Sean Miller joins small list of coaches to match up with Gonzaga at third school | Texas notebook

PORTLAND – It would take extensive research to compile a full list of the coaches who’ve faced Gonzaga at three different schools, but Texas’ Sean Miller is joining what’s presumed to be a very small club when his 11th-seeded Longhorns take on the third-seeded Zags on Saturday in the NCAA Tournament Round of 32.

The first-year Texas coach encountered Mark Few and Gonzaga for the first time in 2006 during his initial stint at Xavier. Few’s Zags topped Miller’s Musketeers 79-75 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, thanks in large part to the 35 points supplied by Adam Morrison.

Miller’s Xavier teams didn’t encounter the Zags again – at least not during his first stint at the school – but the Pennsylvania native accepted the head coaching position at Arizona in 2009 and took the Wildcats to the Battle in Seattle in 2011. Gonzaga won that meeting but then dropped the next three against Arizona teams coached by Miller, including an 2014 NCAA Tournament Round of 32 game in San Diego.

The Zags finished 4-4 against Miller’s Arizona teams, winning the last three matchups in 2017, 2018 and 2020.

That makes them 6-4 overall and gives them a four-game winning streak against Miller when you factor in Gonzaga’s 88-84 win over Xavier during the 2022 Phil Knight Legacy – a game that took place at Veterans Memorial Coliseum, right next door to where Saturday’s game will be held at the Moda Center.

The 57-year-old Miller spoke with high praise for Few and Gonzaga’s program during a news conference that took place roughly 24 hours before Saturday’s game.

“I think one day down the road people will reflect back on what he has done at Gonzaga,” Miller said. “It’s almost like a movie that’s too good to be true. How can you have that much success in Spokane, Washington, at Gonzaga for that long? I remember when I went to Arizona a while back. Obviously Tommy Lloyd would have been at Gonzaga with Mark Few then. I remember really starting to follow them really closely because of their success.

“I remember thinking like, God, when they lose him, or when these three graduate, I don’t know if they’ll be able to replicate what they have. I think what you catch onto is their ability to build a roster, to recruit internationally, to make great choices that fit who they are, to get it right year in, year out, decade after decade. There’s a lot of things they’ve done in an historic fashion of excellence.”

At least two other coaches have played the Zags at three different schools.

Steve Lavin went toe-to-toe with Gonzaga once as the coach at UCLA and twice at Saint John’s before linking up with Few’s teams annually in West Coast Conference Play during a four-year stint at San Diego.

Mark Pope faced the Zags as a visiting coach at Utah Valley in 2017, losing 92-69, and rarely got over the hump at BYU, where his Cougar teams went just 1-10. Pope beat Gonzaga last season as the first-year coach at Kentucky, but Few’s team returned the favor three months ago, thumping the Wildcats 94-59 in Nashville.

If the Zags advance to the Elite Eight, there could be another potential matchup with someone facing the Zags at his third stop. John Calipari matched up with Gonzaga four times as the coach at Memphis, then once more at Kentucky. Calipari’s Arkansas team is one of four playing in Portland on Saturday, tipping off after the Zags and Longhorns finish up at the Moda Center.

Miller’s offensive and defensive philosophies have evolved to fit his personnel since his first Xavier team squared off with Gonzaga, but longtime Zags assistant Brian Michaelson said virtually every one of the teams he’s presided over at all three stops have played with “toughness” and “edge.”

“I think he’s continued to mix things up and change things up,” Michaelson said. “I’d say at Arizona, he had a lot of different variations, he had some of those teams that were running a bunch of shuffle stuff, then he had some of those really athletic teams that were getting out and running and some slower-paced teams.

“I think’ he’s a really, really good coach. He’s been successful at all the stops for a reason.”

Another Real Madrid reunion

The college basketball universe is becoming a small world for Gonzaga’s Ismaila Diagne.

The sophomore center had an opportunity to reconnect with a former Real Madrid teammate and roommate, Arizona State’s Massamba Diop, when the Zags played the Sun Devils in Tempe earlier this year.

Another one is on the Texas team the Zags are up against Saturday.

Longhorns forward Declan Duru Jr. teamed up with Diagne for three or four seasons while both were playing for the Spanish ACB club’s youth academy.

“It was pretty nice, I love him as a teammate, as a friend,” Duru Jr. said. “He was my roommate when I got to Real Madrid, he helped me a lot and made me feel like family because I didn’t speak Spanish at that point. So he spoke to me in English and helped me practice and how to read. He’s a good person and a good basketball player. I loved playing with him because he’s a good passer, he’s a good post guy.”

In November, Diagne shared a similar account from his time with Diop, who spoke the same Senegalese dialect as Diagne but needed the 7-footer’s help to learn Spanish.

“They were even calling me the dad of the youth program,” Diagne laughed. “I was taking care of everybody, talking with everybody, having fun with everybody.”

Duru Jr. and Diagne lived together briefly and spent many of their hours outside of Real Madrid’s training facility playing popular soccer video game FIFA. Duru Jr., a native of Munich, Germany, used hometown team Bayern Munich in their FIFA clashes, while Diagne also stayed loyal and played as Real Madrid.

“He was a clean roommate, we would play a lot of FIFA so it was light work for me,” Duru Jr. said from Texas’ locker room on Friday. “I almost always won against him, had some good competition against him.”

Reluctantly, Diagne shared a similar account from Gonzaga’s locker room.

“I remember those nights going to bed so mad I lost to him,” Diagne said.

As underclassmen, Diagne and Duru Jr. both play low-use roles for their respective teams. Diagne had one block in two minutes off the bench for Gonzaga against Kennesaw State but Duru Jr. didn’t see any playing time in Texas’ win over BYU.

“I saw him in the tunnel after the game,” Duru Jr. said. “I gave him a big hug, talked to him and told him I’ll see you tomorrow.

Sleep deprived

After a 68-66 First Four win over North Carolina State on Tuesday, Texas’ team plan left Dayton for Portland at 3 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

The Longhorns arrived at their team hotel around 5 a.m., squeezed in sleep and were back up for a 9 a.m. breakfast before practicing two hours later.

“I think it’s pretty good right now, obviously we’re in a different time zone as well so that 3 a.m. flight kind of messed everything up and we all tried to sleep on the plane but it’s kind of tough doing that,” said Dailyn Swain, Texas’ scoring, rebounding, assists and steals leader. “We’re fine, we’re adults, that’s what we’re used to. College basketball, we’ve had late finishes even at home and gotten to sleep at 2 o’clock in the morning. That’s what we signed up for.”

It didn’t impact the Longhorns in their 79-71 win over BYU. They were in control most of the game, leading by as many as 17 points with 11 minutes remaining in the second half.

“We took that 3 a.m. flight, that really caught up to us,” guard Chendall Weaver said. “But I think after we played BYU, we kind of settled in and got today off.”