Rugged Zags bring experienced team into NCAA Tournament: ‘They’ve seen a lot’

PORTLAND – For context, John Stockton played 107 games at Gonzaga.

The GU team opening the NCAA Tournament against Kennesaw State on Thursday at the Moda Center features five key players with more than 100 games played in their careers. Another will be in his 100th.

“It’s just kind of the way the college game has gone,” said Brian Michaelson, top assistant coach of the Zags. “The NIL has definitely made it a situation where guys are staying in college longer, and there’s still some guys who had the COVID year, and they’re filtering out now.”

The list of games played:

Adam Miller (fifth season) 150 games; Graham Ike (fifth season) 144; Jalen Warley (fourth season) 127 games; Tyon Grant-Foster (sixth season) 116 games; Braeden Smith (third year) 103 games, with Emmanuel Innocenti (third season) at 99 games.

“Yeah, by and large, they’ve seen a lot,” head coach Mark Few said. “I think they also have a great appreciation for this moment, what we’re about ready to partake in.”

Miller touched on the kind of appreciation maturity brings, understanding the moment.

“We definitely are an older group,” Miller said. “I think it shows in different ways, like being grateful, which is valuing each other’s time, how we work together, how we work individually, how we take scouts, how we take everything our coaches say. We really value our time together.”

Michaelson pointed to the Texas team also playing in Portland that has “even more games played than we do, but we’re up there in the top five in the country.”

A difference with the Zags, Michaelson said, is that they “are still playing two freshmen; a lot of those teams aren’t playing any freshmen.”

The freshmen are Mario Saint-Supery, who has experience in a professional league in Spain, and Davis Fogle, from Anacortes, a true freshman.

Miller and Grant-Foster are in their first seasons at Gonzaga, so their experience as Zags is not extensive, and required a period of assimilation.

“They’re definitely not immature,” Few said. “It’s interesting. It can be a positive in many, many ways, but it can also be a negative, especially maybe in this transfer era, where sometimes there’s a lot of things you have to undo. Not in a bad way, there’s just different systems they’ve played in, different language and terms that you see in basketball.”

That learning curve, Few said, “probably had the biggest impact on Tyon and Adam.”

Of those six key players with 100 games or more, all are transfers – Miller and Grant-Foster from multiple teams.

“There’s still a lot of different ways to build rosters,” Michaelson said. “I think it’s really important to have a balance. The way we’re built, culturally, I think a complete upheaval of 13 transfers, which some teams have done, doesn’t work for us.”

Michaelson cited some varied approaches: Michigan as another old and successful team, while Arizona plays with a mixture, like the Zags, and Duke is playing at a high level with elite freshmen.

“As far as what to expect about college play, the speed and physicality, no question, (those transfers) know what it takes,” Michaelson said. “But in a Gonzaga jersey, what that means and what we expect, that takes a while to understand.”

Kennesaw State coach Antoine Pettway drew a contrast to the Zags. “I think we’re one of the only teams that start five guys that have been with us from Day 1,” Pettway said.

Warley addressed the value of experience from different programs. “We kind of have seen it all, and we bring our shared experiences and just try to put our best foot forward to make this run in March.”