Transfers from Pac-12 elevate Zags to Final Four

It’s 1998, back when Gonzaga’s NCAA basketball resume was all of one line, a 1995 lopsided first-round loss.

Mark Few still is an assistant coach under Dan Monson. The Bulldogs win the West Coast Conference regular season and are a victory away from their second NCAA appearance. But they are upset 80-67 by No. 5 seed San Francisco, coached by Phil Mathews, in the WCC Tournament championship game.

“It was obviously devastating,” Few said. “But I think it was great fuel for our run the following year,” when Gonzaga began what now is a 19-year NCAA Tournament streak that peaks Saturday with its first Final Four opportunity.

The Zags (36-1) would not be playing at University of Phoenix Stadium on Saturday without Pac-12 transfers Nigel Williams-Goss and Jordan Mathews, their first and third leading scorers.

In case you didn’t notice the Mathews connection, Jordan is Phil’s son.

“I was thinking about going to a school in the Pac-12,” once he decided to leave California after last season as a graduate transfer, Mathews said. “But my dad and Donny Daniels are really close so that kind of cemented it for me.”

Now let’s go further back, to the late 1970s. Phil Mathews is coaching at Valley High School in Santa Ana, Calif., and Daniels at Verbum Dei High in Los Angeles. They were roommates and close enough that Mathews asked Daniels to be a groomsman in his wedding.

“I remember the day Jordan was born,” Daniels said, “and watched him grow, grow, grow.”

Mathews grew into a sophomore starter at Cal in 2014-15 when he led the Pac-12 in 3-point shooting percentage. He averaged 13 points for a secondstraight season in 2015-16 but wasn’t fully happy even after a NCAA appearance. “You’ve just got to take a leap of faith and jump and whatever happens happens,” Mathews said. “No looking back. What happened back then I’m not worried about, but I’m glad I came to Gonzaga.”

Williams-Goss took a similar leap after his sophomore season (2014-15) at Washington when he was the leader in scoring (15.6 ppg) and assists. He would need to redshirt after transferring and did not initially have Gonzaga among his finalists. But he was talked into visiting the 7,500-student school in Spokane and discovered staying in the state of Washington met his needs.

“Their plan for me for my redshirt year was second to none,” WilliamsGoss said. “I talked to our strength and conditioning coach when I was on my visit and he had a full-blown plan already laid out for me. The coaches discussed what we would work on and we watched how they play with two guards so it could work with me and Josh (Perkins). The combination of all that and the family atmosphere was what really drew me to Gonzaga.”

The team Williams-Goss envisioned playing for two years down the road did not include Mathews, who had to pass six classes in 12 weeks last summer to have the right to be a grad transfer.

“It was pretty hard for sure,” Mathews said. “I would never do it again. It was hard in the moment, but it all paid off.”

Daniels is more expansive on what Mathews went through after announcing he would transfer in late May 2016. “He’s got a girlfriend, that’s emotional within itself. Now he looks at the building different like, oh man I miss this place. Then he had to get accustomed to being ostracized by his teammates. He moved out of the dorm into an apartment. On top of that, he’s got 16 hours to get through just to graduate. On top of all that, he’s got to get ankle surgery so he can’t play and is on a scooter going to class. People are tripping on him (on social media) because he’s leaving. Nowadays, it’s a bitch to leave.

Daniels said Gonzaga scholarship numbers were not conducive to signing Mathews out of high school but three years later “there was an opening and it worked out. He’s been a major, major part of this. I’m a big believer the reason we’ve done so well is because Jordan is here.”

He wouldn’t have been, though, had Mathews’ brother Jonah chosen Gonzaga rather than USC because there wouldn’t have been an opening. Instead, it was Jordan hitting the gamewinning shot in the Zags’ Sweet 16 victory over West Virginia.

“He went through his growing pains here but today he’s sitting in a locker room getting ready to play for a national championship,” Daniels said. “I didn’t promise that, but man it’s unbelievable. Like I told him, it’s life changing. You can put that on your resume for the rest of your life.”