For those fans that have followed the past decade of Gonzaga basketball, it's clear that part of what has made this program so successful is the talented transfers that have come into the program. Guys like Dan Dickau, Erroll Knight, and Micah Downs have been key guys on some of the most successful teams of the past 10 years. Over the past couple of years, Gonzaga has been rumored to be interested in transfers like Taylor King and Jeff Withey, with Gonzaga being in the final three for King before he chose Villanova. With all this information being considered, you can't be completely surprised when I started to salivate at the thought of Drew Gordon finding his way to Spokane after transferring from UCLA. Gordon is a 6'9 PF who has a rare athleticism and smoothness for a guy his size. Gordon is also a true post presence, who doesn't drift out to the perimeter. Through the first six games of the season for UCLA, Gordon is averaging 11.2 points and 5.3 boards.
So I'm sure many of you are wondering what the point of this post is. I'm not trying to speculate about potential transfers or anything of that sort. However, Gonzaga will for sure have two openings with the graduation of Bouldin and Foster. Instead of trying to find a diamond in the rough in this mediocre 2010 class, why not push hard for a West Coast kid that was ranked in the top 25 for the loaded 08 class. Coming out of high school, Gordon had offers from UCLA, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Kentucky among others. You can reasonably eliminate any Pac 10 teams as potential transfer schools, since that would cost Gordon two years of eligibility. Assuming that Gordon wants to stay on the West Coast, which is reasonable given the fact he is from the Bay Area, what better school is there for a highly talented and athletic post to play at? Here is a brief scouting report of Gordon coming out of high school:A high energy player, Gordon sets the tone on the court with his hard working and athletic play. He is a terror on the offensive boards while also being an ever present shot blocking threat on the other end. In the post he can score with a jump hook, but he does need to improve his outside shooting and ball handling.
Now I'm sure I'm not the only one who is starting to get a little excited about a potential post rotation of Harris, Sacre, Dower, Gordon (this would allow Olynyk to play his natural position of SF). All four of those guys would compliment each other nearly perfectly and bring an excellent array of skills to the table. With Dower you have a guy who can score from the outside and float on the offensive end. Bring him off the bench with Gordon, who will make his living on the offensive glass with dunks and by running the court, and you might just have the best front court in the country. Hopefully we will hear some reports on potential schools for Gordon in the next couple of weeks, as I'm sure he will want to enroll by second semester so that he can be eligible in January of 2011. We will keep you updated on what we hear, and keep in mind I have absolutely no inside information that we are interested. However, I can't help but get excited about how good I think this kid is and how good of a fit it would be. One other important thing to note about Gordon is the fact that he was recruited to UCLA by Ben Howland. Howland doesn't recruit kids that don't play defense, so in Gordon you know you would be getting a highly skilled defender in the post.