The day after Gonzaga returned from its national championship game humbling, Mark Few told his players to go home. Two hit the road by the week’s end. No one remained much beyond the following week, everyone more or less back home by April 16. The Zags won’t reconvene until mid-June, a full two-month respite.
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That could easily be read as some sort of retreat, the Zags needing time to lick their wounds after the gutting end to their season at the hands of Baylor. It is not. It is how Mark Few, and thereby the Zags, do business. The coach is a big believer in detoxing from the season, and he encourages his players to get away. After Corey Kispert’s freshman season, he memorably shooed him out of the gym, telling the chronic tinkerer he’d do himself more good away from the game than knee-deep into it. Even under normal circumstances, Few would send his players out for an extended vacation, giving them a six-week or so break at the end of the school year and another in August.
This year, with Gonzaga’s classes all virtual, the coach saw even less of a reason for the players to hang around, so off they went. And off Few went, taking his family to his annual Hawaii getaway. “It’s top down,’’ says assistant coach Brian Michaelson.
There is, of course, a bit more to clarify this year. Gonzaga got to the precipice of perfection, running to 31 straight victories until running straight into the buzzsaw of Baylor. The loss to the Bears was more an evisceration, a game that was over in minutes, the final score a mere formality. Three of the top four scorers from that team — Jalen Suggs, Corey Kispert and Joel Ayayi — have elected to go pro, and Aaron Cook is transferring. Few also lost his right-hand man, Tommy Lloyd, the coach in waiting deciding not to wait any longer. He’s now the head coach at Arizona.
Ordinarily, all of that would add up to a lot of upheaval for a program, and a true need to recalibrate. Not so at Gonzaga. So well does the Zags’ train run, they most likely will start the season ranked no worse than second in the nation, their roster bolstered by the arrival of the highest-ranked recruit in program history, the top class, not to mention the guy who could be the best player in the nation.
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With Few enjoying his well-earned break, Michaelson chatted with The Athletic, breaking down player by player the reason for all of the optimism.
Drew Timme
2020-21: Sophomore — 19.0 ppg, 7.0 rpg, 2.3 apg
All discussion about Timme has to begin with a caveat: This assumes he’s coming back. All signs point in that direction. Timme has yet to announce he’s so much as testing the NBA Draft waters, but these things are fluid.
For the sake of this conversation, we are presuming he’s returning, and thereby presuming he will be the preseason national player of the year. He and Michigan’s Hunter Dickinson are the lone returnees from any of the three All-America teams, so it’s not exactly a bold statement. Granted, the last we saw Timme he did not resemble a player of the year as Baylor manhandled the Zags’ leading scorer in the national title game. But as Michaelson accurately points out, “That wasn’t just Drew. They physically dominate at every position.’’ In fact, while others might have watched that game and thought Timme ought to spend the entire offseason in the weight room, the Zags remain unperturbed. The Bears, they argue, were an anomaly, a team that had a multitude of bodies to throw at Timme, not to mention the best ball-pressure guards in the country.
So there will be no great Timme remastering plan happening in Spokane. For Gonzaga, he is near perfect exactly as he is, an ideally suited big man for the style the Zags want to play. Fleet of foot in the post, he can drive as well as push the ball in transition, and he is a skilled passer who burned collapsing defenses with kick-outs to his bevy of shooting options. “So much of what we do is predicated on all five guys touching the ball and keeping the flow going,’’ Michaelson says. “He’s great at that.’’ Timme stretched his shooting range considerably from his freshman to sophomore season, and Michaelson expects he will push it even further this year, adding an even stronger perimeter game that will open the offense up even more.
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The biggest and most critical leap for Timme, though, has nothing to do with basketball. Despite the largesse of talent, this is a very young team — and even younger when it comes to time served in Spokane. Only Timme and Anton Watson have logged two full years in a Gonzaga uniform. With Kispert gone, it falls to Timme to be the team leader. No one expects Fu ManDrew to lead like the Type-A Kispert, but no one else is equipped to fill the role. “He has a big personality and a ton of confidence, so guys are naturally drawn to him,’’ Michaelson says. “But he’s also a really smart kid, and a very conscientious kid. There will never be another Corey, but he knows what he needs to do.’’
Andrew Nembhard
2020-21: Junior — 9.2 ppg, 4.4 apg, 2.4 rpg
This is where, to non-Gonzaga fans, things might seem a little unfair. Having just enjoyed a season with Jalen Suggs, a fearless, savvy, dogged and transcendent point guard, the Zags should at least have to regroup a little bit. Groom a replacement. Nope. Few merely turns to a rising senior who arguably ranks as one of the top returning point guards in the country, and says, “Here. Your turn.”
Nembhard was supposed to be coming off a year in residency as a transfer from Florida. Instead unexpectedly granted a waiver, he returns having averaged 29.9 minutes per game. He’s not just basketball experienced, he’s Gonzaga-offense experienced. He knows how the Zags like to play — fast and furiously — and as this season proved, it suits him just fine. Michaelson ranks Nembhard on par with Josh Perkins at reading ball screens, and his 3.59 assist-to-turnover ratio (sixth-best in the country) proves how adept he is.
He’s also a more than capable scorer. Against West Virginia, remember, it was Nembhard who dropped 19 after Suggs got hurt, helping the Zags in one of their tightest games until March. But as the late-add transfer and the Robin to Suggs’ Batman, Nembhard frequently and willingly took a backseat to the other offensive weapons on the roster. That’s about to change. “You’re going to see the same maestro on offense, but Andrew really didn’t want to rock the boat last year,’’ Michaelson says. “He really sacrificed his personal scoring. He will add a lot more scoring, which will be good for everyone.’’
Anton Watson
2020-21: Sophomore — 6.9 ppg, 3.3 rpg
Expect to see more lineups where Watson partners with Timme, with the Zags able to take advantage of some depth at the big man spot (with Ben Gregg and, of course, Chet Holmgren). The local product, injured much of his freshman year with a bum shoulder, turned in a workman’s season as Timme’s relief, showing flashes of his potential.
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But the Zags need Watson to convert those flashes — a 17-point, seven-rebound, four-assist game in the first round against Norfolk State — into consistency. Watson has great hands and decent footwork, and is a good shooter. He connected on 63 percent of his field goal attempts this year. Defensively, he’s more than capable of providing the versatility the Zags thrive off of, able to guard essentially every position on the floor.
Watson is quiet by nature, but he can be too quiet as a player. His energy ebbs and flows, and with it his production. “He needs to be more aggressive,’’ Michaelson says simply. A more aggressive Watson becomes a viable option and makes a very good Gonzaga team even better.
Julian Strawther
2020-21: Freshman — 3.4 ppg, 1.2 rpg
Sitting behind Kispert does not exactly lend itself to playing time, nor does it give a freshman much chance to show what he’s made of. So judging Strawther by any semblance of his first-year numbers would be completely unfair. Instead there has to be a way to look at the what could be, and there’s a lot of could be in the 6-7 guard.
The biggest guard on the roster, he has the ability to differentiate himself with that size. He still won’t necessarily slide into starter’s minutes, but Strawther is, as Michaelson explains it, “wired to score.” Able to catch a lob pass or float to the rim, he also is a nice mismatch with a strong midrange game, and an active rebounder. He spent much of this season working on his 3-point shot, and while he is not going to be the catch-and-shoot bucket that Kispert was, he’s getting better and better from the arc.
Dominick Harris
2020-21: Freshman — 3.0 ppg
Just as it went during the season, the Gonzaga talk centers around how the Zags will replace the offensive production of Kispert, Suggs and Ayayi. No one is talking much about their defense, at least not publicly. Inside the coaches’ offices, that’s very much a topic of conversation. “We lost a ton defensively,’’ Michaelson says. “Jalen was so good on the ball, and the other two guys were so old, they just knew what to do.’’
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The solution, Michaelson believes, could lie largely with Harris, especially now that Cook has elected to transfer. Stuck behind a glut of experience, Harris, a McDonald’s All-American, didn’t get much playing time — just 181 minutes all season. But he is, by Michaelson’s estimation, the best on-ball defender on the roster. “It’s physical, the way he’s wired,’’ Michaelson says. “Some guys get in a stance, and they’re stiff. He’s flexible, just naturally gifted with the ability to sit in a stance.’’
The big thing for Harris will be committing to it. He was not unlike most freshmen, more interested in working that which comes easy than that which requires a bit more work. Defense is no fun and it comes with a lot fewer accolades, but if Harris can dig down on his defensive gifts, he will find a place on the floor. He already has proven he can shoot from the arc — he shot 39 percent, albeit with a small sample size, this season — which fills another hole for the Zags. “Dom fills a bucket or two for us,’’ Michaelson says. “He just has to step up and meet the challenge.’’
Ben Gregg
2020-21: Freshman — 0.9 ppg, 1.0 rpg
Gregg should have spent the past winter playing high school ball for Clackamas High School. Instead he played in a national championship game. With Oregon canceling its high school basketball season, Gregg elected to enroll at Gonzaga a semester early. Thrown into the fire without the benefit of a preseason or even much in the way of practice, he played in 18 games, banging every day against Timme in practice.
“He is so far ahead,’’ Michaelson says. “He understands what he has to do in the weight room. He understands what it’s like to practice. He understands the physicality and intensity of college basketball. It’s all stuff that, no matter how you tell kids, they can’t appreciate it until they do it. He did it.’’
Gregg impressed with his lack of timidity, unafraid to attack the glass or even hunt a shot when the opportunity presented. By midseason, he had jumped ahead of older teammates Oumar Bello and Pavel Zakharov, and got more time — albeit in mop-up play. Bello has since followed Lloyd to Arizona and Zakharov transferred to Cal Baptist. Already a good enough shooter to stretch the floor, Gregg now can package all of that institutional knowledge with the stuff he missed: summer workouts, real time in the weight room and an actual preseason.
Rasir Bolton
2020-21: Junior (Iowa State) — 15.5 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 3.9 apg
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The secret to Gonzaga’s success isn’t really much of a secret — the Zags have mastered the art of staying old. By any comparison, though, this team is pretty wide eyed. Timme and Watson count as the program veterans, with just two years each on campus while Nembard is the elder statesman senior, but with just one year playing for Few under his belt.
No shock, then, that the coaching staff, which has made its market on mastering the transfer market, found another player to give the Zags instant experience. Bolton started at Penn State before spending this season at Iowa State, which means he has bounced through both Big Ten and Big 12 seasons. There isn’t much he hasn’t seen. “He’s not going to be afraid of the moment,’’ Michaelson says. “There’s no game where he’s going to say, ‘I haven’t seen someone like him.’ He’ll be ready for anything.’’
Forced into the primary point guard role with the Cyclones, Bolton can now take on secondary ball-handling duties thanks to the presence of Nembhard. That will free him up to do what he does best — get downhill and score.
Most of all, Bolton is like a lot of transfers: hungry to win. He has never experienced that at the level he’s about to. Gonzaga has never had a problem shoehorning new guys into the program, the culture negating any awkward chemistry problems. Expect Bolton to be the latest to benefit from the Zags’ success.
Chet Holmgren
2020-21: Senior, Minnehaha Academy (Minnesota)
Gonzaga did not just go out and get itself its first top-rated recruit; it landed a bona fide unicorn. Holmgren is a 7-footer with a 7-foot-1 wingspan who can put the ball on the floor and shoot from outside. These sorts do not traipse about the planet regularly, let alone land at Gonzaga. Yet he is truly tailor-made for the program, a guy who should fit seamlessly into the versatile, uptempo offense with his ability to stretch the floor as well as see the floor. Schooled by Suggs’ father, Larry, to do everything, Holmgren is as adept at passing as he is scoring, and tougher than his skinny frame might otherwise imply. “You look at him, and you think there’s no way he’s tough,’’ Michaelson says. “He’s got a real chip on his shoulder, and he’s fearless. Most kids these days — and this really ticks coaches off — they get dunked on and they get crushed. He’ll go contest everyone, and if he gets dunked on, he doesn’t care.’’
Alongside Timme, Holmgren has the chance to form one of the most lethal partnerships in the country, the two playing off of one another as well as their choice of high-scoring guards. But maybe above even his skill set, Holmgren comes to campus with the right sort of mindset to be a Zag. A bit of a goofball, not unlike Timme, he is a serious basketball player who does not take himself too seriously. He understands the mountain of expectations, and in some ways, the new level of expectation he brings to Gonzaga, but isn’t the kind of kid to get bogged down by it. Much like Suggs, he sought a place where he’d be surrounded by older, talented players who could help him win, as opposed to a place where he simply could shine.
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It helps, too, that Gonzaga is not your typical basketball power. The fan base is pleasant, not crazy, and while the fans long for a national title, they are not the sort who will take to the message boards in a frenzy. “Coach Few will push him to be as good as he can possibly be, but only to be the best version of himself,’’ Michaelson says. “We’re not here to compare him to anyone else. Who he is, that’s plenty good enough to be at the top of the NBA Draft, to have all of the individual accolades, and to make our team really good.’’
Hunter Sallis
2020-21: Senior, Millard North High School (Nebraska)
Before Holmgren committed, Sallis held the tag as the highest-ranked player to commit to Gonzaga, narrowly edging Suggs, who took the title last year. Yet Sallis is that rarity among great high schoolers — he’s a dominant player who doesn’t have to dominate.
A McDonald’s All-American who as a senior averaged 22 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists, Sallis was clearly the best player on his high school team, but he never played like he had to prove it. That will fit in perfectly with his role at Gonzaga.
He could easily slide into Ayayi’s starting spot, and has the skill set to fill it. Equally quick and versatile, he’s a terrific athlete who’s especially effective in the open floor. But like Ayayi, he has other backcourt options, in Nembhard and Bolton, and will be as important as a facilitator as he is a scorer. “He’s not some high-volume alpha that has to dominate,’’ Michaelson says. “He’s incredibly unselfish yet very capable of scoring.’’
Kaden Perry
2020-21: Senior, Battle Ground High School (Washington)
This is where we are with Gonzaga. Perry is a top-40 recruit who is getting little to no run when people discuss the Zags, because his teammates and classmates are that good. Part of that is due to the fact that Perry committed way back in November, and also because Washington delayed the start of its high school season. Perry was just about to start playing for Battle Ground when he injured his back last week.
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Presuming he fully recovers, Perry could be a sleeper surprise. He has work to do to realize the comparison, but Michaelson believes Perry might eventually remind folks of Brandon Clarke. The San Jose State transfer blossomed into not just the West Coast Conference newcomer of the year and defensive player of the year, but also ultimately a first-round draft pick. Perry has a great feel for the game and is an instinctive shot blocker with a great second jump.
He runs the floor well but his offensive game needs development. He needs work putting the ball on the floor and doesn’t yet have the post feel he needs. But the talent and the desire to get better are there, and time is on his side. There’s absolutely zero pressure on Perry this year. “I don’t know how long it will take, but I really think he’s going to be really, really special,’’ Michaelson says.
(Top photo of Drew Timme: Jamie Schwaberow / NCAA Photos via Getty Images)