Corey Kispert’s versatility will be on full display next season

No apologies needed if you have slept on incoming Gonzaga freshman Corey Kispert. He missed much of his senior season after all with a broken foot, and, generally speaking, that is when the college basketball world really gets stoked on its incoming recruits.

Which isn’t to say we shouldn’t be excited about Kispert in a Gonzaga uniform. The four-star recruit out of King’s High School in Seattle(ish) is the No. 4 ranked player in the state of Washington and the No. 25 ranked winger, according to 247 Sports.

That winger tag is rather important, because for quite a while, the three spot has been a rotational spot for the Zags. Players have been able to play it for spells over the years, and we’ve had some grad transfers with Byron Wesley and Jordan Mathews filling that role. But for many Zag fans, they haven’t seen the squad with a legitimate homegrown wing for much of their fandom.

The Zags, especially in the backcourt, are weirdly loaded next season. Barring injury, there isn’t a single reason why Kispert won’t be able to garner meaningful minutes, and if the hype is real, those minutes will be some real quality basketball.

As of the latest listings, Kispert measures up to be 6’6 and 215 pounds, which makes him a nightmare to defend on the wing. He can abuse smaller guards in defensive mismatches, and he has demonstrated an ability to shoot the lights out of the ball in high school. So much so, in fact, that inside scooper Rem Bakamus hinted we might even see Kispert taking some time at the two spot as well.

That is an interesting posit, because the Zags also have Silas Melson and Zach Norvell to provide legitimate minutes at the two guard too. Just this talk about the versatility of Kispert lends itself to something many of these player profiles have been speaking to: we might be looking at one of the more versatile Gonzaga lineups in recent memory.