User:Dale Arnett/Sandbox

The Gonzaga Bulldogs men's basketball team, also affectionately called the "Zags", represents Gonzaga University, located in Spokane, Washington, in NCAA Division I men's college basketball competition. The team, currently coached by Mark Few, plays its home games at the on-campus McCarthey Athletic Center, frequently nickname "The New Kennel" or "K2" (a homage to the school's former on-campus home, the Charlotte Y. Martin Centre, nicknamed "The Kennel"). Occasional home games, typically one or two a season, are taken to the larger Spokane Arena in downtown Spokane.

Despite its membership in the undeniably mid-major West Coast Conference, it is now generally accepted as a truly major program, with the 2006-07 season marking the team's ninth consecutive appearance in the NCAA tournament. Longtime Seattle sportswriter Bud Withers, in his 2002 book BraveHearts, a history of Gonzaga basketball, said about the program: In terms of sustained, recent success in the NCAA tournament compared to a modest March history before that, there is only one word for Gonzaga: unprecedented.

Overview
The Zags annually play a 14-game conference schedule, preceded by a usually tough out-of-conference schedule. Since the late 1990s, the unofficial motto of the Gonzaga basketball program has been: Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime.

For example, in 2006-07, they played in the NIT Season Tip-Off, beating Rice and Baylor to advance to Madison Square Garden in New York City, where they defeated North Carolina before losing to Butler in the final. Later, the Zags faced a brutal stretch in which they traveled to Phoenix to take on Texas, returned to Washington to visit Washington State, and returned to Spokane to entertain Washington. This was merely the prelude to a figurative "death march" which saw them travel to Atlanta to play Georgia, return to Madison Square Garden to face Duke, return west to visit Nevada, and go across the country to visit Virginia. As if that were not enough, they took breaks from conference play to entertain Stanford on campus and go to downtown Spokane to host Memphis. Nine of these opponents would make the NCAA tournament, and another made the postseason NIT.

The Zags' one consistent out-of-conference matchup is a local rivalry with Eastern Washington, located just down Interstate 90 in Cheney. In the past, this game has frequently been played at the Spokane Arena, but in 2006-07 it was held at The New Kennel, and will not be played in 2007-08. In recent years, Gonzaga has also established rivalries with Washington and Washington State.

Culture
If Gonzaga's basketball culture could be described in one word, it could well be "togetherness". Withers called Gonzaga "the mom-and-pop grocery store of college hoops, until you're trying to wrestle away a rebound or defend a three-on-two fast break." The Gonzaga brain trust is so wedded to the idea of its players getting along well that Few noted in 2002,

We've probably had three or four guys that our players have vetoed over the years since I've been here. 'This ain't gonna work. You should have seen him last night.'

One of many reasons why this is so important is that the basketball program is by far the most visible group on the Gonzaga campus. Withers notes,

The Zags have no football program, so there's no Saturday afternoon spent among 80,000 people gauging the university's support of athletics. The focus is mainly on the basketball program, for better or worse.

A sign of this focus is the Zags' student section, the Kennel Club, named in 2006 by Sports Illustrated as one of the top 10 in the country. The school reserves 1,200 of the 6,000 seats in McCarthey Athletic Center for students, who occupy the side opposite the teams all the way down to courtside. Members regularly research opposing players to come up with customized chants. The Kennel Club made national newswires in 2006 after a home game against Saint Mary's, when a number of students were chanting "Brokeback Mountain" at players, causing several faculty and student leaders to urge them not to use that particular chant.

Also helping to cement the bonds between Gonzaga players and other students is that there are no athletic dormitories on campus. Generally, all Gonzaga students, athletes or not, are required to live in dorms their first two years. Inevitably, players will become acquainted with non-players. For example, recent Zags star Ronny Turiaf wore a campaign T-shirt for a Zag cheerleader's successful campaign for 2002-03 activities vice president, and was seen at intramural sports championships cheering friends away from the basketball team.

Recruiting philosophy
Because Gonzaga has not traditionally been able to recruit the very best high school players, they have historically had to project which players have the most potential to improve. They start with the premise that a player must love the game to succeed. Few's current top assistant, Leon Rice, said in 2002, "We want the kid who shoots before school, takes his ball to school with him, sleeps with his ball."

The Gonzaga coaching staff also heavily emphasizes shooting ability in its recruits. As Few puts it, "I don't think you can take a nonscorer and teach him to be a scorer." This emphasis was especially tested when they recruited Aaron Brooks. They were looking for a future point guard in 2002, and they scouted Brooks, then a high school junior, very closely. He was quick and had potential as a defensive stopper. Brooks had the added benefits of coming from a solid family and from the Seattle inner city, where Gonzaga has long had difficulty in recruiting. However, the coaching staff had serious reservations because they were not convinced of his shooting ability. Brooks would go on to an outstanding career at Oregon.

One of Gonzaga's biggest tools in recruiting is its summer camp program, one of the largest in the Pacific Northwest. While Gonzaga, like virtually all other college programs, has long run such camps, its camp program took a quantum leap during the 1990s. In 1992, Bill Grier, then a Zags assistant under Dan Fitzgerald, wanted to establish an overnight camp for high school teams, inspired by a similar camp he knew of at Nevada. Since then, the team camp has grown to attract over 200 teams in three weekly sessions. The camp program also offers a two-day parent-child camp for children from 5 to 14, a four-day individual skills camp for boys 9 to 18, three days of fundamental skills camps for boys and girls from kindergarten to 8th grade, and a three-day camp emphasizing specific positional skills for boys entering the 6th to 12th grades. The camps give the Gonzaga staff and the Bulldogs players who work the camps a chance to look over potential recruits.

Even during its recent period of success, Gonzaga has drawn most of its players from the Pacific Northwest. One illustration of this is the origins of the eight Zags who have been named West Coast Conference Player of the Year. Two of them, Jeff Brown (1994) and Adam Morrison (2006), are graduates of Mead High School in Spokane. A third, John Stockton (1984), grew up literally in the shadow of the Gonzaga campus and attended a different Spokane school. Dan Dickau (2002) and Derek Raivio (2007) both came to Gonzaga from Vancouver, Washington. Blake Stepp (2003 and 2004) is from Oregon.

However, the Bulldogs have never limited themselves to the Northwest. Withers noted that when Few's current top assistant, Leon Rice, interviewed for the head coaching job at Montana in 2002, he was asked which pool of recruits he would base his program on—high schoolers, junior college players, transfers, or foreign players. Rice answered by saying he thought it was prudent to draw from each of the sources.

The other two WCC Players of the Year at Gonzaga bear this out. Bakari Hendrix (1998) came from California, while Turiaf (2005) came from Martinique by way of Paris. In addition, Brown and Dickau were both transfers from Washington.

The program's diversity of sources is also demonstrated by the origins of other important players throughout the program's recent history. The Zags successfully brought in several Australians who played key roles in the 1990s (John Rillie, Paul Rogers, and Axel Dench). Quentin Hall, a tenacious defensive stopper on the 1999 team whom Withers calls "the quintessential Zag", and recent star big man J.P. Batista were both overseas players (Hall from The Bahamas, Batista from Brazil) who arrived from junior colleges. Another recent past player, defensive stopper Erroll Knight, is also a Washington transfer, and current player Micah Downs, a McDonald's All-American in high school, spent only one semester at Kansas before transferring.

Humble beginnings
Gonzaga sponsored its first basketball team in 1907, playing in a small gymnasium, now a theater, at the east end of Gonzaga's administration building. The first season, 1907-08, ended with a 9-2 record, with no indication of who coached, and the school had 10 coaches in its first 13 basketball seasons. The first "name" coach in Gonzaga's history was Gus Dorais, who arrived in 1920 after having served as top football assistant at Notre Dame to his former Fighting Irish teammate Knute Rockne. Dorais would coach many sports, including basketball, but in his day the school's primary emphasis was football. He left Gonzaga after five seasons, with far more success as a football coach, although he led the basketball team to a 16-7 record in his last season of 1925-26.

Gonzaga's first sustained run of success did not come until the late 1940s, after the school had dropped football in 1941. They had successive 20-win seasons in 1946-47 and 1947-48, going 20-9 followed by 24-11. The 1948 season culminated in Gonzaga's first appearance ever in postseason play, the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball (now the NAIA) tournament. The coach who led them to this run, Claude McGrath, left after the 1948-49 season.

Gonzaga then hired L. T. Underwood, a former Kentucky player who came close to destroying the program in his two seasons. According to Underwood's successor Hank Anderson, It just about broke Gonzaga. He had to fly everyplace and stay in the best hotels. When I went there, we had to ride the bus and the train. We were really pinching nickels and dimes. Gonzaga was having a tough time financially not just with athletics, but keeping its doors open, period. Underwood's tenure included a single-season school record of 22 losses that still stands.

Entering the modern era
Gonzaga's entry into the modern era of college basketball can be traced to the arrival of Anderson in 1951. At that time, he was the only paid official in the school's athletic department, serving as both coach and athletic director. Although the Bulldogs hovered around .500 for the next several seasons, Anderson set a goal of moving them from NAIA competition to NCAA Division I, which would happen in 1958. Also in that year, they abandoned their cramped gym on campus and moved into the Spokane Coliseum in downtown Spokane.

Gonzaga's entry into Division I coincided with the arrival of the player who is still arguably the most decorated player in Gonzaga history, despite the Zags' recent success. Frank Burgess, who had played a season at historically black school Arkansas AM&N (now Arkansas-Pine Bluff) before serving a 31-month tour in the Air Force, etched his name into the Zags record books in his three-year career. A 6'1"/1.85 m guard, he left Gonzaga in 1961 with the following school records:
 * Career points.
 * Career scoring average.
 * The top two single-season point totals (now second and third to Adam Morrison).
 * The top three single-season scoring averages. (He still has the top two and three of the top five.)
 * Single-game points.
 * Career field goals.
 * The top three seasons for field goals. (He is still in second and third, again to Morrison.)
 * The top two seasons for free throws made (now second and third to Morrison).
 * Career free throws attempted (now second to Ronny Turiaf).
 * Career free throws made (now second to Turiaf).
 * Most free throws made in a game (since tied by Turiaf and Blake Stepp).
 * Most free throws made in a game without a miss (a record he still shares).

Burgess, who would be named to Helms Foundation All-America teams in his last two years at Gonzaga and the Associated Press All-America second team in his senior year, in which he led NCAA Division I in scoring, played a season with the Hawaii Chiefs of the American Basketball League before returning to Gonzaga for law school. He went on to practice law in Washington and serve as a U.S. magistrate judge for 12 years before his appointment as a U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Washington by President Bill Clinton in 1994. Burgess still sits on that court. In 2005, his #44, which had never been issued since his graduation, became only the second number in Gonzaga history to be retired.

Big Sky-bound
Anderson's struggles to build the Gonzaga program involved more than just moving to Division I. As a school isolated from the main population centers of the West Coast, Gonzaga faced scheduling dilemmas as an independent. This eventually led Gonzaga to become a charter member of the Big Sky Conference in 1963. The formation of the Big Sky was only the start of major changes for the Gonzaga program in the 1960s. In 1965, the Zags left the Spokane Coliseum for a new on-campus arena, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Pavilion, now the Charlotte Y. Martin Centre.

The move into what would affectionately become known as "The Kennel" coincided with one of Gonzaga's best runs in its basketball history to that time, with the Zags compiling a 56-21 record from 1964-65 to 1966-67. The first season in "The Kennel", 1965-66, saw Gonzaga share the Big Sky championship with Weber State, and the next season would see the Zags share the conference crown with Montana State. However, they would not make the NCAA tournament in either year, as the conference would not receive its first automatic berth in the tournament until 1968, a season in which the Zags slumped from 21-6 to 9-17. This would be the first of four straight losing seasons in conference play for the Bulldogs. After a 14-12 season in 1971-72, Anderson resigned after 21 seasons, the longest tenure for a Gonzaga head coach to date, to go to Montana State. He would be succeeded by UC Santa Barbara assistant Adrian Buoncristiani, who would have an uneventful tenure, but made what would prove to be an important hire in Gonzaga basketball history by bringing on Dan Fitzgerald as his assistant immediately after his arrival in Spokane. Fitzgerald stayed at Gonzaga for two years before taking an assistant's job at Santa Clara, but returned to succeed Buoncristiani in 1978.

To the WCC
Soon after Fitzgerald took over, Gonzaga decided to end its Big Sky membership in favor of a move to the West Coast Athletic Conference, which would become the West Coast Conference in 1989. The move, which took effect in 1979, seemingly made sense for Gonzaga. It had been the only school in the Big Sky without a football team; the WCAC had no football conference, and most of its members had by then dropped football. Also, Gonzaga was the only private institution in the Big Sky. At the time Gonzaga announced its move, the only public school in the WCAC was Nevada, which had ironically announced that it would leave for the Big Sky at the same time Gonzaga would enter the conference. Of the other schools in the WCAC at the time, only Pepperdine was not Catholic, and Gonzaga would also join fellow Jesuit institutions Loyola Marymount, San Francisco, Santa Clara, and Seattle. Another Catholic school, San Diego, joined the WCAC at the same time. Seattle left the conference and NCAA Division I in 1980, resulting in the current conference lineup.

Building a program
Fitzgerald made an immediate impact on the Gonzaga program. The Bulldogs went 16-10 in 1978-79, their final year in the Big Sky, which was their first winning season since 1972-73. They followed it up with a 16-11 record in their first year in the WCAC. After that first WCAC season, Fitzgerald successfully recruited a point guard who grew up in the shadow of the Gonzaga campus—John Stockton. He would have a highly successful career at Gonzaga, making the all-conference team twice, becoming the WCAC Player of the Year in 1984, and being named an Academic All-America, in addition to becoming the first Zag to surpass 1,000 points and 500 assists in his career. He would emerge as a true great in the NBA, playing in 10 NBA All-Star Games, playing on the legendary Dream Team at the 1992 Olympics, adding a second gold medal with Team USA at the 1996 Olympics, being named as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996, and finishing his career as the league's all-time leader in assists and steals. On February 18, 2004, Stockton became the first Gonzaga player to have his number retired.

Stockton's freshman year, though he did not start, was even more successful, with the Zags finishing 19-8. Fitzgerald then left as coach but remained at Gonzaga as athletic director, handing the reins to his top assistant, Jay Hillock. The Bulldogs struggled under Hillock as they finished 60-50 in Hillock's four seasons at the helm. Fitzgerald returned as coach in 1985. Four decisions he would make in the next few years set the stage for Gonzaga's meteoric rise at the turn of the 21st century.

The first came in 1988, after he had fired his top assistant, Bill Evans. One of the two leading candidates was Eastern Washington assistant John Wade. The other was UAB graduate assistant Dan Monson. Wade was more experienced, was familiar with Washington and the Spokane area, and had the added benefit of being African American. Monson was less experienced, but was also familiar with the area, as he had attended Idaho, and had made an impression on Fitzgerald through his work at the Gonzaga summer basketball camp. Fitzgerald interviewed both, and was more impressed with Monson, choosing to hire him.

The next year, Fitzgerald had an opening for a graduate assistant. He opted for Mark Few, the son of a Presbyterian pastor from Creswell, Oregon, who had befriended Monson when the two were working summer basketball camps while Few was attending the University of Oregon. Few would be promoted to a full-time assistant position in 1991, which created an opening for a graduate assistant. Fitzgerald hired Bill Grier, who had been the head coach at Few's high school alma mater of Creswell High. With that hire, the coaching staff that would take Gonzaga to the next level was in place.

The fourth decision came in 1989, at the time Few was hired. Gonzaga had brought in four promising but unpolished freshmen—post player Marty Wall, swingman Steve Spink, small forward Matt Stanford, and point guard Geoff Goss. They also had recruited shooting guard Jarrod Davis from junior college, and also received the first of what would become a pipeline of transfers from Washington in forward Eric Brady. Brady would have to sit out the 1989-90 season under NCAA transfer rules. Fitzgerald decided to redshirt all of the remaining five players. While the newcomers practiced under Few's direction, the varsity suffered through a season that ended in an 8-20 overall record and 3-11 in the WCC. The overall record was the worst in Gonzaga's Division I history, and their conference record was the worst since they joined the WCC in 1979. The following season, with all of them now eligible, the Zags went 14-14, their last non-winning season to date.

Preparing for launch
In the wake of the 1989-90 season, Gonzaga received another transfer from Washington in Jeff Brown, a 6'9"/2.06 m post player. He would be eligible for the 1991-92 season, in which the Zags would take a quantum leap, winning 20 games for the first time since the 1948 NAIA tournament season. Brown proved to be a major force in the WCC, averaging 20.7 points and 6.7 rebounds and shooting 65.5% from the field in league play. He would go on to make the All-WCC first team in each of his three years at Gonzaga, earn WCC Player of the Year honors in 1994, make the Academic All-America first team in 1993 and 1994, and be named Academic All-American of the Year in men's basketball in 1994.

Gonzaga's 20-win season in 1991-92 saw another breakthrough, with the Bulldogs racking up their first two wins ever in the WCC tournament before narrowly falling in the final to a Doug Christie-led Pepperdine team. This performance was not enough, however, even for NIT consideration. The following season, they slipped slightly to 19 wins with a key player, Felix McGowan, suffering a broken hand. The 1993-94 season was, in many respects, Gonzaga's breakthrough season, even though it did not end with an NCAA tournament bid. Their nucleus of fifth-year players was supplemented by Australian shooting guard John Rillie, a junior who would finish the season as the team's second-leading scorer behind Brown. The Zags went 12-2 in the conference, winning their first WCC regular-season title. They fell in the WCC tournament final to San Diego, keeping them from their first NCAA tournament bid. They got the consolation prize of an NIT bid, their first postseason appearance since joining Division I. The fifth-year seniors finished their careers with a win over Stanford before losing at Kansas State.

The ensuing 1994-95 season, after the departure of the nucleus of the last few years, was later described by Withers as "schizophrenic". It began with an 11-1 start against mostly inferior opposition. The Bulldogs then proceeded to lose their first six WCC games, and then win 10 of their last 11 games against WCC opposition, including three wins in the WCC tournament. The team was led by Rillie and two-time All-WCC first-team selection Kyle Dixon, with key support from Rillie's newly recruited countryman Paul Rogers. The WCC tournament win gave Gonzaga its first appearance ever in the NCAA tournament. The Zags' tournament debut would be brief, as they would lose to Maryland in the first round.

Following that season, Fitzgerald had another important decision. He was tiring of coaching, and at the same time, Monson was planning to pursue head coaching positions, including the one nearby at Eastern Washington. The two discussed both men's coaching futures. Initially, Fitzgerald proposed coaching another five years with Monson as his guaranteed successor. Monson declined on the grounds that it was too long a wait. Soon afterward, the two agreed that Fitzgerald would coach two more seasons, through 1996-97, with Monson then taking over.

During Fitzgerald's last seasons as head coach, and at the start of Monson's tenure as head coach, Gonzaga would recruit the core players who would soon take the Bulldogs to heights the program had never seen. From California came Bakari Hendrix, a 6'8"/2.03 m post player who would be WCC Player of the Year in Monson's first season (although he would graduate in 1998, before the program's true emergence). In 1996, two perimeter players from the Portland area who would combine for five All-WCC first team selections joined the roster in Matt Santangelo and Richie Frahm. Gonzaga's Australian pipeline continued with big man Axel Dench. Quentin Hall, a 5'8"/1.73 m Bahamian point guard and defensive stopper, came in 1997 after two years at two different junior colleges. Jeremy Eaton, a 6'11"/2.11 m forward whose hobby was steer roping, also came from junior college. Finally came Monson's first recruit as head coach, Casey Calvary, a physically talented but raw 6'8"/2.03 m forward from Tacoma who had been overlooked by Washington and Washington State.

Liftoff
Monson would immediately place his stamp on the Gonzaga program, dramatically upgrading the nonconference schedule. After their first game of the 1997-98 season, they traveled to Fairbanks, Alaska for the Top of the World Classic, with a later matchup at Michigan State which featured Mateen Cleaves and Morris Peterson, key members of the Spartans' 2000 NCAA champions.

In Fairbanks, they started by destroying Tulsa 78-40. The Zags then narrowly beat Mississippi State before dispatching then-fifth-ranked Clemson to win the tournament. The team went on to tie a school record with 24 wins and win the WCC regular season crown. However, they would lose in the WCC tournament final to San Francisco and get snubbed for the NCAA tournament. They went to the NIT, defeating Wyoming before losing to Hawaii.

1999
The Zags lost Hendrix to graduation, but returned almost everyone else for yet another daunting schedule. The season opened with a competitive loss at Kansas, followed by a trip to the preseason NIT, where they beat Memphis before losing to Purdue. They proceeded to win their first eight WCC games and made an apperaance in the Coaches' Poll at #25, followed immediately by a 16-point loss at San Diego. They finished 12-2 in conference, and swept through the WCC tournament, winning their three games by a combined 59 points. Four players—Eaton, Frahm, Hall, and Santangelo—would be named to the All-WCC first team. Their reward for the WCC crown was a date in the West Regional of the NCAA tournament against Minnesota across the state at KeyArena in Seattle.

Two days before the Zags and Gophers were to play, the St. Paul Pioneer Press broke a story alleging massive academic fraud in the Gophers basketball program, specifically that some players had course work done for them (cf. Jan Gangelhoff, the whistleblower in the Minnesota program) and that some of the coaching staff, including head coach Clem Haskins, knew about it. The following day, four Gophers players suspected of involvement in the scandal were suspended, including two starters.

Gonzaga hit six three-pointers in the first eight minutes on their way to a 45-26 halftime lead. Due to foul trouble, the already depleted Gophers had to give a forward who had played seven minutes all season eight minutes of playing time in the first half. The Zags decided to employ a box-and-one defense, with the 5'8" Hall on the 6'6"/1.98 m Quincy Lewis, the Gophers' main remaining star. Hall harassed Lewis into 3-for-19 shooting from the field. The Gophers stormed back in the second half to cut the lead to 65-63 with 1:22 left, but a Frahm three shortly thereafter gave the Zags breathing room, and the Gophers failed to score the rest of the way as the Zags eased to a 75-63 win, their first ever in the NCAA tournament. The victory, though meaningful, did not give the Zags a place in the national consciousness, since one could very easily blame the loss on the suspensions of the four Minnesota players.

Next up was second-seeded Stanford, the Pac 10 champions who were returning four seniors from a team that had made the previous year's Final Four. The Bulldogs again started strong, taking a 13-point lead in the first half, and outrebounded the more physical Cardinal 47-33 on their way to a 82-74 win.

The Zags then traveled to Phoenix for the West Regional, where they would face 6-seed Florida. They again took a 13-point lead in the first half, but the Gators cut the deficit to 1 at halftime. The second half was closely fought, but it appeared with 45 seconds left that the Zags would lose, as Florida had sunk an open three-pointer to take a 72-69 lead. Few would later say that after that basket, "We were in disarray." However, Eaton would score inside with 20 seconds left, and the bench then called for Hall to foul to stop the clock. Instead of fouling, he forced a traveling violation from Florida with 15.4 seconds left. Hall missed a potential game-winning shot, but the rebound found its way to Calvary, who tipped it in with 4 seconds left to give the Zags a 73-72 lead. A desperation outside shot from Florida missed, and a team that had never won an NCAA tournament game before this season now found itself one win from an improbable Final Four berth. Once the Zags returned to their hotel after the win, they immediately jumped into the pool, still in their basketball shorts. When Fox sportscaster Angie Arlati requested an interview with Hall, the Zags declared it wouldn't happen unless she went in the pool with them. She jumped in fully clothed and conducted interviews in the pool.

The regional final would pit the Zags against top seed Connecticut, led by All-America forward Rip Hamilton and point guard Khalid El-Amin. The game was close throughout; Gonzaga led 32-31 at the half, and tied it at 53 with 7 minutes left. Hall held El-Amin scoreless from the field. However, Hamilton led all scorers with 21 points, El-Amin hit five free throws down the stretch, and UConn got three key putbacks late in the game. While the Zags were in the game almost to the very end, it would be the Huskies going to their first Final Four by a 67-62 margin. UConn would go on to win their first national title as well.

Changes
In April, shortly after the Zags' tournament run, Few was named associate head coach, making him Monson's designated successor. In the meantime, the mess at Minnesota grew almost by the day. The fraud uncovered would claim Haskins' job, and also lead to NCAA sanctions that saw the Gophers' 1997 Final Four run wiped from the record books. During the summer, Monson was helping coach the USA team at the World University Games in Spain while preparing for his wedding later that summer. When he returned in July, he found a message on his answering machine from the Minnesota athletic director, wanting to interview him for the newly vacant head coaching job. Before meeting with Minnesota, he scouted a high school tournament in Los Angeles where he saw a forward from Boise, Cory Violette, and told Few and Grier that they needed to give him a scholarship offer. A few days later, Monson would accept the Minnesota job, and Gonzaga would almost immediately name Few as his successor.

Before Monson left, another event would help Gonzaga sustain its newfound excellence. Dan Dickau, a point guard with strong scoring skills, became the next Zag to come through the Washington pipeline, after a promising freshman season followed by a frustrating sophomore year that ended prematurely with a broken foot.

Back for more
The 1999-2000 season saw a new head coach, and Hall graduated, but most of the other key players would return. The Zags would be beaten out for the regular-season WCC title by Pepperdine. However, they would again win the WCC tournament, surviving an overtime thriller in the final against Pepperdine. The NCAA tournament was in some ways déjà vu, as they would again be seeded 10th in the West Regional. And they would again take out the #7 seed, this time Louisville. The Zags' next victim was another 2-seed, St. John's. This sent them to their second straight Sweet Sixteen, this time to The Pit in Albuquerque to face Purdue. However, their run would end there, as a more physical Boilermakers team took them out of the tournament.

Most of the stars from the 1999 team graduated after the 2000 season, but Calvary and Violette would be back, Dickau would be eligible for the upcoming season, and future two-time WAC Player of the Year Blake Stepp arrived for his freshman season.

2007: The perfect storm
The 2006-07 season, as noted earlier, was typical of Gonzaga's nonconference scheduling in recent years. Unfortunately for the Zags, they would have to go through the season without one of the program's defining individuals in Morrison, who opted to forego his final year of college eligibility and declare for the NBA Draft, in which he would be chosen third by the Charlotte Bobcats. They also lost inside stalwart Batista and sixth man and defensive stopper Knight to graduation. The Zags' cupboard was not totally bare, as three starters returned, as well as promising big man Josh Heytvelt and point guard Jeremy Pargo. Newcomers included Matt Bouldin, a highly recruited shooting guard from the Denver area, and newly eligible Kansas transfer Micah Downs.

After the NIT Season Tip-Off, the Zags had a breather with home wins over Idaho and Portland State before one of the most brutal December stretches in the country. They defeated Texas, featuring consensus national player of the year Kevin Durant, in Phoenix before a loss at Washington State, then unranked but a team that would emerge as a top-10 contender during the season. After returning to Spokane and defeating Washington, the aforementioned "death march" saw the Zags lose four consecutive games in hostile environments. The first game in the stretch was effectively a Georgia home game, although held at a nominally neutral site in Atlanta. The second game was against Duke in Madison Square Garden, located in the midst of a large Duke alumni base in the New York City area. The final two trips were to Nick Fazekas-led Nevada and, after the start of the new year, to Virginia.

The first half of the conference season saw the Zags seemingly right themselves, with only an away loss to Saint Mary's. The second half of the conference season was preceded by a trip to Stanford, with the Zags winning a double-overtime thriller. A win at Pepperdine and a loss at Loyola Marymount saw them level in the conference with a resurgent Santa Clara. The Gonzaga program would shortly be plunged into perhaps its biggest controversy in recent memory.

On the night of February 9, 2007, a police officer in Cheney stopped a car driven by Heytvelt which also carried Theo Davis, a Canadian freshman who was redshirting that season. When the officers searched the car, they found substances that later proved to be psychedelic mushrooms and marijuana. Both players were arrested on drug charges, and were almost immediately thereafter suspended from the team. Heytvelt had been the Zags' second-leading scorer and leading rebounder. He would soon face felony charges of possession of psychedelic mushrooms, while Davis faced misdemeanor charges of marijuana possession. Eventually, both reached deals with prosecutors, contingent on passing periodic drug tests and performing community service, which will see their charges dropped in a year.

Three days after the arrests, the Zags lost their first game ever in The New Kennel, to Santa Clara. This ended a 50-game home winning streak that had run nearly four years. Their next game, a visit by Memphis to the Spokane Arena, ended in an overtime loss. By this point, the Bulldogs trailed Santa Clara in the conference. They would back into the regular-season title, thanks to the Broncos losing both of their two closing conference games. Nonetheless, it was widely believed that the Zags would have to win the WCC tournament to earn an NCAA berth. They proved up to the challenge, winning a rubber match against Santa Clara in the WCC final. The Zags would go down to Indiana in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Awards
Unless otherwise noted, all awards are from the awards section of the 2006-07 Gonzaga basketball media guide.

National Player of the Year

 * Adam Morrison — Oscar Robertson Trophy, 2006 (shared with JJ Redick)

First team

 * Dan Dickau, 2002 (AP, Wooden)
 * Adam Morrison, 2006 (consensus)

Second team

 * Frank Burgess, 1961 (AP) — also UPI and Helms All-American, not categorized by team level
 * Casey Calvary, 2001 (Wooden)
 * Blake Stepp, 2004 (consensus)

WCC Player of the Year

 * John Stockton, 1984
 * Jeff Brown, 1994
 * Bakari Hendrix, 1998
 * Dan Dickau, 2002
 * Blake Stepp, 2003 and 2004
 * Ronny Turiaf, 2005
 * Adam Morrison, 2006
 * Derek Raivio, 2007 (shared)

WCC Freshman/Newcomer of the Year:

 * Matt Santangelo, 1997 (shared)
 * Blake Stepp, 2001
 * J.P. Batista, 2005

WCC Coach of the Year

 * Dan Fitzgerald, 1981 and 1994
 * Dan Monson, 1999
 * Mark Few, 2001 through 2006

Record
Although Gonzaga has played basketball since 1907, the official media guide only lists year-by-year records starting with the program's entry into NCAA Division I in 1958.

2007-08 team
Roster

Home venues
From the official 2006-07 Gonzaga basketball media guide:
 * Russell Gymnasium (1908-1958)
 * This venue, attached to the Gonzaga administration building, is now the Russell Theater, used for student theatre programs.
 * Spokane Coliseum (1958-1965; also used for West Coast Athletic Conference home games in 1979-80 )
 * John F. Kennedy Pavilion, renamed Charlotte Y. Martin Centre in 1987 (1965-2004)
 * McCarthey Athletic Center (2004-Present)

All-time statistical leaders
All statistics are from the official 2006-07 Gonzaga basketball media guide, with updates reflecting the 2006-07 season from the school's official season statistics, which include career statistics for all players on the roster.

Career leaders

 * Points: Frank Burgess — 2,196 (1958-61)
 * Scoring average: Frank Burgess — 28.1 (1958-61)
 * Assists: Matt Santangelo — 668 (1996-2000)
 * Rebounds: Jerry Vermillion — 1,670 (1951-55)
 * Steals: John Stockton — 262 (1980-84)
 * Field goals made: Frank Burgess — 800 (1958-61)
 * Field goal percentage: Bill Dunlap — 62.5% (1979-82)
 * Three-point field goals: Blake Stepp — 288 (2000-04)
 * Free throws made: Ronny Turiaf — 643 (2001-05)
 * Free-throw percentage: Derek Raivio — 92.7% (2003-07)
 * Blocked shots: Casey Calvary — 207 (1997-2001)

Single-season leaders

 * Points: Adam Morrison — 942 (2005-06)
 * Scoring average: Frank Burgess — 32.4 (1960-61)
 * Assists: Matt Santangelo — 225 (1999-2000)
 * Rebounds: Jerry Vermillion — 456 (1952-53)
 * Steals: John Stockton — 109 (1983-84)
 * Field goals made: Adam Morrison — 306 (2005-06)
 * Field goal percentage: Casey Calvary — 65.8% (1998-99)
 * Three-point field goals: Dan Dickau — 117 (2001-02)
 * Free throws made: Adam Morrison — 240 (2005-06)
 * Free-throw percentage: Derek Raivio — 96.1% (2006-07)
 * Blocked shots: Ronny Turiaf — 59 (2004-05)

Single-game leaders

 * Points: Frank Burgess — 52 vs. UC Davis, January 26, 1961
 * Assists: Blake Stepp — 16 vs. Long Beach State, December 20, 2002
 * Rebounds: Jim Dixon — 33 vs. Eastern Washington, January 23, 1961
 * Field goals made: Jean-Claude Lefebvre — 20 vs. Whitworth, February 18, 1958
 * Free throws made: 16, accomplished seven times by three players
 * Ronny Turiaf vs. Cincinnati, March 20, 2003 (NCAA tournament)
 * Blake Stepp vs. Washington, December 2, 2002
 * Ronny Turiaf vs. Indiana, November 26, 2002
 * Frank Burgess, four times (individual games not listed)

Current

 * Dan Dickau — Atlanta Hawks, Portland Trail Blazers, New Orleans Hornets, Boston Celtics, Portland Trail Blazers (2002–present)
 * Adam Morrison — Charlotte Bobcats (2006–present)
 * Ronny Turiaf — Los Angeles Lakers (2006–present)

Past

 * John Stockton — Utah Jazz (1985–2003)
 * Mike Champion — Seattle SuperSonics (1988-89)
 * Richie Frahm — Seattle SuperSonics, Portland Trail Blazers, Houston Rockets (2004–2005)

Currently in other leagues

 * J.P. Batista — Lietuvos Rytas (Lithuania)
 * Axel Dench — Adelaide 36ers (Australia)
 * Richie Frahm — Benetton Treviso (Italy)
 * John Rillie — Townsville Crocodiles (Australia)
 * Paul Rogers — Perth Wildcats (Australia)
 * Cory Violette — Bipop Carire Reggio Emilia (Italy)