Vince Grippi's Column

[billyberu]

I caught this snippet during last night's broadcast, not knowing who the announcers were, regarding the flow of Gonzaga's offense from Francis Williams, one of the announcers. In Vince Grippi's Spokesman Review column yesterday he gets into a bit more detail.

"Late in the first half, as Gonzaga (12-0 overall, 3-0 in West Coast Conference play) built a 30-point lead, Schatz asked Williams to select, out of the 10 or so impressive things GU does, what “really floats your boat with these guys.”
“I know I’ve said it several times,” Williams answered, “but the ball movement we love. “But,” he continued, “the skill of each of their guys in terms of handling the ball, passing the ball, being unselfish. I mean, everybody is on the same page.”
Williams, a longtime Seattle basketball coach and analyst, went on to praise how willing the Zags are to execute the game plan, focusing on Saturday’s emphasis on getting the ball inside in the first half."


Francis, being a former NBA scout and being from the Seattle area is probably well connected to the recruiting scene there. Seemingly the only location in the entire world where Few hasn't recruited well is the Seattle area, and many of the reasons have been discussed on this very board.

Now that the program has entered the ratified air of being an elite program, might this last bastion of holdouts come tumbling down? Will Mark Few begin attracting the blue-chip talent? Does this belong in the Whelping Box?

I don't know, but I welcome your thoughts.

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/20...rclass-victor/


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[GonzaGAW]

- i could be wrong, but i seem to recall coach few saying something to the effect that they do not ignore seattle talent, they keep an eye on seattle talent, but like fishing just haven't landed one yet. case in point banchero.
- you need to remember the zags recruit talent but also character, and players that will buy into the zag way of playing ball and team ball.
- i want to be careful with my words, i do not mean to suggest seattle talent and the zag way are mutually exclusive to one another. but we know the huskies recruit seattle very well, yet over the years the huskies obtain top notch talent with little positive result (i.e. tournament invites and wins). that may well be coaching as much as anything else? it is not unreasonable to understand some top 20 recruits might want to be top dog on the squad, to showcase his talents to nba scouts.
- it takes a special player/person, such as jalen suggs, who knows he is a one and done player, but is willing to commit to team ball, play the way coach wants and be content.
- the same can be said of our grad transfers over the past several years, all buy into the role coach has in mind for them, play team basketball above anything else.
- coach few knows what he is looking for, what he wants and needs, and be sure if that player is from seattle, coach is going to go after him hard and long.

[tummydoc]

Corey is from Edmonds, just north of the Seattle city limits.

[WallaWallaZag]

i would venture to guess that in the next few years, if the zags lose out on a seattle-area recruit, it probably won't be to the huskies...ie banchero.

[jazzdelmar]

Self-selection is clearly at play and it works both ways. Some kids just know they wouldn’t fit here and Few certainly does. Many coaches, perhaps Hopkins and Miller, among others, will take just about anyone with enough stars hoping to twist the system to fit the player. Banchero could become another Kamaka Hepa (who?).

[billyberu]

i would venture to guess that in the next few years, if the zags lose out on a seattle-area recruit, it probably won't be to the huskies...ie banchero.

Agree. There is a good deal of talent in the Puget Sound and they're getting a good look at a Top 5 recruit handling an explosive offense and how this directly translates to your draft capital improving.


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[ProVeeZag]

In Vince Grippi's Spokesman Review column yesterday he gets into a bit more detail.


https://www.spokesman.com/stories/20...rclass-victor/

Thx for the link to Grippi's story. We're fortunate to have Vince and John Blanchette covering our Zags. Both gifted journalists...

[DZ]

- i could be wrong, but i seem to recall coach few saying something to the effect that they do not ignore seattle talent, they keep an eye on seattle talent, but like fishing just haven't landed one yet. case in point banchero.
- you need to remember the zags recruit talent but also character, and players that will buy into the zag way of playing ball and team ball.
- i want to be careful with my words, i do not mean to suggest seattle talent and the zag way are mutually exclusive to one another. but we know the huskies recruit seattle very well, yet over the years the huskies obtain top notch talent with little positive result (i.e. tournament invites and wins). that may well be coaching as much as anything else? it is not unreasonable to understand some top 20 recruits might want to be top dog on the squad, to showcase his talents to nba scouts.
- it takes a special player/person, such as jalen suggs, who knows he is a one and done player, but is willing to commit to team ball, play the way coach wants and be content.
- the same can be said of our grad transfers over the past several years, all buy into the role coach has in mind for them, play team basketball above anything else.
- coach few knows what he is looking for, what he wants and needs, and be sure if that player is from seattle, coach is going to go after him hard and long.

As I'm sure you agree, there are plenty of high character kids from Seattle with immense talent.

I just have to think that it's far more the coaching culture there that starts when they're in 8th grade, highly impressionable, "This is what you want, the Zags are XYZ (bad) and that's not what you want. You need ABC ..." starting from 8th grade. These kids are 15-18 and I know at that age I'd be nodding my head in total agreement when my heroes say that. Even if I started to think for myself as a senior (which I wouldn't have) but even if I did, by that point it may well be too late.

I also think that it's very possible that some (and I don't know who) of those high character kids were surrounded by some of the lowest character adults and had these kids tied up with shoe companies and thus at that point it was way too late bc they know that Few, Roth, Lloyd, none of them will put up with that infecting the program. In fact, I suspect it's shoe money, or just money period, that leads those low character adults to start saying that GU isn't an option at 8th grade bc they know it's just going to be shot down by the program. It's not like Few and Co. don't know who's on the take, they know everything that goes on over there.

It has been so consistent with Seattle that there's a reason. There have been lots of kids that were both players and players with the highest character. One almost has to believe that this program probably knows by 10th grade who's an option solely by who is their summer coach and who are their adult "friends."

I think it's just the fate was set in stone by others much earlier in the process and it was set in stone in the early 2000s all bc Few just wasn't willing to play that game. I don't think that Heytvelt came just bc he was from Clarkston, hardly outside of the UW zone of influence. I suspect no one got their mitts into him early. (just used as an early example.)

[ZagsGoZags]

Steven Gray, Gary Bell crossed the state for us, and Dan D and Nigel W G after a few years.
I think we recruited Matisse Thybulle from Issaquah, but he was riveted on the Huskies.

I am sure there were other Seattle Recruits of note, but can't remember any others

[Spike#1]

Another great read by Vince Grippi on the GU - Pepp game from last night:

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/20...rmtGT5TfbDOgS4

[jagwalkley]

Agree. There is a good deal of talent in the Puget Sound and they're getting a good look at a Top 5 recruit handling an explosive offense and how this directly translates to your draft capital improving.


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We don't want ball hogs here,and they know it and go to huskies,(etc.) We play basketball.