Zags Basketball Insiders Podcast: Gonzaga tips off with a loaded roster, but still plenty of questions
From staff reports
After an offseason that saw Gonzaga coach Mark Few win an Olympic gold medal, his Zags join the Pac-12 Conference and star player Anton Watson head to the NBA champion Boston Celtics, now the real fun begins.
The college basketball season? Oh sure.
But we’re talking about the return of the Zags Basketball Insiders Podcast, featuring longtime Spokesman-Review reporter Jim Meehan and TV analyst and former GU big man Richard Fox.
On Monday, the duo previewed the upcoming season, one with lofty expectations thanks to the return of four senior starters, two key bench pieces and a couple of high-impact transfers.
Following are highlights (edited for brevity):
Jim Meehan: “It’s just very rare at any program, when you have guys that are as accomplished as that core group (of) six guys (Graham Ike, Ben Gregg, Nolan Hickman, Ryan Nembhard, Dusty Stromer and Braden Huff), what they did last year, who could probably name a school on the West Coast or the Big 12 … and sign for significant NIL money – not that they’re not being compensated well at Gonzaga because obviously they’re pretty competitive – but for them all to come back to all kind of talk about ‘we think we can do better than we did, we think we’ve got guys in that locker room that we want to be with,’ that’s impressive in this day and age.”
Richard Fox: “It’s a balanced roster. That was a real challenge last year – they were very big. The front line was clearly where they had a lot of depth and were strongest despite how well Hickman and Nembhard played … They’ve got real balance this year … they’ve got a solid eight guys – four on the perimeter (Nembhard, Hickman, Khalif Battle and Stromer), four inside (Ike, Gregg, Huff and Michael Ajayi) that provides them a lot of flexibility.”
Fox: “What (are) the strengths of this group and what are some of the weaknesses? I listed depth on both sides of the ledger because it’s difficult to balance depth, particularly in college … This isn’t an NBA season where you’ve got 82 games and that depth, not only (do) you need it, but all those guys are going to have opportunities to play. How are they going to manage that is a real question for me. It’s a luxury. Mark has never been one to go deep. They’ve had other teams in the past that have had this type of quality depth but inevitably, come March, he’s down to seven, which means you’re going to have one or two guys that are kind of left out of the mix. But that’s probably a problem for another day. Ultimately these guys are going to be the ones who determine who ends up where (in) the rotation.”
Meehan: “I think (the team’s identity) evolves. It might be one thing at the outset and something different at the end – which is kind of how last year went. It was bumpy. They were a lot different at the end of the year than they were at the start and this is gonna be the same thing.”
Catch the episode here, or find it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.