‘He is absolutely a no-brainer.’ Steve Kerr valued insight, perspective of Gonzaga’s Mark Few when assembling USA staff

The story’s been told on more than one occasion.

In 1983, Gonzaga invited a high school prospect from Southern California’s Palisades High School to Spokane for an official visit. Forced to defend Gonzaga’s top player in a pick-up game, the recruit was no match for John Stockton, and the Bulldogs’ coaching staff later indicated they wouldn’t be moving forward with a scholarship offer.

Three decades later after leaving Spokane empty-handed, Steve Kerr apparently isn’t holding any grudges against Gonzaga, and the recently appointed USA men’s national team coach had more than a few compliments for one of his newest assistants, Bulldogs coach Mark Few, on Monday during a press conference at the Chase Center in San Francisco.

The ultimate compliment came last week when the Golden State Warriors coach called Few to ask if he’d accept an assistant coaching gig with USA Basketball as the men’s national team prepares for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

“I’ve known Mark over the years, always admired him from afar but really got to know him this past summer when he helped coach the select team with Erik Spoelstra and we really hit it off,” Kerr said Monday in a press conference hours after being officially named USA Basketball’s next coach, replacing Gregg Popovich in that role. “I think the whole room frankly, the whole coaches room, was blown away by Mark’s insight, his perspective.”

Kerr’s staff includes Few, college basketball’s active leader in career winning percentage (.834), along with the Miami Heat’s Spoelstra and Phoenix Suns coach Monty Williams. Spoelstra, once a WCC player at the University of Portland, has won two NBA championships with Miami, while Williams is one year removed from taking the Suns to the NBA Finals.

Wearing a USA Basketball cap at a Gonzaga media availability last Thursday, Few told a group of local reporters, “I just personally feel it’s as high an honor as you can get when you’re coaching.”

Few expanded: “To represent your country and to be able to do it with the greatest players in the world and greatest coaches in the world. Then quite frankly, having worked with USA Basketball for all these years, it’s just an incredible group of people. So it was something. It really was a shock and super excited for it.”

Few’s selection is partially the result of his work with USA’s select team, a younger group that serves as a practice squad for the senior team leading up to international competition.

Gonzaga’s coach was an assistant to Spoelstra on the select team prior to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and prior to the 2019 FIBA World Cup.

He was also an assistant to Popovich at the national team minicamp in 2018, a head coach for the U.S. at the 2015 Pan American Games and an assistant to Billy Donovan in 2012, helping guide the U18 team to gold at the FIBA Americas.

The résumé aside, Kerr said Few’s experience in the college game could help a USA team that will have to adjust to the varying styles of international play once it gets to the Paris Olympics. Few’s experience working with foreign-born GU players – a few of whom could be USA’s opponents in the Olympics – doesn’t hurt either.

“I think it’s wonderful to have a college coach as part of the process because the college game is different, just like the FIBA game is different,” Kerr said. “Jay Wright was amazing. Both Jay and Mark really offered insight that maybe NBA coaches hadn’t thought of because the games are so different.”

For the 58-year-old Few, it signifies another major and unlikely milestone, especially when considering the path of the Creswell, Oregon, native who attended Linfield College and then the University of Oregon with the original intention of playing college baseball.

Thirty-one years after starting at Gonzaga as a graduate assistant at a point when the school was still 15 years from making its debut at the NCAA Tournament, Few and the Bulldogs now have the country’s longest streak of tournament appearances (23), they’ve been to six consecutive Sweet 16s and have made two of the last four national championship games.

“It’s something I’ve really, really enjoyed doing and it’s been a great professional development piece for me because you’re around other great coaches,” Few said of the Team USA opportunity. “You get to spend a lot of time together, so you end up really expanding your boundaries and horizons in every aspect of coaching and administering a program and all of that. Then you just get to know guys on a personal basis, too, and how many great people there are in our profession.”

During Monday’s press conference at the Chase Center, Kerr said each of his three assistants could lead the national team if necessary, and suggested Few garnered a great deal of respect from other members of the staff through his work with the select team.

“Mark and I really hit it off,” Kerr said. “I think he hit it off with all the coaches. He is absolutely a no-brainer. One of the great coaches at any level of basketball in our country and he’s going to be amazing to work with.”