrison, who was 3-of-8 from 3-point range and 12-of-20 from the field.
San Francisco shot just 37 percent in the first half, but improved to 62 percent in the second.
Dons coach Jessie Evans thought his team's better second half was the result of better play against the Gonzaga scorers.
"You can't allow Morrison and Raivio to shoot 3-pointers without a hand in their face. Once we shored that up offensively, we had to attack the zone with a different kind of set," he said. "Once we made that adjustment, I thought we got the shots that we really wanted to get."
The Bulldogs had a better game at the free throw line, hitting 18-of-27, while San Francisco was 8-of-14.
"The difference in the game was our free throw shooting, and not controlling Morrison. He's a tough cover for anyone in our league and certainly was a tough cover for us," Evans said. "We did a good job of defending him but he just elevated up over us."
The Dons snapped Gonzaga's 12-game winning streak with a 73-70 victory in San Francisco on Jan. 20. San Francisco has not won in Spokane since Feb. 10, 1989.
Frank Burgess, Gonzaga's all-time scoring leader with 2,196 points from 1959-61, had his No. 44 jersey retired in a halftime ceremony. The jersey hangs alongside John Stockton's No. 12 in the McCarthey Athletic Center rafters.
