Dan Dickau on Gonzaga adding Serbian Pavle Stosic
Former Gonzaga All-American Dan Dickau breaks down the late addition of Pavle Stosic from Serbia, the top recruiting classes around West Coast Conference and more
Transcript
00:00 It's happening everybody. Christian Pedersen joined by Dan Dickow back for another episode
00:03 of the Gonzaga Nation podcast. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you are brand new,
00:08 we talk all things WCC once a week, but we do it through a Gonzaga lens. Here is Dan Dickow. He's
00:13 one of the school's all-time greats. He's got his photo up behind me. I don't have a photo up behind
00:19 me. Dan, we got some recent news about Gonzaga filling out what seems to be the final spot of
00:27 the recruiting piece. They got another recent commitment. You got a little bit of a reaction
00:31 and analysis that you were going to bring to that. Then we're going to talk about some just wider
00:35 picture of recruiting a little bit later on in the episode. Let's start though with the Gonzaga news.
00:41 Tell the people what's happening. Yeah, they got a commitment just this morning. It being Monday,
00:46 what is it? September 25th. So pretty late in the game. We saw this happen a couple of years ago
00:53 where Gonzaga finally was able to get Gino Crandall into school as a grad transfer. He showed
01:01 up a couple of weeks late after school started. I imagine this is a similar setup where he should be
01:08 getting over here, I would imagine, any day getting started with school work. But yeah, Pavel Stosich,
01:15 I believe is how you pronounce the last name. He's a Serbian. He's been playing over in Spain,
01:22 Zaragoza was the club team he's been playing with most recently. He's an older freshman. So he's 19
01:29 years old now. He'll turn 20 in January. He's big. He's a four man. He's 6'8", probably about
01:37 210-ish. I don't always get the kilograms to the poundage correct. You get the height.
01:44 Multiply it by about 2.2, give or take. I remember 2.2, but I do know he's 6'8". So
01:52 he's a four. He watched a few clips of him this morning after the news broke and he's a good
01:59 player. Do I think he's going to break the rotation and play minutes right now as a freshman? I don't
02:05 think so. I don't know. And I don't say that in a bad way because when you look at it, you got
02:10 Graham E.K., you got Ben Gregg, you got guys that are, Anton Watson clearly is the starter at the
02:18 four. You got guys that are ahead of him. So he'd have to prove a lot in a short amount of time.
02:24 But when you watch the film, you do see a good player. You see someone who seems to have good
02:31 footwork, seems to have good hands, attacks the rim. He's active on the glass. So it looks like
02:40 a nice pickup for Gonzaga. But again, it's one of those things where you are excited, but sometimes
02:47 you have to temper those expectations because not every freshman is a rotational player, nor should
02:54 every freshman be a rotational player. But I do like this pickup. It definitely adds depth in the
03:00 front court and it definitely continues that European flavor for Gonzaga, which so many people
03:06 thought was going to slow down when Tommy Lloyd headed off to Tucson. Okay. So what I'm hearing
03:12 is that you've checked out the footage and you're vouching for this kid's basketball bona fides.
03:16 He's a good addition. They're not taking a flyer on a huge project here. This guy,
03:20 eventually at some point when he meshes either rotational wise or just culture wise,
03:26 will be a contributor. I would think so. I mean, but there are so many variables.
03:31 You know, you look a couple of years ago, Martinez Arloskis came from Lithuania,
03:38 fairly highly rated. He just couldn't find a niche, couldn't find a place in the rotation.
03:47 Now, I don't think he was a bad player, but I don't think he was a great player either.
03:51 He found a better opportunity heading back to play pro in Lithuania. And I'm not saying that's
03:58 going to be Pavel Stosich. It's just that's kind of somehow sometimes how things work. What I'm
04:04 seeing is that for Mark Few having, like you said, international flavor, it's not a lock.
04:09 None of these kids are a guarantee they're going to come here and match the projection,
04:13 much like a lot of the high school kids in America. Yeah. It's I mean, yeah, look, I mean,
04:18 there are certain guys when they step on campus, you know, they're, they're a lock to be a pro.
04:24 Like the first time I saw DeMontis Sabonis at practice as a freshman, even though he wasn't
04:29 a starter, I was like, he's a pro. And lo and behold, he's a he's an all NBA, all star type
04:35 player. Chet Holmgren, same type of deal. You know, the problem is now is everybody, fans
04:41 included, want production right away. And people will look at a roster and be like, oh,
04:47 we got seven, eight NBA guys or potential NBA guys on the roster. Slow down. Even the best Duke,
04:53 North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas teams, they don't have eight NBA players. You know, Gonzaga has been
04:59 blessed with a lot of really good players in recent years where they've had rosters, where
05:04 there's been two, three, maybe even potentially four NBA players on the roster at a time. But,
05:10 you know, for people to have crazy high expectations of a freshman is outlandish many
05:18 times. What I see on film is a good player who has a chance to improve and crack the rotation
05:29 down the road. I just I don't know. I would love to say he's going to be he's going to play minutes
05:34 this year. But when you look at all things, not going to be it's hard to pinpoint a freshman
05:41 breaking out, breaking into the rotation above EK, Watson, Ben Gregg, Braden Huff, who was here a
05:48 year ago, who's shown a tremendous amount of improvement. But all that said, I do like this
05:55 young player's skill set. I think he's a he's a positive addition to the program.
05:59 As a nice fallback, if you're going to fill that spot with somebody, it might as well be a player
06:03 like him. He's an older player. Like I said, he'll turn 20 as a freshman. I believe in January is
06:12 what it when his birthday is. So, you know, I think it's a great pickup for Gonzaga.
06:17 And it certainly seems like while a lot of college basketball for a while rushed into the fad being,
06:24 let's start a bunch of freshmen, let's get them all, you know, the hype one and done culture.
06:28 It seemed like Gonzaga never really bought into that. That seems like that really has never been
06:32 coach Fuse MO of like rushing a dude out there if he's not like you said, one of those bonafide
06:37 steps on the court, you know, like he's got the ish. Well, part of it is because when you go back
06:44 25 years, when this, you know, run started, you were getting guys from the Northwest that were
06:51 undervalued. And then gradually you've been able to expand your recruiting footprint to
06:56 internationally to across the country. And then to some of the, you know, high, high level guys,
07:02 like your McDonald's all American type players. But, you know, even the Kansas and Kentucky's
07:09 and the Dukes that have been recruiting those kind of guys for years, they've got, they've got
07:14 to make sure they take the right guys that fit the culture and that also, you know, are able to,
07:21 you know, provide production from day one. It is a lot harder than most people think to provide
07:29 production from day one as a, as a freshman at the college level. I mean, that's where,
07:35 you know, a Jalen Suggs and a, and a Chet Holmgren. I mean, yeah, these guys were five stars,
07:40 but you look at Hunter Salas and Nolan Hickman were five stars as well.
07:45 Nolan Hickman didn't start as a freshman. He had a really nice sophomore year. I think he's
07:51 poised to have a tremendous junior year, but Hunter Salas really couldn't get off the bench much
07:56 for two years. That second year before he transferred to Wake Forest in the off season,
08:00 he had some stretches, but by no means was, was he that guy that people had said, oh,
08:07 he's a possible one and done. That shows you the level of differences between many of these quote,
08:11 five stars and he's projected a high level, all American type high school players in regards to,
08:18 you know, just how good you have to be. Because Suggs and Holmgren were clearly gone the day they
08:24 stepped on campus. Yeah. And I think, apologies for interrupting there. I think it also just
08:27 shows that there's clearly a gap between the top level of high school and the top level of college.
08:31 And like, it takes an adjustment and no amount of putting stars on paper can, can make that
08:36 adjustment for that player. And sometimes the dude was a really good high school basketball player.
08:41 He's a run of the mill college player and he's not a pro like that's just the trajectory.
08:46 Unfortunately that some players receive those high rankings because every year someone's got
08:50 to be ranked there in terms of the top of their class. So yeah, it is, I think a testament to
08:55 Mark view and the coaching staff that they have used it at times. Like they've not been anti
08:59 freshmen, but that they haven't oversold the house on bringing in freshmen just for the sake of,
09:04 we're going to play. Yeah. And we'll, we'll, you know, suffer something like we we've talked a
09:07 couple of podcasts in a row, how 25 wins has become the, you know, the norm that gets Gonzaga
09:14 fans to level that doesn't even get a rise out of me. So it certainly is nice to see that they've
09:19 found that balance. And you think that this is an additional spot. We've talked a ton of Gonzaga
09:24 of just recruiting and of all the successes that they've had all off season. We haven't really
09:29 touched a ton on the rest of the WCC recruiting wise, but it also seems like that kind of,
09:35 to me as an indicator that nobody else else in the WCC has like landed a whale right now that
09:43 you, there was some movement in the transfer portal and certainly some teams taking some
09:46 pieces. They're like, that'll be kind of interesting, but I didn't get the sense from
09:49 you or when we're talking with Cole Forsman, our staff writer, that there was any team that had
09:54 really like loaded up an incoming freshman class or something like that, that was going to
09:58 potentially challenge Gonzaga. Am I wrong? Yeah, I don't think anybody's landed a crazy
10:04 impactful freshman outside of Gonzaga, which you've talked about extensively. I do think though
10:12 that San Francisco has done a tremendous job in the transfer portal. I think LMU has done a nice
10:19 job in the transfer portal. And then, you know, St. Mary's did a nice job in the retention portal by,
10:26 you know, having Dukas come back. I think that's a bigger, you know, impactful decision
10:33 that a lot of people are going to give him and St. Mary's credit for. I like that. I haven't
10:38 heard that term yet. The retention portal, the plane of a rubber. Yeah. I mean, at the end of
10:42 the day, I think there's three buckets. It's the freshman portal, it's the transfer portal,
10:47 and it's the retention portal. Well, and we've talked with some of those different coaches,
10:52 you mentioned USF and LMU. We've had those coaches on and they, yeah, like they are happy with the
10:57 pieces that they're getting. So I wasn't trying to frame that as like the rest of the WCC is just a
11:01 barren wasteland of talentless nothingness, but just was, you know, like we said, there's nothing
11:06 it seems out there that Gonzaga fans from a 30,000 foot view have to necessarily be like,
11:12 there's going to be a couple of years where this team's on the rise. We're going to be worried
11:15 about them. So it seems like Gonzaga, once again, we can dub them as having won the off season.
11:20 I think so. I mean, you get, you get Graham BK, Ryan Nembhardt and Steele Ventures in the
11:26 transfer portal. I think you're doing pretty well. Yeah. I'm excited about Steele and because,
11:32 you know, we've had him on the show and I'm always, you know, good friend of anybody on the show, but
11:35 I feel like we have talked about him in absentia, just in this, you know, here's how he's
11:42 hypothetically going to contribute for longer than almost any other player in our production run that
11:48 we've done in a couple of years here. Cause he, you know, he committed right after the season or
11:52 right toward the end of the season. It's just been so like, I'm pumped to see him in a Gonzaga
11:56 uniform. As we close out, is there any of these new guys that you have as your main, or I'm just
12:01 assuming you're stoked to be back in the facility more frequently and getting to be around Gonzaga
12:06 basketball more this season? Well, today I believe is the first day of true practice. I mean,
12:12 you've had small workouts, individually, small group workouts, but I think today, if I'm not
12:18 mistaken, is the first real practice where everybody's together. I'd have to check the
12:23 NCAA calendar on that, but I think it is today. So I'll be getting down there probably either
12:28 later this week or next week to get my eyes on the squad, but also get ready for, you know,
12:34 my coverage of craziness in the kennel for the TV side, as well as kind of share some stuff with
12:40 Cole Forsman, who's doing a great job on the journalist side for us.
12:44 So apologies for not prepping, you know, we mediocre show prep on everything that happens
12:50 after the 15 minute mark in these episodes, because I'd like to just, things come to my mind.
12:55 What is the split for you when you go to the facility in terms of like, are you a hundred
13:00 percent journalist mode? Are you 80, 20 journalists to alumni? Are you 50? Like, how do you split up
13:08 your time and persona when you are actually around the team?
13:10 I'm just, I'm just an observer. You know, I stay sitting on the sidelines. I don't go,
13:17 you know, asking questions of guys when I'm there, you know, coach few and some of the
13:24 assistants come over and chat for a few minutes. You know, I'm mindful, I'm respectful of the fact
13:29 that I'm in their space, their run in practice. So, you know, I don't ask too many questions.
13:37 You know, I just kind of, I'm there to observe. Yes, I am a journalist, but, and I have a few
13:46 opportunities to be on the inside to watch practice and some different things on occasion,
13:52 but I do my best not to, you know, cross that line of sharing what is essential to a
13:59 privacy of a team. I guess that's a good way to put it.
14:06 I feel like I'm obligated as your younger, more millennial producer to say, Hey Dan,
14:10 we need you if you're there to get some funny content, to get some stuff,
14:13 I don't know. That was probably not going to happen, but.
14:17 Well, so I was going to say, so maybe over the course of the season, I can wear you down and
14:22 eventually we can get you to do something funny and or engaging for social media clicks. We'll
14:28 put that on the, the general to do plan of where you're going to put, you're going to use the term
14:33 clicks, especially after the Oregon coach said about Colorado, we're here to win clicks or we're
14:41 here to win games, not to win clicks. Yeah, no, the team is here to win games,
14:45 Dan, but consagination as an entity is here to win clicks. That is, that is our game. That is,
14:50 well, I butchered that, that paraphrasing of what the Oregon coach said, but you got my gist.
14:56 Hey, listen, the Oregon coach, and this is us skewing into PAC 12 football. So
15:01 apologies to all the audience, but he called it right before he said in the off season,
15:04 like what is Colorado ever won. And then for him to pile it on like that, I was like,
15:07 that's kind of fun. You see that sometimes, and I'm sure Gonzaga has had some of those wins over
15:13 the years against some different opponents. Dan appreciate your time. Is there anything else
15:18 Gonzaga related? You've talked about recruiting. We've talked about they're back on campus
15:22 practices back in. It seems like things are full tilt, full go. You've mentioned people
15:26 should check out all this stuff that you and Cole Forsman are coming out with at the website.
15:30 You can also search and subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts by,
15:34 with by searching Gonzaga nation, follow us on social media at fan nation zags. I would like
15:39 to bring blame the teleprompter on all of that, but I don't have a teleprompter and I'm just
15:43 apologizing now to my boss for messing up the social pitch. Dan, anything before we say bye?
15:48 Not really. You covered it all right, man. Go Zags. Talk to you guys soon.