John Blanchette: Mark Few’s adaptability to the changing world of college basketball key to Gonzaga’s continued success

INDIANAPOLIS – Roy Williams, basketball hall of famer, donned his best hair shirt Thursday and put on a hall-of-fame news conference to announce his retirement.

“These are different times, unusual ways to say things,” the 70-year-old now-former coach at the University of North Carolina said. “In today’s times, I should say that I’m not retiring or resigning – I’m opting out.”

He let it hang as a joke that may have elicited some polite smiles, then dropped the hammer.

“That’s the most ridiculous phrase I’ve ever heard in my life,” Williams snarled. “Why the hell don’t you just say, ‘I quit.’ ”

And as that bit of get-off-my-lawnness sank in, suddenly a name came to mind.

Mark Few.

Oh, not as a replacement for ol’ Roy. Although you know what? If you’re UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham, you make that call. Yes, Few has turned down school after school, job after job in his 22 years as Gonzaga’s head coach, and this year again he’s shown he can position his program to win a national championship – so who needs the Tar Heels? And the odds are 1-5 they keep it in the family anyway. But if there’s no sure-thing successor in that family, Carolina of all programs can take a swing for the fences, no?

But Few’s name surfaced: the skill set coaches will need to survive in this next decade.

College basketball’s evolution accelerates with each season – whether it’s stylistic changes, talent procurement and now the impending bombshell, the compensation for athletes’ name, image and likeness rights.

The subtext in Williams’ farewell was that his patience for aspects of that evolution had reached an end.

The more specific – and painful – rationale was self-doubt.

“I no longer feel,” he said, “that I’m the right man for the job.”

It was extraordinarily sad to hear Williams utter those words. Daggum Roy won three NCAA championships as UNC’s head coach and 903 games in his career, and however cornpone his persona, he was a beacon in his profession. That Carolina’s academic scandal which entangled the athletic department a few years ago went unpunished was unconscionable – but it started before Williams arrived, and he in fact steered players away from classes he didn’t know were phony but suspected were simply easy just from the volume of registrations.

He befriended young coaches – like Few 20 years ago. More recently, he suggested a home-and-away series with the Zags, and then followed through – bringing the Heels to McCarthey Athletic Center in December 2019.

Alas, that was his worst UNC team. This year’s team wasn’t much better, routed by Wisconsin and bounced out of the NCAA Tournament in a day.

“The last two years have been really hard … I felt like I made mistakes,” Williams said. “I didn’t push the right buttons. I just didn’t get it done consistently enough.”

But hard times have been gaining on the sport’s blue bloods and elder statesmen. Duke and Kentucky missed the NCAAs completely this season. Michigan State was among the last four in and the first two out. Jim Boeheim has had just one season of more than 20 wins in the past five. Rick Pitino is resurrecting his career at … Iona.

And Mark Few has won 30 or more games at Gonzaga the past five years – an NCAA first.

He has reached his stature – and please explain why was not named national coach of the year on Thursday – by surfing the sport’s seismic changes that come ever more rapidly, and figure to hasten the exits other coaches of Williams’ generation.

Gonzaga’s rise has fogged the amazing adaptability at the root of that success. The Zags used redshirting to spur player development. They didn’t invent but surely maximized foreign recruiting. They dipped into the transfer market before it exploded, and then on to graduate transfers. They’ll be players in the portal, finesse the one-and-dones and deal with the NIL revolution. And look at how their style of play has shape-shifted from the 2017 Final Four team to this one.

In the tournament, you survive and advance. In the game, you adapt and advance.

There were reports that the impending NIL legislation and the virtual free agency of the portal helped push Williams out. In particular, the recent defection of 7-foot freshman Walker Kessler – for whose services the Zags may be the front-runners – supposedly stung.

“They didn’t make (my) decision,” Williams insisted, “they just confirmed it … I love Walker Kessler. I can’t stand in the front of progress whether I believe it’s progress or not.”

But there is hot lava all over the landscape.

What Few has done with Gonzaga is evidence enough that there has been a course correction in college basketball, and the Zags’ recent raid on blue-chip recruits affirms that the icons no longer play on a different field. It was not the world they made, or that was made for them.

They’ll have to decide if they’re the right men for the job, or if they want to tackle the new one.