The Rem Bakamus farewell tour begins

Last year, all you ever heard about was the Monmouth bench celebrations. But let’s be honest, we here in Gonzaga land know who the most inventive bench celebrator in college hoops is.

Right off the bat, let’s take a look at senior Rem Bakamus’ power stance. He keeps his center of gravity low, which allows for maximum movement on the upper torso and neck area. His picking hand is locked at the proper angle for the ability to shred notes. I’m not sure what his hand is doing so far up the neck, but we can only assume that Rem destroys custom-built air guitars.

He has an unlimited repository of creativity that can only be tapped when the cameras make the correct decision to zoom in on the Gonzaga bench after a big play.

That creative celebration was humbly called the three taco. The important thing to note about Rem’s celebrations are they are spontaneity at its best. They are solo acts of unadulterated enthusiasm and excitement. There is no Gonzaga bench without Rem.

Rem’s talents expand beyond his ability to celebrate. He is a delightful Twitter follow and one of the more active members of the team on social media. That has provided him for the training to destroy fools on the internet.

Note the date of that tweet as it just happens to coincide with the day that Gonzaga kicked BYU out of the WCC Tournament. Like the good BYU fans that they are, they decided to trash talk after the loss. Rem said no.

This has been Rem’s fifth year at Gonzaga, and all good rides have to come to an end. Some of the best senior night moments are the times when the bench gets their chance to start, and when BYU struts into the Kennel on Feb. 25, 2017, the screams reverberating through the walls into the crisp winter air of Spokane should be as loud as they have ever been. Because on that day, Gonzaga will retire as colorful member of the squad as there has been in quite some time.