Globe trotter: Gonzaga coach Mark Few ‘fired up and so excited’ for Paris Olympics with Team USA
With virtually everything in place back home with Gonzaga basketball, Mark Few is all-in with USA Basketball in pursuit of its fifth consecutive gold medal at the Summer Olympics in France.
Gonzaga has assembled a promising roster, locked in most of its marquee scheduling matchups and players will be in the capable hands of assistant coaches this summer while Few, who is in Abu Dhabi with Team USA for a pair of exhibition games this week, serves as an assistant on head coach Steve Kerr’s staff.
It was a different scenario nearly a year ago when Few was in his first year with the U.S. team overseas and the Zags’ roster experienced several late additions (Luka Krajnovic, Pavle Stosic) and subtractions (Marcus Adams Jr. committing and then decommitting and Kaden Perry (retiring).
“That’s a huge relief,” Few said of GU having a set roster. “We were dealing with filling the roster up deep into when we were in the medal round in the Philippines last year. I was making those (recruiting) calls at weird times.
“So that really helps. And the whole staff, B-Mike (Brian Michaelson), Stephen (Gentry), Jorge (Sanz) are all experienced, (second-year Zag assistant) R-Jay (Barsh) has been here now and ‘Snacks’ (Zach Norvell Jr.) has a year in so they’ll handle things in Spokane.”
Few will still be making recruiting calls, connecting with 2025 prospects as he reconnects with Kerr and fellow assistants Ty Lue and Erik Spoelstra. They’ve stayed in close contact since the Americans fell to Canada in the third-place game at last summer’s FIBA World Cup.
They got together in Chicago last month for a planning session before gathering in Las Vegas for a short training period prior to defeating Canada in an exhibition matchup Wednesday.
“I remember we got done last year and it was seven weeks being away from your family and away from my team,” Few recalled. “It was exactly like when we were in the bubble in 2021 (at the NCAA Tournament in Indianapolis), isolated, missing your family, home, missing this and that.
“But then when you get home, after a night or two, it’s where’s my guys? We kept our group text going.”
Few called the coaching staff and USA Basketball managing director Grant Hill “just an impressive group and a fun group.”
“There’s a side of it where I get so fired up and so excited,” Few said of the Olympics. “We had staff meetings in Chicago and just sitting in a room with Steve, Ty, ‘Spo’ and Grant, I mean, ‘How cool is that?’
“I’m not even doing it justice to how good of guys these people are. So humble for all the success they’ve had, so interested in the opinion of the Gonzaga coach. And their stories are great.”