The Little Program That Could has come a long way. Now it is at a crossroads. Gonzaga just won a share of the regular season title during its final go-round as a member of the West Coast Conference, where it has been a member since 1989. Beginning on Thursday, it will begin its final WCC Tournament, which will soon be followed by its 27th consecutive NCAA Tournament, a streak surpassed only by Michigan State’s 28 as the nation’s longest active streak. Next season, Gonzaga will move on to the reconstituted Pac-12, where it will almost certainly continue its winning ways. New season, new league, same old story.
The transformation of this small, mid-major, Jesuit school tucked into the Pacific Northwest into a bona fide hoops powerhouse is one of the most remarkable stories in the history of American sports. That tale is being told in a documentary that will premiere this Friday on Tubi. “Gonzaga: The Slipper Still Fits” was produced by Thomas Tull, a billionaire businessman and investor who has dozens of big budget films like “The Dark Knight,” “The Hangover” and “Unbroken” to his credit. Tull is a sports fan and has long been enamored with Gonzaga’s remarkable rise. He met coach Mark Few through Few’s work with USA Basketball and proposed taking on the passion project.
On top of all of this, Few is a finalist for induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame for the second straight year. The Hall will announce its 2026 class over Final Four weekend. With all of these things happening at once, one might imagine Few, 63, would be awash in nostalgia. But he is a college basketball coach and this is March, so he is too buried in the small details to take in the big picture.
“I’m just kind of oblivious to it,” Few told Hoops HQ. “It sounds bad, but you’re just so competitive and gearing up for the NCAA Tournament and trying to earn seeds. People keep asking me about all that stuff, but I’m focusing in on the next game and not really dwelling on it.”
That approach has worked well during Few’s 26 years as Gonzaga’s head coach. It has worked well again this season. The Bulldogs finished WCC play with a 16-2 record (28-3 overall) and were pegged as a No. 4 seed in Hoops HQ’s most recent Bracketology report. When Gonzaga lost in the second round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament to Houston, it snapped a remarkable seven-year streak of reaching the Sweet Sixteen. This team is poised to start another such streak, despite enduring a rash of injuries to key players. “We’ve been so resilient,” Few said. “We just have a competitive spirit and the ability to figure it out. We’ve been through crazy adversity here.”
Despite having to replace four starters and two key reserves from last season, the Zags got off to a 7-0 start with a win over Alabama. On Nov. 26 they were embarrassed by Michigan 101-61 at The Players Era Festival. The team continued to win, including over Kentucky and UCLA, but on Jan. 15 the Zags lost 6-foot-10 junior forward Braden Huff, their leading scorer and second-leading rebounder, to a dislocated kneecap, which he sustained during a walk through a few hours before playing at Washington State.
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The Zags won the game 86-65, but during the final minutes the team’s leading rebounder and second-leading scorer, 6-foot-9 senior forward Graham Ike, suffered a knee injury. He missed the next three games. Jaylen Warley, a 6-foot-7 senior who played some point guard last season for Florida State, held down the center spot while Ike was out. “We just totally had to scrap our offense and everything we’ve done defensively,” he said. “It was scary, but it was also kind of energizing and fun. It tested the limits of your imagination and belief with what your squad could do.”
Since his return, Ike has been an unstoppable force in the post. He has averaged 23.1 points, 7.2 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.2 blocks over his last nine games while shooting 38.2 percent from three-point range. The most impressive part is that he has put up those numbers without having Huff alongside to draw attention from opposing defenses. “He’s got at least two guys on him at all times and sometimes three, but he’s still able to just deliver, especially down the stretch of games,” Few said. “How he isn’t getting mentinoed in all these All-American teams is crazy. He’s just strapped us on his back. We’re leaning on him as heavily as we leaned on Drew Timme the last two years he was here.”
Worley has also been hobbled the last four weeks by a deep thigh bruise he sustained during an 87-80 loss at Portland on Feb. 4. He played six games with reduced minutes and limited practice time, but he missed the last two regular season games, including Saturday’s 70-59 loss at Saint Mary’s. “He’s probably about forty percent up to his normal athleticism, but he’s still playing,” Few said.
Gonzaga has also gotten solid play from 6-foot-3 freshman point guard Mario Saint-Supery, a native of Moraga, Spain. He had the unenviable job of replacing Ryan Nembhard, who led the nation in assists as a senior. Saint-Supery has played 22.3 minutes per game and started 13 times. He is averaging 8.4 points and 3.6 assists (to 1.4 turnovers) and shooting 44.4 percent from three.
“Mario’s had a really, really solid year for a freshman,” Few said. “He’s got this incredible positive spirit. Just plays with his emotions on his sleeve. And he’s kind of fearless. He’s still a little wild, but that’s okay. He’s going to eventually become a really, really good player.”
Few had similar praise for another freshman, 6-foot-7 forward Davis Fogle, who has emerged recently as a major contributor off the bench. During his first 14 games, Fogle averaged 6.0 points and 1.5 rebounds in 8.3 minutes. In his last 12 he is putting up 10.8 points and 4.2 rebounds in 24.0 minutes. His improvement should help fuel Gonzaga’s stretch run, and it also serves as a harbinger of continued success after the Zags move on to the Pac-12. “He’s just getting an opportunity,” Few said. “Davis does everything really, really well. Moving forward, he’ll be a focal point of our program.”
It remains unclear when — and whether — Huff will be available. His original prognosis was that he would miss eight weeks. That mark arrives March 12, three days before Selection Sunday. If Huff is medically cleared to play, it would be tempting for Few to add him to the rotation, but Few acknowledged that doing so could risk disrupting the rhythm of a group that has won a lot a lot of games together.
“We’d be fine playing with him because we did it for so long,” Few said. “It’s more a question of what will he be like and whether he’ll be ready by then. We’ll know a lot more in a couple of weeks.”
The one thing that did break Few from his day-to-day focus was the making of the documentary. “I’m excited to see it,” he said. “All the interviews we’ve been doing with me and the former players, getting to revisit all of that really got me thinking about what we’ve done here. It’s just been a freaking amazing journey from where we started.”
If this were a storybook, we know how it would end — at the Final Four, which could coincide with Few officially becoming a Hall of Famer. Not surprisingly, Few has not given much thought to that possibility, but he recognizes how significant it would be, for him and the program he built.
“I just figured, if I didn’t get it the first time, there’s no shot,” he said. “But yeah, it’d be an amazing honor. It’s kind of a test of Gonzaga in this journey we’re talking about. I don’t think it’s as much about me as it is about that. It would be so cool because it’s the highest level of acknowledgement.”
The slipper may have fit Gonzaga a long time ago, but it doesn’t anymore. This program is no Cinderella. It’s a powerhouse and a juggernaut, captained by a Hall of Fame-caliber head coach. Regardless of how this season ends, Gonzaga’s story will march on, but in the meantime this team has more winning to do.
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