USA TODAY International Edition
Gonzaga’s Few gets players to jell
SPOKANE, WASH. The Gonzaga men’s basketball program lost 70% of its points and 65% of its rebounds from last season’s team and welcomed nine new players for this season. Those numbers persuaded Mark Few to do something he’d never done with his teams in 18 seasons as the Bulldogs head coach. He took them camping. In September, once every player was on campus, they loaded up for a weekend trip into the woods an hour north of Spokane. Players pitched their own tents and built their own fire, some for the first time in their lives and in some cases with the help of 7- 1 junior center Ryan Edwards, veteran of the outdoors like their head coach.
Despite their varied experience in the wild, the players’ feelings about the excursion are unanimous: It was a great idea and a key reason the Bulldogs got off to the best start in school history, had a school- record winning streak, spent four weeks at No. 1 and went unbeaten in non- conference play for the first time.
“I think it was a challenge for him to take all these new guys and help jell this team together,” said Nigel Williams- Goss, one of Gonzaga’s newcomers and the West Coast Conference Player of the Year. “It kind of just seems like he knew he was going to be able to do it and all we had to do was just follow his lead.”
Williams- Goss is one of three transfers who joined the Bulldogs active roster this season after being the leaders of their previous teams. Gonzaga also integrated the first McDonald’s All- American it has signed out of high school, 7- foot Zach Collins.
“Talent- wise they would be up there with any Gonzaga team, but they only have one basketball. How do you manage that?” asked Matt Santangelo, a former Bulldogs star who serves as the team’s radio broadcast analyst. “The fact that he’s been able to manage that throughout the season — I don’t know who else can compete with that.”
Williams- Goss says the fact Few is as competitive as his players, or more so, sets a standard the team strives to meet. And he treats every one of the Bulldogs’ 16 players, no matter how or when they got to campus, the same.
“He’s very straightforward with what he expects from you as far as how hard he wants you to compete, how together he wants you to play as a team,” Williams- Goss said.