Gonzaga’s Ben Gregg feels ‘Portland magic’ while matching career-high with 24 points in 105-62 victory

A group of photograph hunters and autograph seekers assembled inside a hallway at the Chiles Center, picking off Gonzaga players one by one as they made their way to the team bus after a 105-62 victory over Portland on Saturday night.

Anticipation grew whenever a new player passed through and reached a fever pitch when Ben Gregg made his way through a set of double doors to brave the crowd of mostly young fans.

Gregg’s signature was a popular one after Saturday’s win, understandably so after the hometown product set and matched multiple records on his way to scoring 24 points in a resounding victory for a Gonzaga team that had previously lost consecutive games to Oregon State and Santa Clara.

Gregg’s 24 points matched the highest total of his career, set earlier this season against Davidson at the Battle 4 Atlantis. The fifth-year senior from nearby Clackamas, Oregon, became the first Gonzaga player of the Mark Few era – in its 26th year – to make 10 shots from the field without missing, finishing 10 of 10 from the field and 4 of 4 from the 3-point line.

“It was great to have a game like that,” Gregg said. “Anything like that mentioned in the Few era is ridiculous because he’s been here for a long time and coached so many outstanding players. So that’s pretty special for me and just being a lifelong Zag fan, it’s pretty surreal.”

Only eight other players in West Coast Conference have made at least 10 field goals without a miss. Gregg became the first player to accomplish the feat since 2022.

“It was great. It was great obviously to come back to your hometown and play like that and see the ball go in,” Few said. “Again, they mixed up probably four defenses there, maybe even more than that with their coverages, and Ben was the one that was finding those little gaps and those little holes and taking advantage of them.”

Gregg has memories in the Chiles Center dating back to his youth, when he regularly attended WCC games between Gonzaga and Portland, always pulling for the visiting team due to his father’s ties to Spokane and the Inland Northwest.

As has become a game-day ritual, Matt Gregg posted a photo from one such game Saturday morning on the social media platform X with the caption “Young Zag fan little Ben Gregg will be back in Portland for the team he’s always wanted to be a part of tonight. Let the Portland magic begin. #gozags.”

It foreshadowed things to come.

Gregg, who was opportunistic all night from the 3-point line, knocked down two 3s inside the first four minutes and had 20 points by halftime. Gregg’s 24 points came in just 17 minutes, and the senior needed just two minutes in the second half to match his career high. He had one offensive rebound and one more assist before checking out of the game for the final time at the 14-minute, 22-second mark, with GU leading 62-37 and one point shy of setting a personal best.

“I wish, I wish, I wish,” Gregg said, asked if he’d hoped to set a career high. “But instead we won by 40, so I’m not complaining. We’re good.”

Matt Gregg was able to wrangle 18 player tickets from Gonzaga’s coaching staff for extended family and friends hoping to catch Saturday’s game.

“My dad was blowing B-Mike (assistant Brian Michaelson) up for tickets,” Gregg said. “There was still some people I saw in the crowd that I don’t think we got tickets for. But yeah, I’ve got a lot of conversations to be had after this.”

Saturday signified Gregg’s best game at the Chiles Center since a high school clash between his Clackamas team and Crater High School, led at the time by 7-foot center Nate Bittle, now a standout player for 15th-ranked Oregon. Gregg scored 23 of his 28 points in the second half of a 69-57 victory.

It was the inverse on Saturday, with Gregg getting most of his scoring done early and earning a chance to rest as his Gonzaga teammates closed out a 43-point win.

“It was good, I was like we should play all of our games here,” Matt Gregg said. “It was awesome. It was fantastic. He needed to kind of break the ice with his 3. Get that going again. I was like, I’d rather him have zero (points) tonight and 24 next week (against Oregon State), but it is what it is. We’re super happy, and he had a lot of friends and family here watching, so it was great.”

Gregg had a chance to visit with friends and relatives when the team arrived in Portland on Friday and spent time with the family’s new puppy, an 11-week-old Great Pyrenees/Bernese mountain dog named Deuce .

After Saturday’s game, Gregg exchanged words former WSU and Whitworth player Carter Sonneborn, now a graduate manager for Portland, who razzed the Gonzaga forward for shooting so well against the Pilots.

Gregg’s perimeter shooting was a sigh of relief, both for the fifth-year senior and a Gonzaga group that’s struggled at times this season.

The forward, who made 37% of his 3-point attempts last season, is shooting 26% on 2.3 attempts per game. Saturday’s return home coincided with a turnaround for Gregg’s 3-point shooting.