The last 20 plus years have been amazing.

[GoZags]

I can paraphrase, but GoZags will no doubt have it verbatim. Patience!

Weak effort on my part, and while I remember the game (78-40 Zags) and some of the details .... I'm not sure I have that money quote.

I know the Zags were up big at halftime and had held Tulsa to 7 points before they buried a late 3 to end the half with 10 points. I know when Tulsa scored back to back buckets midway through the 2nd half that Bill Self quipped "We're on a roll now, boys". I know when Illinois beat Minnesota in '02 to keep the Gophers from post season that Bill Self told Dan Monson "I could beat you 10 times in a row and it wouldn't make up for the thumping you gave us in Alaska".

So please, Birddog ... help us out an paraphrase ....

[gozagswoohoo]

Few has done more with lower rated recruits, per this article

Story Link: https://heatcheckcbb.com/2020/03/31/...g-nba-players/



The GU program develops the talent it signs.

POSSIBLY more of a testament to our incredible recruiting, than it is Few's amazing coaching! But definitely a bit of BOTH!

[bdmiller7]

POSSIBLY more of a testament to our incredible recruiting, than it is Few's amazing coaching! But definitely a bit of BOTH!

I wish they would have broken it down a little further, maybe top 10 recruits, top 25, top 50. Its a lot easier to get the number 5 player to the NBA than the number 95 recruit. Coach K and Calipari have class after class of top 10 - 20 recruits who are destined for the NBA in a year wherever they play college ball. Players in the 50 - 100 range are borderline NBA prospects at best coming out of high school when you consider 60 players get drafted each year and probably 25% of those are foreign players. Foreign players do help Few's numbers in this, as most won't be in the RSCI top 100 since most scouting sites dont rank them, but they would be in the US.

[Reborn]

I believe the data in the article about coaches who have players reach the NBA is misleading. The players who make it into the NBA are broken down into two groups. 1. The players who were ranked in the top 100 coming out of high school, and 2. The players who were higher than the top 100 coming out of high school. The coaches were ranked according, and of course the coaches that were ranked highest were coaches from the Blue Blood Universities: Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, UCLA and Michigan...You get the picture. Gonzaga is actually ranked #10 which I think is pretty good, and like what was said he had the most players go into the NBA that were ranked higher than 100 coming out of high school. Gonzaga has 11, which is at least twice as many as the Schools ranked ahead of Gonzaga. The school that comes closest to GU in this category are Rick Barnes (Texas) with 8, Tony Bennett (Virginia and WSU), and Romar (UW) Both of them had 7. Here are some of the players from Gonzaga that were ranked above 100 out of HS and made it to the NBA: Ronny Turiaf, Morrison, Olynyk, Hachimura, Clarke, Norvell. There were 5 others who were not mentioned.

Now I must disagree with Woohoo because he thinks that these stats show that Few is a better recruiter than coach,. I think the stats show just the opposite. The success that Gonzaga has had comes with recruits who are mostly ABOVE 100 coming out of high school. And honestly most of them ranked in that category did not make it to the NBA. So MARK Few and his staff have built one of the best programs in country with players ranked above 100, and some ranked from 75-100. AND a few ranked in top 20 or top 50.

Here is my point. Of coarse the Blue Blood coaches are going to have more players who were ranked in the top 100 BECAUSE they got the top recruits. These are the coaches who got players ranked in the top 10 and top 20 and so on and so forth, up to the top 50. They got the cream of the crop of high school players coming out of high school. So of course they are going to have the most players go into the NBA. And most of them went after one or two years. Gonzaga, on the other hand, rarely got a recruit ranked in the top 50, and when we got someone even ranked between 60 and 70 we thought we got a dang good recruit. Honestly, I'm surprised that Gonzaga was ranked that high. Gonzaga had 43% of players listed in top 100 make it into the NBA. Right ahead of Gonzaga at #9 is Michigan State. And we know that Michigan St gets more players ranked in the top 50 than Gonzaga ever dreamed of.

I think that these stats show that Few is the best coach in the country, and does develop the players he recruits. The stats show his talents clearly as a coach because he has developed 11 players ranked above 100 coming out of HS who reached the NBA, and those numbers show that he has more than twice as many players in that category. Few is winning more games with players who are ranked much lower than the Blue Bloods. So his success IS NOT based on the quality of recruits, but the quality of his coaching.

Go Zags.
AS WAS mentioned Gonzaga has the most players who were ranked above 100 coming out of high school go into the NB

[Birddog]

Weak effort on my part, and while I remember the game (78-40 Zags) and some of the details .... I'm not sure I have that money quote.

I know the Zags were up big at halftime and had held Tulsa to 7 points before they buried a late 3 to end the half with 10 points. I know when Tulsa scored back to back buckets midway through the 2nd half that Bill Self quipped "We're on a roll now, boys". I know when Illinois beat Minnesota in '02 to keep the Gophers from post season that Bill Self told Dan Monson "I could beat you 10 times in a row and it wouldn't make up for the thumping you gave us in Alaska".

So please, Birddog ... help us out an paraphrase ....

This was Self's 1st season as a head coach after taking over a Tulsa team that had been in the tournament the year before under Tubby Smith. TU in those days was a pretty good team on a consistent basis though this particular year was not their best.

At some time during the drubbing, Self reportedly leaned over to an assistant coach (probably the one that was responsible for scouting GU) and borrowed the classic line from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and said "Who ARE these guys?". Self had probably never heard much if anything about Gonzaga. IIRC, That season should have merited Gonzagas 2nd NCAA appearance but they wilted in the WCC Tournament and then got snubbed as an at large.

[Zags11]

Great stories everyone! Keep em coming!