Canada guard and Gonzaga commit Manny Arop goes up for a shot attempt against Puerto Rico.

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AAU News:

-- We're only a week into the July AAU Evaluation period but their have already been a number of major tournaments and skills camps.  The adidas It Takes 5ive event and the King City Classic both wrapped up this week in Ohio.  The two events only had a couple of Gonzaga prospects and in all reality, only one of them still is likely to become a Bulldog.  Cameroon native Yannick Atanga plays for Impact Basketball but it has been so hard to get information from the tournament that all we know is that his team made it to the final four of the 17s gold tournament after placing second in their pool of three. 

-- The other tournament that we had circled on our calendar was the Chicago Summer Classic which is going on in the Windy City as we speak.  The CSC wasn't getting as much as the hype as the adidas event or even the King City Classic but it had plenty of potential for Gonzaga fans.  Net Gain Sports, based out of Minnesota which features prospects like Chanse Creekmur, Doug McDermott Jr., Joe Hanstad, and Cole Stefan were supposed to take part in the tourney but we learned from our good friend The Twin Cities Hoops Czar that Net Gain pulled out of the tourney at the last second.  It is a huge bummer as Net Gain was supposed to have three games yesterday and we were counting on some juicy reports from our friend at TC Hoops.

-- The good news is that the Nike Peach Jam kicks off tomorrow in lovely Augusta, South Carolina.  The tourney will be loaded with college coaches as it features 24 Elite Nike Travel teams including Seattle Rotary Select (Gary Bell Jr.) Hopefully they are a little better at getting results across the wire than the adidas folks.

FIBA:

-- A disappointing FIBA U-19 Tournament continued for the Canadian National team last night as they were defeated at the hands of the Puerto Ricans as they battle for positions 5-8 in the tournament.  The final score only separated the two teams by two points, 67-65.  I only watched one of the games live and obviously only have a small sampling of what Canada basketball is all about but it is pretty clear to see that the coaching of this team may not be up to snuff.  After struggling all tournament long shooting from the perimeter, Canada jacked up 17 three point attempts against Puerto Rico and only made one! 

continue reading after the jump to see more about Canada's loss and the Zag's in the NBA Summer League...

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FIBA.com: 2009 FIBA U19 World Championship for Men Latest news

Game three for team Canada was a thriller against international heavyweight Spain.  Canada kept it close the entire game and battled back and forth but eventually fell 82-75.  It was another solid performance for Gonzaga's Mangisto Arop.  Manny finished the game with 17 points off of 7/15 shooting and pulled down six rebounds.  This hasn't been one of the better performances for fellow 2009 Zag commit Kelly Olynyk.   KO only converted on four of his 18 shooting attempts against Spain and only scored 10 points.  To his credit, he took advantage of Canada's height difference and pulled down 13 boards.  Canada, with a 1-2 record advances to the second round and moves into group F with Croatia, Spain, Argentina, and Kazakhstan.

Rivals.com Prospect Rankings-2010 Rankings (Updated July 3)

Rivals recently updated their rankings for the 2010 and 2011 class last night and a few Gonzaga prospects made the list.  Gonzaga will only be losing Matt Bouldin and Will Foster next season and will have two scholarships available.  With one of those scholarships seemingly reserved by North Idaho College's Guy Marc-Michel, Gonzaga will have to be very careful with the second.  While it's possible that one of these guys could fit the bill, I'd be that the scholarship will go to someone a bit off the beaten path.  Here are the rankings for the guys that Gonzaga has been interested in:  PG Aaron Bright is at 114,  G Jordin Mayes is at 110, PF Alex Kirk is at 106, CG Keala King is at 35 C Josh Smith is at 6.

Rivals.com Prospect Rankings-2011 Rankings (Updated July 3)

With Steven Gray being the only true junior on this team, the 2011 recruiting class will only consist of one new recruit if things go as planned and the Zags don't suffer any extra attrition.  The 2011 class is so good and looks to be so promising as far as players interested in Gonzaga that I wouldn't mind holding a scholarship from 2010 and waiting til 2011 to give it away.  Two Gonzaga prospects come in very high in Rivals.com's 2011 Rankings.  Arizona guard Nick Johnson is ranked 28th and Portland power forward Kyle Wiltjer (pictured above) is at 33.  Both are studs but Wiltjer is more realistic because of location.  Johnson will likely be an Arizona Wildcat.  A dream 2011 class would be Wiltjer and Gary Bell Jr of Kentridge High in the Seattle Area.

JayhawkSlant.com - Three new offers for PF Wiltjer

More on Kyle Wiltjer from the Kansas Rivals.com page.  He recently added three new offers from Oregon, Cal, and Santa Clara.  His list now includes:

In all, Wiltjer has scholarship offers from Arizona State, Oregon State, Gonzaga, San Francisco, California, Oregon and Santa Clara. Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Maryland, Stanford and UCLA are also in-the-mix.

That is a pretty stacked list for a kid that still has quite a bit of high school left.  Wiltjer was up at Gonzaga's elite camp last weekend so hopefully he was impressed. He obviously sounds very impressed by Kansas and Bill Self and you can't blame him but it would be great to see Gonzaga go into Portland and keep their top player in the area. 


That's all we got for you today as far as Gonzaga news is concerned! Hope everyone has a safe and happy Fourth of July! 

Just a few stories to get your weekend kicked off right...

Spartans making offseason gains | lansingstatejournal.com | Lansing State Journal

ON THE SCHEDULE: MSU's 2009-10 schedule will be released late in the summer. So far, the Spartans have set dates at North Carolina (Dec. 1) and at Texas (Dec.22), with a possible home game against Gonzaga, and a likely appearance in a preseason tournament in New Jersey that will also include Florida

This was the game that I wanted the most and if we can make it happen it would be tremendous.  It looks like at this point that games with Duke and Michigan State are about to be finalized which probably means that the West Virginia game is officially dead.  We posted an article a little awhile ago trying to figure out the schedule and now it is really starting to take shape.  At this point, games with Illinois, Oklahoma have been established as well as the Maui Invitational.  Toss in Duke and Michigan State and you've got one hell of a schedule.  The only down side is that none of these games will be at the McCarthey Athletic Center.  One day maybe...

Trail Blazers Center Court: KP Pre-Draft Quotes: June 5

"Micah had a good day today. I’ve seen him at Kansas, I’ve seen him at Gonzaga. He can shoot the ball. In a league that needs shooters and size, he’s fits the bill. He reminds me a little bit of (Vladimir) Radmanovic."

This is literally the only little piece of information I could scrape together about Micah's workout in Portland yesterday so thank you to this TBCC for the info.  The quotation is from Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard who commented on all of the players yesterday.  Pritchard makes a good point about Micah's combination of size and the ability to develop into a dead-eye shooter.  Micah made a very smart decision by dedicating himself on the defensive end during his college years because the league is very friendly to tall, wiry athletes that can lock down their man and hit the occasional jump shot (Bowen, Battier).  Not to say that Downs is at that level yet but I can definitely see him developing into that kind of player and it could be the difference come NBA Draft day.

DraftExpress: Josh Heytvelt: "I’m a much different person now"

DX: During the interview sessions in Chicago, did any of the teams bring up some of the off the court issues that you’ve dealt with in the past?

JH: Yeah, I mean I talked about that stuff at every interview. I brought it up to most teams because I’m not trying to hide it, I talk about it and go through the whole process. I really put it out there that I’m a much different person now than I was back then.

DraftExpress continues to knock their NBA Draft coverage out of the park as they get a great interview with former Zag Josh Heytvelt.  Josh expresses plenty of confidence in the interview and comes across very well.  I was most intrigued by the question that I quoted above because I was curious about how much they asked him about the 'incident'.  I'm glad they are bringing it up and even more happy that Josh is taking it all in stride and discussing it.  A lot of people refuse to discuss mistakes in their past (see: baseball, steroids).  JH is doing a great thing by coming clean with all the teams and laying it all out there.  I'm also stunned by the number of workouts he has.  I think he said he has 17 in total.  I can't imagine your body taking all that travel well and when you combine that with grueling workouts, it can't be good.  The interview is a great read though, I highly suggest checking it out.

If there is one thing that America doesn't like, it is when Gonzaga is highly ranked.  It seems like everyone would rather talk about the Zags when they are off the radar and up and coming.  It's a niche of sorts, I guess.  Here we are today with a couple stories from around the net that really do confirm this fact...

From Jimmy Boyd's Locksmith sports betting site...

The 23rd ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs are 12-4 on the season. Although there are many teams across the country with better records, few of those teams are actually better than the Zags. Losses to Utah and Portland State leave me scratching my head, but this team has beaten a talented Tennessee team twice away from home, took Connecticut to overtime before losing, and crushed Oklahoma State and Maryland by double digits.

A writer from The Bleacher Report expresses some similar thoughts about the Zags in this piece...

So what does this mean for the Zags? Have they stated to the nation that they have no chance of getting past the first or second round in the NCAA tournament? Is this the end for the team that had many thinking they were destined for greatness this year?

Many say no, many say yes.

The Zags have since rebounded and posted impressive wins in the past four games. They defeated Tennessee at home, snapping the Vols' 37-game home win streak. They crushed their first three conference opponents by an average of 31 points.  These wins place the Zags at number 23 in the AP poll this week.

continue reading more after the jump...

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First of all...there's this.

God that was a great game last night.  What is even better than that game last night is the way our schedule works for the next couple games.  Mark Few may have got burned by scheduling in nonconference but the conference schedule is setting up nicely.  Two away games at Pepperdine and LMU set up two huge, huge home games against St. Mary's and San Diego.  The conference should be decided in two weeks of basketball from January 29th-February 12th because Gonzaga and St. Mary's will have matched up twice in that time. 

In other news...

I was surprised by the amount of quotes coming from the Broncos after last night's loss.  Coach Keating and little John Bryant were pretty quick to try and give Gonzaga as little credit as possible.  It's funny that this was John Bryant's last rodeo in Spokane and this is how the front-runner for the WCC POY goes out. 

"Heytvelt flopped on me a couple times in the past so I wasn't that aggressive in the first half because I didn't want to get two fouls early," Bryant said. "I should have been more aggressive in the first half. They didn't do anything we didn't expect."

I was front and center for one of those flops but come on John, against a team like Gonzaga you are going to have to force your will just a wee-bit if you are going to have any chance.  Here is a quote from Coach Keating regarding the students and their impact on the game.  I feel like Keating might be a big proponent of throwing people under the bus...just a gut feeling.

"St. Mary's has a good student section, too. It's not as big. But because of the local aspect of it, it's just as intense, maybe more spirited toward us. We handled that great. The crowd shouldn't be a factor if you're disciplined, a tough, hard-nosed team. Because they're not inside the lines, it's just noise. It's another aspect a young team is going to have to learn."

continue reading after the jump for more quotes, links, and comments...

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It's going to take a while to shake off the game I saw two days ago at Key Arena.  While it is nice to see all the praise coming in about this game being the best of the year, it feels like another choke job near the ranks of the UCLA debacle circa 2005.  It was one hell of a game but now the big concern is the emotional letdown heading into Portland State, who has the talent to shock the nation and down Gonzaga.  For now, let's just take a look around the web and see what people are saying...

-- We all know that Gonzaga is a damn talented basketball team but the major question is still whether or not they have the toughness to win in the clutch.  As of right now, I'd have to agree with the Seattle Sports Examiner in saying that this team has yet to show the ability to make the big play when it matters. 

Yet as good as it is, it's not good enough. The Bulldogs lost Saturday in the kind of fashion you might expect them to lose in the Sweet Sixteen. They just don't seem to be Ronny Turiaf- tough enough or Adam Morrison-clutch enough down the stretch.

-- Jeremy Pargo was schizophrenic in the game against Connecticut.   In the first half he was outstanding but in the second half he appeared remarkably human.  Many people did not see him pull up lame in the second half after a turnover and that set the stage for his struggles against UConn. Per Andy Katz...

The late turnovers by Jeremy Pargo against Connecticut were in part due to his cramping, according to the Gonzaga staff. That might explain why Pargo didn't feel he could get by UConn's guards the way he could earlier in Saturday's game.

-- Katz also makes a great point about the scheduling that Mark Few has done this season.  I felt at the start of the year that this slate of games was insanely demanding, especially for a team that came out of the blocks as a top-10 team.  As Katz points out...

Few admitted he may need to re-evaluate his program's scheduling. The Zags will get a tough test from Big Sky favorite Portland State Tuesday and then make two consecutive road trips to Utah (Dec. 31) and Tennessee (Jan. 7). The Zags will have played only two home games from Nov. 18 to Jan. 10. That just doesn't make sense for an elite program.

Two home games in basically two months is ridiculous.  I realize that the WCC is not a power conference and we have to play tough teams but the lengths which Gonzaga has gone to just to prove they belong has started to work against them.  Especially when you pair that with the fact that this is a tough time for any student-athlete with schoolwork and finals.  The insane weather conditions in Spokane could not have helped either.

-- One of my favorite blogs to read, Rush the Court, had a great piece on the Zags-Huskies match up.  Like many other national writers, they were infatuated with the Battle in Seattle.  They have dubbed it their game of the year so far and I would put money that the general public won't see a better game til March...

Each team brought NBA-level talent and NCAA Tournament intensity to this one, and it took an extra period to finish it off.  We really felt as if we were watching a March game in December.

-- As more of a personal note, I was happy to see this article when I was perusing the Internet.  Jim Calhoun is an excellent coach and we saw that the other day when he brought his team back from an 11 point deficit with 11:34 to play in an environment that maybe had 40 Connecticut fans and 16,000 Gonzaga fans.  Being in the student section, I was 20 feet away from Calhoun and...well...I'll just let this article express my viewpoints on him....

Almost every time a call went against his team, he berated the referees. Except he didn’t just yell. During one timeout he stood with his hands on his hips and just stared at a referee for about ten seconds. Another time he beckoned a ref with a dismissive hand motion that recalled a principal about to punish a wayward middle schooler. Consistently, though, when a referee explained the call or didn’t even respond to his antics, Calhoun would turn to the sycophantic suits on his bench, throw up his hands, and beg for affirmation. Am I right, guys? Aren’t these refs stupid?

It's never fun to have to read all the press clippings the day after a tough loss but there were a couple interesting ones which caught my attention.  As we all know the Zags fell to the Wildcats 69-64 yesterday in Phoenix. 

--Basketball Prospectus seems to attribute the loss to fatigue as well as some odd stat lines from Gonzaga's key players.

Meanwhile the Zags’ Josh Heytvelt, Jeremy Pargo, and Micah Downs were a combined 5-of-22. Austin Daye had a weird looking line: 22 points and five blocks but only three boards in 36 minutes unblighted by foul trouble. The weirdness was rooted in Daye’s defensive assignment. Few had the foul-prone sophomore guarding the utterly benign Jamelle Horne–and Horne stayed busy setting screens out top, far from the glass

--We're cursed!  This article by AOL's Fanhouse notes an interesting trend in team's this season ranked #4...

This is the third time the No. 4 ranked team has been upset by a former powerhouse turned unranked team this season. Michigan beat then-No. 4 UCLA in the 2k Sports tournament. A few weeks later, Michigan would upset then-No. 4 Duke.

--A good excuse that may hold some water is the fact that this is a very fatigued team.  They haven't played a home game in a month and have been to Orlando for a very emotional tournament, to Indiana, over to Pullman and then down to Phoenix since playing the University of Idaho on November 18th in Spokane.  In this Seattle PI article, the author breaks down just how tired this team is.

In fact, Heytvelt's only basket was a 5-foot jumper with 8:26 remaining in the opening half. Aside from that, Few said, there was no spark, no energy and the kind of disappearance that can be deadly for a team with national-title aspirations.

"Yeah, we have Connecticut coming up, and they will test our toughness," Few said. "That's why I schedule these games, and play them in big arenas. We have done that with games in Seattle, and it's part of preparation."

I'm sure people will continue to speculate and criticize the Zags for their performance yesterday but the fact remains that Gonzaga is 7-1 and that is a very good record to have at this point.  For now, we are in a wait and see mode with the polls to see how much this loss will affect the Bulldogs.  We'll keep you updated when the polls get released!

Next up is the Texas Southern Tigers who happen to be 0-8 on the season.  It appears that scheduling this game is going to turn out to be a stroke of genius.  Not only is Gonzaga a very tired team but the game against Texas Southern should be a way for them to work on the small things and get their confidence up before taking the floor against Connecticut this coming weekend.

As Gonzaga continues to climb up the national rankings, it seems that there is no shortage of GU related stories across the Internet. Here are some of our favorites stories that we have seen over the past week.

If this story doesn't get Gonzaga fans pumped for the rest of the season, I'm not sure anything can (click here to read). While we all have extremely high expectations for the team this year, it seems that the guys on the team are starting to believe in an undefeated season.

"We have a possibility of going undefeated," guard Matt Bouldin said this week. "That's something all of us are thinking about."

"It's always good to have zero losses," added Josh Heytvelt, whose rejuvenated play has been a major factor this season.

In their past five games, the Zags have beaten Oklahoma State, Maryland, No. 8 Tennessee, Indiana and Washington State -- all on the road.

While some might take this as a sign of cockiness from the Zags, I look at it as motivation for the season. With this attitude, the team will enter every game with a giant chip on their shoulder, and a strong desire to put together a historical undefeated season. I'm not sure there is any better motivation then striving for perfection.

Over at SLAM magazine, there was a terrific article about the relationship between Gonzaga and Spokane (click here to read). This was a fascinating story, as the author does an excellent job of describing the unique role that Gonzaga plays in the Spokane community. Be sure to check out the story about Matt Bouldin.

It was the importance of this team to the town, however, that grabbed my attention, maybe the strongest. Like Salt Lake and San Antonio, Spokane is kind of a one-trick pony. Yes, there are no professional teams there, but the Zags more than fill that void in both size and veracity, as they are treated like royalty both on and off campus. With the team’s prolonged success and the lack of any football team in sight (Washington St. is the de facto college team with Pullman just an hour down the road) the program is respected and beloved year-round in the city of around 200,000 people.

Rarely have I seen an author who was able to capture the reality of the Gonzaga program this well. Many people who are not familiar with Spokane don't understand how Gonzaga is able to recruit so many top prospects to the area. In Spokane, Gonzaga is the main attraction and the top sporting event in the city. What 18-22 year old does not want to be treated like a rock-star and play in front of sold out crowds every game?

ESPN recently came out with their Power Rankings for this week(click to see rankings). Much to the chagrin of Gonzaga fans, the Zags were ranked #3, in a tie with Pitt.

If the Zags proved one thing this past week it was that they sure know how to beat Kelvin Sampson's former teams. They rolled to victories over Indiana and Wazzu. Time to schedule OU?

Two things that I took from the ESPN rankings. First, why does ESPN continue to allow Dick Vitale to vote? The reason that Gonzaga was not ranked #3 on its own was because good old Dickie V ranked the Zags 5th. This was the lowest ranking that GU received from any of the 10 voters. Even more surprising is Vitale's rankings of Memphis and Xavier. In his most recent poll, Vitale has the 5-1 Tigers ranked #10, and the 8-0 Musketeers #12. I wonder if Vitale realizes that the one team to beat the Memphis Tigers this year was none other than......the Xavier Musketeers. Unbelievable voting by Dickie V!!

I also am curious how any voter can justify having Pitt ranked ahead of the Zags. As of today, the Zags have defeated quality opponents like Maryland, Tennessee, and Washington St. On the other hand, Pitt has defeated top programs like Duquesne, Belmont, Vermont, and Washington State. Let's take a look at how both these teams did against their one common opponent. Pitt defeated WSU 57-43 in a "neutral" court game in New Jersey. Gonzaga defeated WSU 74-52 in Pullman. So despite Gonzaga having a much more convincing victory over a common opponent, as well as quality victories over opponents from the Big 12, SEC, and Pac 10, Pitt continues to be ranked ahead of the Zags. Consider me a little confused by this trend.