Former Gonzaga All-American Dan Dickau breaks down the most important stretch of the WCC schedule and discusses Marcus Adams Jr. leaving the program.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Welcome back to another episode
00:03 of the Gonzaga Nation podcast.
00:04 Christian Pedersen joined by Dan Dickow,
00:06 and we've got a bunch to get to on a WCC weekly episode.
00:10 Dan, last week in the span of 24 hours,
00:15 we went from really having nothing to talk about
00:18 that was super specific,
00:19 and we're still just kind of like, hey, this is,
00:20 and now we have like the nitty gritty fun details
00:23 of a schedule release that you initially talked about.
00:29 Everyone go check out that podcast,
00:30 check out all the articles
00:31 that have been coming out about it.
00:32 But Dan, you've also had a little bit more time
00:34 to sit with the schedule,
00:35 and I'm curious what are some of your further takeaways,
00:38 big games for Gonzaga,
00:39 things that you're kind of curious about,
00:41 where it falls here in the year,
00:42 what's gonna be focused on,
00:43 and then also Marcus Adams Jr. deciding to leave Gonzaga.
00:47 And again, you had an initial first breaking news thoughts,
00:50 and I'm curious more of your developed
00:53 kind of takeaways from that.
00:54 So of those two things, which do you wanna get to first?
00:58 - Well, we can go to the schedule stuff first.
01:00 I mean, I know it's one of those things
01:02 where everybody throughout the summer
01:04 is excited about the schedule, the schedule,
01:06 hey, who they play.
01:07 You know, you got the big news
01:08 about the San Diego State game,
01:10 you get the big news about the UConn game,
01:13 you start kind of piecing together
01:16 when that U-Dub game's gonna be,
01:18 when certain other games might happen.
01:21 But the big one to kind of fall into place
01:24 is the league schedule,
01:24 'cause as you can imagine,
01:26 that's the bulk of your schedule.
01:28 There's 16 games right there.
01:30 The WCC released it last Friday
01:34 with a couple new caveats,
01:35 a couple quirks to the schedule this year,
01:38 and the fact that three games in the WCC,
01:42 one of which involved Gonzaga,
01:43 will be played on Tuesdays.
01:46 That's to allow a little bit more flexibility
01:49 to get the games on big ESPN,
01:51 whether it's ESPN, ESPN2,
01:54 that'll be determined at a later date.
01:55 But Gonzaga's involved in one of those games.
01:59 - January 30th against Loyola Marymount.
02:02 - Yeah, it's a home game, that's for sure.
02:04 And it's intriguing because when you look at it,
02:07 the three games involve Gonzaga,
02:10 Loyola Marymount, San Francisco, and St. Mary's.
02:13 So if you kind of just take a step back,
02:16 okay, ESPN and their prognosticators
02:20 are probably imagining that those are going to be
02:23 the four best teams in the league.
02:25 And I don't disagree.
02:26 I think Santa Clara falls into that category as well.
02:28 I think they're going to challenge
02:30 for the third or fourth spot alongside LMU and USF.
02:35 But that's an interesting thing
02:37 that the league and ESPN has done.
02:40 You also look at,
02:42 Gonzaga does have a Wednesday game during conference,
02:46 during a lighter league week,
02:48 allowing them to play Kentucky
02:51 in the middle of conference season,
02:54 which I think is tremendous.
02:55 It's huge.
02:56 - Yeah, it looks like February 3rd, a Saturday,
02:58 they have St. Mary's.
02:59 February 7th, a Wednesday, they have Portland.
03:02 And then that subsequent February 10th, Saturday,
03:05 that next Saturday, they have Kentucky.
03:07 So Saturday, St. Mary's, Wednesday, Portland,
03:09 Saturday, Kentucky is that week.
03:12 - Yeah, and I think that's a tremendous stretch for Gonzaga,
03:16 simply for the fact that if you take a step back
03:18 and look the game before that,
03:20 it's the LMU game that I'm talking about.
03:22 So I think that four game stretch
03:24 in the middle heart of league play
03:27 is really gonna show a lot about Gonzaga's chances
03:31 to make a deep NCAA tournament run.
03:33 'Cause let's not kid ourselves,
03:35 that's what everybody's excited about.
03:36 That's what they wanna see is a deep run.
03:38 So you got a good loyal Marymount team,
03:41 then you got St. Mary's at home,
03:43 who I think is a top 20-ish team this year.
03:46 Then you got Portland,
03:47 who Shante Leggins has retooled that roster once again.
03:50 They always play a unique way,
03:52 kind of a bully ball style
03:54 that has given Gonzaga problems at times,
03:57 although Gonzaga has beaten them handily at times.
04:00 You never know what you're gonna get
04:01 in that matchup, in that game.
04:03 And then they go on the road,
04:04 like you mentioned, to Kentucky.
04:05 So I think that's a great four game stretch
04:08 during the middle of conference play.
04:09 The other stretch that I'm looking at for conference play
04:12 is the last two games of the regular season for the WCC.
04:18 It's February 29th to Thursday at San Francisco,
04:22 and then March 2nd, Saturday at St. Mary's.
04:25 The league's done this a number of times,
04:26 where when it looked like BYU
04:28 might be the challenger to Gonzaga,
04:31 they would play them the last regular season game
04:33 of the league.
04:34 St. Mary's looks like they're the challenger.
04:37 They play St. Mary's,
04:38 the last regular season game of the league.
04:41 You're gonna have some fans that gripe
04:43 and complain about it, but I love that.
04:45 I think it's, you know, a couple of things can happen.
04:48 If Gonzaga is able to distance themselves early
04:51 in league play, you know, you get another great tune-up
04:55 leading into post-season play with the WCC tournament
04:58 without any concerns or any worries.
05:01 If you've struggled and it becomes a game
05:05 to win a league title, well, all the chips get pushed in.
05:10 You gotta bring your best.
05:12 It's another kind of opportunity to sharpen your game
05:16 leading into the post-season.
05:17 So I love the schedule breakdown for Gonzaga.
05:21 I'm curious and I'm interested, though,
05:23 to see when these other non-conference games
05:26 get filtered in, because as we all know,
05:28 Gonzaga's typically slow to release it.
05:31 And so many times it's because they're working
05:34 with television partners, ESPN or CBS,
05:39 to figure out where these games will fit and slide
05:42 on their regular schedule.
05:44 - And it certainly is probably nice to be in a routine
05:46 as a team, but I feel like maybe I'm being ignorant
05:51 of basketball, but it's not as big of a disruption
05:55 to the seasonal flow to move a game from a Tuesday
05:57 to a Thursday as it would say it would be
05:58 like a football team to play a Thursday night game
06:00 or something like that.
06:02 - No, I don't think it's, it shouldn't be a disruptor.
06:05 You know, if you look at the majority of conferences
06:08 across the country, you take out the Ivy League
06:12 because they have a strict policy of no missed school.
06:17 So those games, that league typically plays
06:22 on a Friday and a Saturday.
06:23 They're probably the only league in the country
06:26 that does that.
06:27 The Patriot might, because those two leagues
06:30 are a lot of bus rides of two to three to four hours
06:33 where you could leave on a Friday at noon
06:36 for an eight o'clock tip off if the schedule dictates that.
06:40 But when you look at it, when you get away
06:44 from your typical Thursday, Saturday stretch
06:46 which has been normal in the WCC for a long time,
06:49 years ago when I was playing, we would even on the road
06:52 go Friday, Saturday to cut costs and save costs
06:55 for all the schools in the league.
06:56 That's not the case anymore 'cause there's so much money
06:58 in college athletics.
06:59 But I think athletes and coaches are creatures of habit.
07:05 So it's good in one way to have left the schedule
07:09 the way it was for so long, Thursday, Saturday.
07:11 You kind of get into a routine of what you work on
07:14 on practice on Mondays, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays
07:16 and then your day in between.
07:18 So I do think there's value to that.
07:20 But when you get to the post season,
07:24 you have to be able to adjust and you have to...
07:26 As for a different team in a hurry,
07:33 you have to be able to adjust of when you would prefer
07:36 to have practice, but you can't 'cause nothing's available.
07:38 So you gotta go at a different time.
07:40 So I don't mind the fact that there's a couple
07:42 different days of the week that are slotted
07:45 into the league schedule.
07:47 That Tuesday, like we mentioned against Louisville-Maramount
07:50 and that Wednesday against Portland.
07:52 - Let's talk about the other thing I mentioned
07:54 at the beginning of the podcast, Marcus Adams Jr.
07:57 deciding to decommit from Gonzaga.
07:59 You had an initial reaction that I think everybody
08:02 needs to hear, listen to your whole podcast
08:04 that you came out in so that I'm not overly paraphrasing,
08:08 but basically you said, if this guy doesn't want it,
08:10 you know, if he doesn't want the smoke,
08:11 like we don't want him.
08:12 He's not the kind of player that fits in
08:14 to the Gonzaga culture.
08:15 Said maybe I'm over paraphrasing there,
08:17 but you know, can you say a little bit more
08:20 about something like that where you're trying
08:22 to reassure the Gonzaga people?
08:23 We're not like, not missing out on something.
08:25 - Hey, look, I mean, he wasn't a target recruit
08:27 to begin with, right?
08:29 I mean, if you go back-
08:30 - Because it always hurts to be the one who's dumped,
08:32 but you are saying don't panic.
08:35 - Yeah, a hundred percent, don't panic.
08:36 I think there's no worries.
08:38 I think the excitement for probably Gonzaga fans
08:41 and or the staff to add him to the roster
08:45 five weeks or so ago when he left Kansas
08:48 is simply for the fact that he was leaving Kansas.
08:51 I mean, there's a, in the transfer portal
08:54 and in the world of recruiting,
08:56 there is a lot of who's recruiting this guy, right?
09:00 And sometimes a school will not have even seen a player
09:04 in person, but they get wind, they get word
09:07 that somebody has offered a kid, so they will offer him
09:11 just so they don't seem like they've missed on something
09:14 or they're not involved.
09:15 - Obviously knows something.
09:17 - Yeah, and I'm not saying this was the case with Gonzaga,
09:20 but this happens all the time.
09:21 So now you have a player who's heading
09:25 into his freshman year and he's on campus in the summertime.
09:29 He gets to campus in Lawrence
09:30 and something's not right for him.
09:31 And that happens, right?
09:33 I don't blame the kid, it happens.
09:35 Maybe he felt that the transfer portal guys
09:37 that were coming in were going to play more minutes than him
09:41 and that's not what he wanted.
09:42 Some guys wanna come in and be handed,
09:45 hey, you're a freshman, here's 25 minutes.
09:48 Well, what good coach is going to do that?
09:51 I don't know of any coach that just guarantees minutes
09:55 or a starting roster position, a spot.
09:58 Even if you look at what Gonzaga did
10:00 with some of their highest profile recruits ever,
10:04 Chad Holmgren, Jalen Suggs.
10:05 - They were not promised a shot at the starting line.
10:07 - They were absolutely were not promised a starting position.
10:12 They recruit in a way that, hey, look,
10:15 here's an opportunity.
10:16 This is how we envision you fitting with us.
10:20 These are the things that we envision you being able to do.
10:23 Now it's up to you to go out there and prove to us
10:25 that yes, I fit that vision.
10:29 I deserve those minutes and go after it and take it.
10:32 As an athlete, you wanna take those opportunities.
10:35 You don't want those opportunities handed to you.
10:37 You could look at another opportunity
10:40 or another example with Gonzaga, Hunter Salas.
10:45 He was highly recruited.
10:47 He was a top 25, top 30 player.
10:50 Some people had him as high as 12, 15
10:53 in the rankings in high school.
10:55 He goes to Gonzaga.
10:56 Gonzaga never promised him any minutes.
10:59 They never promised him starter opportunities.
11:02 They promised him an opportunity to earn minutes.
11:05 He was never able to crack through the rotation
11:08 and earn minutes for a number of different reasons.
11:12 The inability to hit jump shots,
11:14 the lack of physical strength,
11:16 which becomes a big part of the game
11:20 once you get into league play
11:21 and deep into the postseason.
11:23 He showed flashes his sophomore year,
11:25 but he felt like he needed a change
11:28 and he wasn't up to the challenge for fighting for it
11:30 and competing with it or for it
11:32 in his third year at Gonzaga.
11:34 Some players are built that way, some aren't.
11:36 Marcus Adams Jr., for example, I don't know him.
11:39 I don't know his family.
11:40 I never met any of them.
11:43 But the thing that's really concerning
11:45 is you're at Kansas, a true elite program.
11:51 It's not maybe going the way you want
11:54 and you jump ship and bail rather than fighting it out.
11:57 You're at Gonzaga, right?
11:59 You're committed.
12:00 You've been part of the program for less than five weeks.
12:04 And there's been a couple other additions to the program.
12:08 Luka Kronovic being one from Croatia,
12:11 who's, they're not the same position,
12:13 but they are probably competing
12:15 for some backcourt wing type minutes.
12:18 And he decides to leave again
12:21 without even really kind of immersing himself
12:23 in the Gonzaga culture.
12:25 Those are some question marks that come up awfully soon.
12:27 Now, the question that's gonna be brought up,
12:29 and I don't know if anybody else has brought it up,
12:31 I mentioned it in my podcast that we released yesterday,
12:34 was obviously he signed a letter of intent.
12:39 What happens, because typically schools
12:42 will let you out of the first one,
12:44 but I don't know if he's applied for a waiver.
12:49 I don't know if Gonzaga's agreed to give him a waiver.
12:51 I don't know what the process is
12:53 when it's two transfers in about a five week stretch.
12:57 That's new territory for me.
12:59 I don't know anything about that.
12:59 It'll be interesting to track.
13:01 - If you're endorsed in under six months,
13:02 you can get it annulled, maybe the first transfer.
13:05 - Yeah, annulled the transfer.
13:08 Yeah, well, Gonzaga is a Catholic Jesuit institution.
13:12 So maybe annulment rather than a waiver
13:14 would be the correct wording and approach to take with this.
13:18 - He said seven Hail Marys and they let him off the, yep.
13:22 - Who knows?
13:24 - Dan, anything else that people need to get to this week?
13:26 I think that the schedule stuff, like we said,
13:28 you now can really dive into that
13:30 and expect a ton of great stuff coming off
13:32 of that schedule information
13:34 over the next couple of weeks, especially.
13:36 And we got to give a show shout out
13:37 to our former intern turned employee, Cole Forsman,
13:41 who's now a full-time writer with us.
13:43 So tons of that to check out.
13:44 It feels like, you know, they're coming back from school,
13:48 they're coming back from summer.
13:49 We've got games, we've got everything.
13:52 Like, dare I say the next time we talk,
13:55 it's like the in-season basketball podcast.
13:57 Like we're just, it feels really close.
13:59 Anything else, summer related content that we need?
14:01 - Yeah, I mean, we're right there.
14:02 I mean, this is the week that guys come back to campus.
14:07 Luka Kronovic, we mentioned him, the Croatian kid.
14:10 He's now in Spokane.
14:11 Obviously that's a longer travel for him to come over
14:15 from Croatia and Eastern Europe,
14:17 as opposed to, you know, Nolan Hickman driving over
14:20 from Seattle or Ben Gregg driving up from the Portland area.
14:24 But guys will start trickling back onto campus this week.
14:27 Class starts next week.
14:28 And if I remember from my past experiences,
14:32 and maybe that's not the case with guys nowadays,
14:35 but I would extend summer as long as I could.
14:39 If our first meeting was on Monday,
14:41 the first week of school,
14:43 I wouldn't move up to Spokane until Saturday night,
14:46 maybe Sunday afternoon.
14:48 And I would take hours that last day
14:51 getting kind of my apartment or my dorm set up
14:54 and ready to go for the school year.
14:56 - Yeah, I can remember the give and take
15:01 of being a spring sport athlete myself in college
15:03 was I was like, the moving back to school,
15:06 we had no rush 'cause there was no real fall ball
15:09 right off the gate.
15:10 But then it was always winter break for me
15:12 that I was like, oh man, it's getting cut five days short
15:15 'cause like season starts.
15:16 And so I gotta like, yeah, everyone's like,
15:18 when you coming back up to school?
15:19 I'm like, I am coming back up to school 45 minutes
15:22 before practice starts, January 2nd.
15:24 And I'm supposed to, like every other student
15:26 that goes to our school has had six more days of break.
15:28 So you, I'll see all of you at the last possible second.
15:32 Yeah, now I'm with you on that.
15:33 Make sure that you guys check out everything
15:35 that we are doing all across the week,
15:38 not just the podcast,
15:39 like you said, Cole Forsman writing stuff.
15:40 Subscribe to Gonzaga Nation wherever you get your podcasts,
15:43 follow us on Fan Nation Zags on social media,
15:45 follow Dan at DanDickout21.
15:47 We'll catch you guys next time.
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