Seattle U’s pursuit of rare Evergreen State sweep resumes with daunting road test at No. 7 Gonzaga

It’s the start of a new year, but Seattle U and Chris Victor have already spent two months carrying out many of the resolutions they set for themselves before the college basketball season started.

At 12-3, Seattle U is off to its best start since it rejoined the Division I ranks in 2008. The Redhawks own multiple victories against power conference teams (Stanford, Washington), have one of the top backcourt combinations in the West Coast Conference – possibly the West Coast, too – and rank No. 31 nationally in scoring defense (65.8 points per game allowed).

Something else that would qualify as a badge of honor for Seattle U in Victor’s fifth year at the helm? Beating each of the other four Division I schools in Washington in the same season.

Not a simple task by any means, but it is on the table for Seattle U (12-3, 1-1) when the Redhawks travel across the Cascades to meet seventh-ranked Gonzaga (14-1, 2-0) on Friday at McCarthey Athletic Center (6 p.m., KHQ/ESPN+).

Consider the Redhawks 75% of the way there, with the most challenging segment of the journey still to come.

Seattle U’s pursuit of the unofficial Evergreen State title began Nov. 12 with a 94-67 home win over Eastern Washington. The Redhawks picked up a shocking 70-66 win over Washington on Nov. 19 at Climate Pledge Arena and returned to the same venue nine days later to cruise past Washington State 69-55 in WCC play.

Gonzaga, which sits at least 48 spots higher in the NCAA’s NET rankings than any of those teams, should provide a substantially harder test.

That isn’t news to Victor, an ex-Eastern Washington assistant who’s resided in the state since 2015, or any of his players – a handful of whom are from Washington, are former teammates of current Gonzaga players or, in the case of senior forward Jun Seok Yeo, actually spent time on Mark Few’s roster.

“It’s not much else to say, it’s Gonzaga,” senior guard and top scorer Brayden Maldonado said Oct. 23 at WCC media day in Las Vegas. “Gonzaga, their name rings bells, they’re such a successful program. Going to Gonzaga, we went to Duke last year which was obviously a crazy environment. Going there, the Gonzaga environment is so much fun, it’s so loud, they really love basketball up there.”

There’s a lot of respect going both ways this week. Gonzaga’s coaching staff has monitored Seattle U closely since the Redhawks moved into the WCC last fall after spending 14 years in the Western Athletic Conference.

“Obviously Seattle U’s having a great year,” Few said. “I’ve watched them on tape a couple times. They’re big, they’re physical, good point guard and it’s going to be a tough one.”

The Redhawks have multiple guards who should be in line for postseason All-WCC honors come March. Maldonado and Maleek Arington bring different dimensions to Seattle U’s roster, but form a dynamic, balanced backcourt pairing that stacks up with any in the conference.

Maldonado’s 15.7 points per game rank sixth in the WCC and the Anchorage, Alaska, native has scored at least 26 points on three occasions, totaling 28 against Denver and UTEP. Arington’s scoring numbers are on the modest side (4.4 ppg), but the 6-foot-3 guard is a strong on-ball defender who averages 2.1 steals. The Auburn, Washington, native is a close friend and former AAU teammate of Gonzaga’s Braeden Smith, who moved back into Few’s starting lineup during a WCC opener at Pepperdine.

“That’ll be like a full-circle moment for me to be able to match up against him, have our families there,” Arington said at WCC media day. “It’s Gonzaga, it’s going to be fun.”

A native of South Korea, Yeo joined Gonzaga’s roster midway through the 2022-23 season but didn’t suit up until the 2023-24 campaign. Unable to break into the Zags’ rotation, Yeo entered the transfer portal after averaging 1.6 ppg as a junior. The South Korean national team member found an opportunity at Seattle U, where he’s started in all 15 games and makes his return to the Kennel as the Redhawks’ third-leading scorer (11.7 ppg).

First-year Seattle U center Austin Maurer was a teammate of Gonzaga’s Tyon Grant-Foster last year at Grand Canyon. Maurer averaged just one ppg for the Antelopes but, like Yeo, the 7-footer’s role has expanded with Seattle and he’s averaging 8.3 ppg and 5.3 rpg.

The Zags will be playing just their third game at the Kennel since Nov. 17, a span of 46 days. Home games will become more regular over the next three to four weeks, with six of GU’s next eight games taking place at the Kennel.

For the first time in Few’s 27 seasons, the Zags actually won’t have to leave the state of Washington in the month of January. The team’s only road games this month are Jan. 15 at Washington State and Jan. 17 against Seattle U at Climate Pledge.

“Yeah, it’ll be good to be back home, but we need our crowd amped up,” Few said. “Without the students, that’s the biggest challenge is to get that thing rocking even though the students aren’t going to be there.”

The calendar isn’t as friendly to Seattle U, which follows Friday’s game in Spokane with a trip to Moraga on Sunday to face Saint Mary’s, the team that’s won the last two outright regular-season WCC titles.

“We’re going to take it one at a time,” Victor said on the Field of 68’s WCC Insiders Podcast. “We’ll focus on Gonzaga, give them our best shot and once that’s done, we’ll switch gears right that night to Saint Mary’s.”