Gonzaga advanced to the school’s first-ever Final Four when it defeated Xavier last week during the Elite Eight.
The trip to college basketball’s promised land has been years in the making for Bulldogs coach Mark Few and Co.
And this team’s success has a lot to do with a recruiting pitch few programs can utilize, and it all started with Boston Celtics center Kelly Olynyk, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Jeff Eisenberg.
The Bulldogs are led by Nigel Williams-Goss and Johnathan Williams III, both of whom transferred into the program and chose Gonzaga due to their ability to develop players during their redshirt year.
“The year after redshirting the 2011-12 season, Kelly Olynyk evolved from overlooked backup to a first-team All-American and NBA lottery pick,” Eisenberg wrote. “That helped Gonzaga the following year land Kentucky transfer Kyle Wiltjer, who morphed from a one-dimensional shooter into an elite scorer capable of exploiting mismatches on the perimeter or in the paint.”
The development of Olynyk and Wiltjer showed Willaims-Goss and Williams III that the Bulldogs could take their game to another level while they were unable to play in games.
“That was a huge factor,”Williams-Goss said, per Eisenberg. “Their redshirt plan for me was second to none compared to all the other schools I was looking at. I feel like they had a very deliberate plan from day one as far as what I was going to work on during my redshirt year. The success they had with Kelly and Kyle was a huge part of why I came.”
The two transfers have taken the program to new heights and now Gonzaga is two wins away from its first national championship.
Thumbnail photo via Greg M. Cooper/USA TODAY Sports Images
