Mark Few

It's hard to believe you started year six with him.

I feel like he was just on Mark Few's staff.

Stop

doing this.

All right, folks, segment two, still Andy Patton, still watching Gonzaga's podcast.

And we're still talking about Isan Almanza, the new Spanish big man for Mark Few and the Gonzaga Bulldogs.

His very windy, unique path to arriving in Spokane and his strong performance, not only at Craziness in the Kennel a few weeks ago, but against Arkansas on Saturday.

And now we're going to take a look at how we think this season is going to go for the for the 6'10 big man through the lens of our best and worst case scenario.

Like, it is not unreasonable for a third-string big or a backup big or even like a starting, you know, I mean, Gregg started a lot of games, obviously, so did Anton.

It's not unprecedented for Gonzaga bigs to be in that 70-plus percent range on two-point shots.

In a best-case scenario, Almanza's the next guy to do that for Mark Few's club in Spokane.

He also is a very good free throw shooter.

Javon Bennett did not look good in this game.

We'll get more into that in a second, but 0 of 4 from 3 for a guy who we've been kind of highlighting as a big time three-point shooter he wasn't an insanely efficient shooter last year at Dayton we took seven threes per game Mark Few called him the best three-point shooter on the roster and he did not he went 0-4 in this game Nathan D'Souza was one of eight just a horrific shooting performance from D'Souza again we'll get more into that in a second um Brayden Huff was one of three.

That's kind of in line with who he's been as a three-point shooter.

That's fine to me.

Hopefully the stay on that lawsuit gets reversed the way it did for the Ohio case.

But Whether that actually happens or not is anybody's guess at this point.

Also, Mark Few made it clear that Javon Bennett didn't find out he was actually eligible to play in this game until right beforehand.

And Few actually kind of made that as an excuse for Bennett.

I'm still jacked from watching these freshmen pay off the way that we thought they would pay off.

And, in fact, they not only impressed us, but they impressed Mark Few, Gonzaga head basketball coach.

I mean, I thought their bodies didn't look like a freshman.

And they played physical.

Guy, it was interesting that he said that about Mika.

And one, I'd kind of like to know what you thought.

And I don't think anybody asked Mark Few about the Abdu Torre technical and him trying to, you know, trying to.

To trip Mika.

But let me say this, too.

That team right there with Fogle, I told Mark after, I grabbed him and I said, you played Fogle, we get beat by 20 today.

Off the bounce, the kid's a pro.

And he didn't play him today because he's OK, but he just said, you know, he just banged up his knee and I want to leave him out.

And their first game is a hard game.

But they're good.

And Mark does great.

He's a Hall of Fame coach.

Hogs within one.

And Mark Few wants a 30-second timeout.

J.J. Andrews with the Deuce and the Hogs, again, winning 76-72.

They're 1-0 in the exhibition year.

And when you were that guy, when you've got that kind of, as they say, that ice water in your veins, he's the guy I'm going to rely on.

When we need a shot down the stretch, he's the guy I want to rely on.

Here's what Mark Few had to say about Arkansas's freshmen.

I mean, I thought their bodies didn't look like a freshman.

Yeah.

Mark Few is a clown.

Did you see him going after Mika Miranen? No, I didn't.

Oh, yeah, that was the thing.

Yeah, I saw that.

Yeah.

And then Mark Few in the postgame said Mika is an incredible talent.

He needs to focus on the basketball portion of his game to get where he wants to go instead of all the other nonsense.

He can do it, but it's a hook.

But Mark Few teaches that.

Drew Timmy used to do it.

They've had some bigs.

There's a couple of times where it felt like he should be dunking, whereas like you want him to he looks like he has the ability to go to the whole heart and dunk that thing.

But he just put so much.

time and effort into that little that little hook floater push whatever flow you know that's just very soft touch arsenal soft touch shots uh he i was talking to him about this after the last game uh and he said mark few called it an 80 shot he makes it 80 of the time and it does kind of feel like that like that's his shot so i actually don't I don't mind that he doesn't go up like to dunk sometimes.

Cause he just feels like he's got that type of energy.