LAS VEGAS — It’s become a part of the college basketball ecosystem that when Gonzaga has a national title contender, there will be a contingent of fans who question its legitimacy because it plays in the West Coast Conference and spends months beating up on inferior competition.
That doubt must be creeping in for the college basketball media contingent, because that’s the only reason to explain how Gonzaga was at No. 12 in Monday’s Associated Press Top 25. No one had been more dominant through the first three weeks of the season than the Zags, who posted three wins over high-major teams, all by double digits, including a 27-point spanking of then-No. 23 Creighton.
This is why Mark Few routinely plays one of the best nonconference schedules in college basketball, which, in addition to some monetary reasons, brought Gonzaga to Las Vegas this week for the Players Era Festival, an 18-team field that includes eight ranked teams. And through one day here in Vegas, no one was more impressive than the Zags, who beat No. 8 Alabama, 95-85, on Monday night. Another double-digit win, but this time against a legitimately dangerous opponent.
Few, in his 27th year as head coach at Gonzaga, is hip to the skepticism. So when I started my question on Monday with “You’ve had a lot of really great teams,” he interjected, “We have,” adding he wasn’t sure one of the national reporters in the audience always acknowledges that.
“Blue blood level,” Few said.
Still running pic.twitter.com/Z0zEmnWW6k
— Gonzaga Basketball (@ZagMBB) November 25, 2025
Notable about Few’s answer when asked to compare this team to his other great ones is that he didn’t push back that its in that company. And he went a step further to acknowledging the potential of this group, immediately comparing it with his 2017 and 2021 teams, both of which played in the national championship game.
“I feel great because I think there’s room for growth,” Few said. “There’s a lot of stuff I feel like we have to clean up right now. That I feel gives us a higher ceiling, whereas our ’17 team was pretty good to go by this time. Certainly our ’21 team was clicking on all cylinders way back in the first tournament we had. So, I mean, it’s really encouraging and it’s kind of exciting from that point of view.”
It’s easy to point to Gonzaga’s age — six players in the rotation are at least 22, two are 23, another 24 and another 25 — and say this team should be good early. Tyon Grant-Foster, the 25-year-old, showed up to Monday night’s presser with ice wrapped around his knees. There could be NBA teams with an average age younger than these Zags.
But Few’s point is valid. This group is still in its infancy. Grant-Foster didn’t spend the summer with the Zags and had to sit out practice for multiple weeks when the NCAA originally denied his eligibility waiver in mid-October. The former Indiana Hills Community College/Kansas/DePaul/Grand Canyon wing had a case because he’d missed two seasons with a heart issue, and a Spokane County judge granted him a preliminary injunction on Oct. 27, allowing him to return to the court that night for an exhibition game. Grant-Foster, clearly the most talented wing on the roster, started the opener but came off the bench until the last two games.
Freshman point guard Mario Saint-Supery started his second game on Monday, playing a season-high 32 minutes. The original plan was to start fourth-year junior Braeden Smith at point guard. Smith, the Patriot League Player of the Year two years ago, transferred to Gonzaga and redshirted a year to prepare him for the job. But Saint-Supery was simply too talented to not eventually take over the spot. He played last winter with the Spanish national team, makes pick-and-roll reads like a Euro League veteran and is disruptive defensively with his instincts and his effort.
“He plays with great spirit and it’s contagious,” Few said. “And he’s far from perfect, but that spirit and his toughness and his size, and then again, he can really shoot the ball and I think that’s gonna be really important for us. We’re still ironing out some things with the crazy ass jump passes and such, but like I said, those are the room for growth areas.”
Gonzaga’s Tyon Grant-Foster is taking advantage of his opportunity to play for a contender. (Stephen R. Sylvanie / Imagn Images)
Grant-Foster can be a wild ride as well, but he’s one of the most athletic wings in the country. He raises Gonzaga’s defensive ceiling higher than maybe any team Few’s ever had. And offensively, he’s an elite cutter — alley-oops after cutting from the corner have become an every-game occurrence — and he can also go get a bucket when a play breaks down.
“He’s already changed our team with some of the plays he makes,” Few said of Grant-Foster, who had 21 points, seven rebounds (five offensive), two blocks and a steal against the Crimson Tide. “He has this ability when we have a breakdown on defense, he comes flying out of nowhere to pin it against the backboard or steal it or just make plays. He’s got a real gift. His basketball intellect, especially on that side the floor, is really high. His shot selection sometimes is moronic on the offensive end. And so we’re working on that, but I mean just his will, his heart, his fight … we weren’t running very good offense and the plays he made in the first half were just courageous and tough and just winning plays.”
Grant-Foster, sitting next to Few, closed his eyes and smiled at that “shot selection” dig. He’s been waiting a long time to get his shot to play for a national title contender and have a significant role. At Kansas in 2020-21, those wild plays pushed him out of the rotation in what was a down year for the Jayhawks. He’s clearly eating up every minute of this ride.
Big game for Gonzaga’s Tyon Grant-Foster in the win over Alabama tonight. One of the best stories and journey’s in college basketball:
2018-19: Indian Hills CC
2019-20: Indian Hills CC
2020-21: Kansas
2021-22: DePaul (Played 1 game due to medical issue)
2022-23: Missed season… pic.twitter.com/FvZVTxmj7k— Sam Kayser (@KayserHoops) November 25, 2025
Also waiting a long time for this is Steele Venters, who had two season-ending injuries in the past two preseasons and is finally getting to play for Gonzaga. Venters was the Big Sky MVP in 2023, a notable feat with Dalton Knecht also in that league. He made four 3-pointers against Alabama and gives the Zags a knockdown shooter they were missing a year ago.
Combine those wings and that point guard with the best offensive frontline in the country — Graham Ike and Braden Huff, both jump hook masters, combined for 39 against Bama — and that’s a complete college basketball team.
Despite what the rankings will tell you, the Zags deserve to be in the conversation with the likes of Purdue and Arizona as the best team thus far. And yet, Few sees this as far from where it can go.
The end destination for this blue-blood worthy program is to play once again in April. And when you keep putting elite teams in the NCAA Tournament like Few has, eventually one is going to win six games in a row and forever shut the skeptics up.