Mario Saint-Supery leaves Gonzaga for Spanish club in shocking move: ‘A basketball decision’

Gonzaga is suddenly in the market for a new starting point guard just four months before the start of the 2026-27 college basketball season.

In a shocking development, Spanish point guard Mario Saint-Supery, who emerged as the team’s full-time starter at the position late last season, has elected to forgo his sophomore season with Gonzaga to return home and join Spanish ACB club Valencia.

“Zag nation, thanks for everything,” Saint-Supery wrote in an Instagram post.

Valencia, which plays in Spain’s top professional league as well as the highly competitive EuroLeague, confirmed it had signed Saint-Supery to a four-year contract on Saturday morning.

The club is taking a significant gamble on the young point guard’s development, reportedly paying him $15 million over four years, or $3.75 million annually, according to Matt Norlander of CBS Sports. The contract would’ve ranked among the top five in the EuroLeague last season.

Saint-Supery’s father, Kiko Fernandez, told The Spokesman-Review his son made “a basketball decision” albeit a “hard one” by leaving Gonzaga after just one season.

Gonzaga’s options to replace Saint-Supery are limited just a handful of months out from the start of the season. The NCAA transfer portal is closed and the overwhelming majority of players who entered have already signed with other programs.

Members of Gonzaga’s coaching staff were blindsided by the decision and learned of Saint-Supery’s intentions late Friday night, a source told The Spokesman-Review.

Saint-Supery practiced with the Zags earlier this week and attended Domantas Sabonis’ strength and conditioning center dedication ceremony on Wednesday after returning to Spokane from Europe, where he recently played in a pair of FIBA World Cup qualifying games against Denmark and Georgia.

The 6-foot-3 guard averaged 8.6 points and 3.8 assists while starting in 17 of 35 games for the Zags last season. He earned West Coast Conference All-Freshman honors and transformed into the team’s most reliable 3-point shooter, connecting on 40.3% of his attempts from behind the arc.

Saint-Supery shared the starting point guard role with redshirt junior Braeden Smith, coming off the bench in the team’s first four games before getting his first start on Nov. 17 against Southern Utah. Saint-Supery caught a bad case of the flu before a Dec. 21 game against Oregon and handed the starting role back over to Smith on Dec. 28 against Pepperdine.

Smith started 14 games in WCC play, but Saint-Supery became the team’s starter again on Feb. 18 at San Francisco and kept the job the remainder of the season. With Saint-Supery projected to return as the team’s starter and potentially evolve into an all-conference player, Smith entered the transfer portal and signed with Notre Dame.

Fernandez, who spent roughly three months in Spokane last season watching the Zags with his wife, Amelia Saint-Supery, penned a farewell letter to GU on X.

“THANK YOU. The Saint-Supery family has had a wonderful time in Gonzaga and Spokane. Thank you, Zags, for taking care of Mario and always encouraging him,” Fernandez wrote. “Thank you for helping him improve every day. Thank you to all his teammates & staff for sharing their daily lives with him.

“Thank you to the university for always supporting his studies. It has been a wonderful year, with its ups and downs, but for our family, it has been a unique experience. We traveled cheering on the team and enjoyed March Madness.

“We will never forget The Kennel, and we will definitely be back. Basketball takes us apart, but we will never forget this year. Go ZAGS!!!”

Saint-Supery’s unexpected departure adds to a tumultuous offseason for Gonzaga’s backcourt.

The point guard’s decision arrives months after former GU signee Jack Kayil, a projected starter for Mark Few’s team, elected to keep his name in the NBA draft rather than pursue the college route. The German guard was selected by the Houston Rockets, who immediately traded the draft rights to the New York Knicks, with the 39th overall pick of the draft, but the reigning NBA champions are expected to stash him in Europe for the 2026-27 season, according to multiple reports.

Gonzaga now enters a crucial four-month stretch needing to fill at least one, but possibly two, spots in its backcourt.

The Zags have reportedly received a commitment from French point guard Nathan De Sousa, a 23-year-old playing for Cholet of France’s Betclic Elite, but the veteran hasn’t signed a financial aid agreement with the school yet or reported to campus for summer workouts. De Sousa will likely need a waiver approved by the NCAA before he’s deemed eligible to play college basketball.

Saint-Supery’s departure makes Houston transfer Isiah Harwell the only guard on Gonzaga’s roster with prior NCAA experience. Harwell, who’s expected to play a shooting guard or small forward role at GU, appeared in 32 games last season at Houston but fell out of the Cougars’ rotation near the end of the year and averaged just 3.6 points in 13.8 minutes per game.

Gonzaga recently signed French combo guard Juwan Ekanga-Ehawa, but the 18-year-old prospect who’s currently playing for France’s U-20 team at FIBA EuroBasket is largely expected to be a developmental piece for Few’s squad next season.

Gonzaga point guard commit Dooney Johnson, a Milwaukee native widely considered to be one of the top 25 high school juniors in the country, told the S-R last week at Nike EYBL in Las Vegas he hadn’t been approached by Few’s staff about reclassifying to the class of 2026, although that was prior to Saint-Supery’s unexpected departure.