LAS VEGAS – Two convincing wins in two nights is a parlay that landed Gonzaga in the title game at the Players Era Championship, and has focused the national spotlight on the undefeated Zags.
Win or lose Wednesday against Michigan, and Gonzaga is sure to continue the rocket ride up from its preseason No. 21 ranking.
The 100-61 win over Maryland Tuesday looked at times like target practice for the red-hot Zags, or maybe another of those early season warmup games.
Since the Maryland match was such a surprising snooze, it might be time to question what it was about the 2025 Zags that the pollsters and pundits didn’t like before the season.
Following the 10-point victory over No. 8-ranked Alabama in Monday’s opener, Zags coach Mark Few was asked how his current team compared to some of his other great teams at this point in the season.
A little audacious to ask, perhaps. After all, Few has taken teams to the NCAA Tournament title games in 2017 and 2021. But this 7-0 start, with so many convincing wins, makes it a fair topic.
“I feel great because I think there’s room for growth,” Few said of his newest edition. “There’s a lot of stuff I feel like we have to clean up right now. That, I feel, gives us a higher ceiling. It’s really encouraging and really exciting from that point of view.”
To clarify, he sees a higher upside from their current quality of play, not necessarily a higher ceiling than the ’17 and ’21 teams, which were pretty much NCAA ready in November.
Improvement is needed, but if it all comes together? Yeah, that projection was left unsaid.
What did everybody miss?
Surely, the return of Graham Ike and Braden Huff to the frontcourt was a huge benefit. It said a great deal about this team’s prospects, given the number of attractive off-ramps they might have explored if less committed to the team.
Maybe we all thought Ike would return with his usual double-double stats line, which would be crucial, and again would earn him award recognition. But, so far, he’s seemed much better.
Somehow, he’s managed to sustain his obvious passion while playing with greater control and consistency. For instance, he had to be getting frustrated missing his first six shots against Alabama. Rather than draw a T or distract everybody with angry displays, he simply took over the game, physically dominating.
Ike opened the season with a few All-America mentions, third-team and honorable mentions and such. That could be another area where the experts failed to understand the ceiling of this Zag team, and also of Ike, individually.
Huff’s offensive skills have been obvious since he arrived. But he’s grown into the complete package, including four offensive rebounds against Alabama, and a great interior-passing connection to and from Ike.
He sank 9 of 10 field goals for 20 points against Maryland.
Here’s the big difference with Huff: The front page of The Spokesman-Review’s sports section Tuesday morning, featured a picture of Huff, growling, exuding toughness, jaw set, fists balled-up. He looked like a gunslinger in a singlet. Or the angry Bulldog logo, minus the collar.
That’s the Braden Huff that will tangle for rebounds and leave the finesse for those beautiful baseline and lane drives.
What few could have expected, given his uncertain eligibility situation, was how forcefully Tyon Grant-Foster would affect this team.
A touch of wildness in his game almost seems to be beneficial, being unpredictable on the offensive end, and scaring opponents off the boards. Alabama coach Nate Oats said during scouting of the Zags, he showed his team film of Grant-Foster “… just destroying people on the glass.”
Despite the warning, TG-F still scored 21 points with five offensive boards against Alabama. He blocks shots, gets to the rim and draws fouls. He is long and relentless and can fly, and is just the kind of athletic mismatches that opposing teams have sometimes relied upon to upset Zag teams in the past.
Tuesday, Grant-Foster only scored six points in 15 minutes.
Nor could outsiders have seen how point guard Mario Saint-Supery, at only 19, and in his first season of U.S. basketball, has been able to take control of games on both ends of the floor.
MS-S didn’t score a field goal against Alabama, but netted 10 of 11 free throws, dished six assists, and drew six Tide fouls. He’s also tall and long enough to defend, with the instinct to spear and recover any ball casually tossed into the passing lanes.
Like Grant-Foster, Saint-Supery brings an excitement to the game, both with their style of play and creative energy. Neither was really needed against Maryland. And that proves another facet to this team’s strengths: Somebody else is always capable of coming up big.
Against Maryland, it was Emmanuel Innocenti, who netted 5 of 7 3-pointers, and Steele Venters, who added four more 3-pointers to his Monday tally of four bombs.
Braeden Smith brings speed with the ball in open court, and appears reliable running the show when Saint-Supery was at times less effective Tuesday.
Adam Miller and Jalen Warley also are skilled and versatile enough to score and defend multiple spots given the need.
Seven-foot Ismaila Diagne is a ripening rim-protector who might be kept under glass “in case of emergency” in case of foul trouble to both Ike and Huff.
And freshman Davis Fogle. What do you do with this kid? He’s shown the capacity to create his own shots and then nail them. That Few tossed him on the floor against Alabama with a minute and a half left in the first half Monday shows his confidence in him. Tuesday, he scored eight points in just six minutes.
What’s Fogle’s ceiling? Maybe, as the guy sings, the ceiling can’t hold him. Will he even get much of a chance this year?
Defense? The best example of the versatility and efficiency came in the second half of the Alabama game when the Zags shuffled some new looks to shut off high-scoring guard Labaron Philon Jr., who had poured in 29 points before going scoreless for the final 10 minutes.
Put all that together, and this is a team that may go further than anybody could have predicted.
As Few said, it’s “really encouraging” and could become “really exciting.”
Now let’s see what they can do against Michigan.
