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Spring isn’t all that far away from now. It won’t be long—maybe the middle of May—until the lilacs bloom in Spokane, WA. Oh, those lilacs, native to lands from southeastern Europe to eastern Asia. So far from the Pacific Northwest.
When the seasons change in a few weeks, their purple petals will ride the wind to gently drift down into the rushing waters of Spokane Falls. It’s the great tumble, the water and the petals both descending in harmony. It’s counterintuitive, though. The residents of Lilac City won’t be saddened by the collective plunge. Springtime, the season of renewal throughout Spokane after a winter wrought by snow draught, will bring the already-happy residents even more joy. They’ll mark their elation with the Lilac Festival and with good vibes that sweep across the entire city. It’s the special kind of collective bliss that drew Gonzaga basketball’s biggest stars to the city, regardless of whether or not the lilacs are in bloom.
“What's so cool about Spokane and Gonzaga is, like, Gonzaga doesn't have a football team,” Braden Huff, a native of Illinois, tells SLAM. The junior was averaging nearly 18 points a game for the Zags before injuring his left knee in January. “Seattle is the closest major sports city, and that's a three-hour drive, four-hour drive. All they really got is Gonzaga basketball. That’s really the community, and it kind of revolves around that. So when you're in town, wherever, just out and about, everyone's gonna know who you are and come up to you and it's really cool. It's a really cool city, and they really take care of their Zags.”
“Along the same lines as B. Huff, [it] definitely has to tie in with the community,” Graham Ike, a native of Colorado, tells SLAM. Ike, a graduate student, is in his third season with the Bulldogs. He’s the team’s leading scorer, going for nearly 20 points per game. “I remember on my visit here, man, it was just something special. It's so hard to describe, but you could just feel it, like, the love and just the magic that happens in this place. It's just that connectivity of the whole Zags, whether it's within the team [or] within the community, that just makes us so strong.”
Strong, indeed. As of this writing in mid-February, the Zags have a 26-2 record. Since head coach Mark Few was hired ahead of the 1999-00 season, he’s led the Bulldogs to the Big Dance in all but one season. That lone season was the beginning of the Covid pandemic so it doesn’t even count as a blemish on Few’s record.
Ike and Huff are part of a long line of time-honored greatness. Really, they’re part of a carefully cultivated basketball family. Coach Few recruits similarly-minded players whose commitments to selflessness and togetherness thoroughly outshine any desire for individual recognition. Coach Few has 17 former Bulldogs currently active in either the NBA or the G League. In total, since his first season in Spokane, Coach has sent more than 30 players to the NBA. And that’s just in America. There are other famous Zags names who wound up having long pro careers overseas. Huff and Ike are constantly reminded of this exceptionally high standard.
“Oh man, the past has been a great key for our future,” Ike says. “Over the summer, we had this thing called Zag 101 where it's almost remembering the past Zags, to help us continue on the legacy and that was huge.”
They heard from guys like Kevin Pangos, the Nembhard brothers, Kelly Olynyk, Domantas Sabonis and more.
“Our strength coach would show us different videos and kind of mementos from other teams and just how they did things, and he even brought other guys from past teams in to talk to us personally. So I definitely think it was pretty key on sustaining the culture and even building it,” Ike finishes.
To build on that storied past, the whole squad took a trip ahead of this season. They went off the grid to a lake house somewhere in Washington. No phones, just vibes. A lot of vibes. They participated in team hikes, they got to ride jet skis and they got to fly on a zip line. Stationed around the lake were “Zag Legends,” to use the duo's phrasing. Former players, former assistant coaches, even current assistant coaches, each giving out free game about previous Gonzaga successes.
It was a major bonding trip for this year’s group. The team’s offense is near the top of the country and, on average, more than half of the Bulldogs’ field goals come off assists. They’re a well-oiled machine formed on that away-from-the-court trust. Similarly-minded individuals moving as one.
Every team needs their superheroes, though. Ike and Huff are capable of coming through and saving the day when needed. Not only can they each score at will—they’re both left-handed. It’s a mind-numbing exercise for any defense to have to contend with a lone high-usage lefty. Coach Few has a pair of lefties who are both nearly seven feet tall.
They can both score with either hand, too. Ike brings up the famous B. Huff floater, which is liable to strike from anywhere in the paint, from either the right or the left mitt.
“The damn floater, man,” Ike smiles. “It's just, like, everybody knows about it, you know. It’s coming and it's bottoms every time, man. It doesn't dance around the rim and try to find its way in. It's just a straight drop every time. And the crazy thing about it is, it’s, like, a knuckleball. It doesn't have too much spin on it, so I'm like, how does he get it there? It's pretty fascinating to me, man.
“I don't think the public really understands his competitive nature and drive” Ike says about his teammate. “It might not look how a standard guy looks or even how I do things with maybe how rowdy or rah-rah I am, [but] B. Huff’s always so locked in. Any chance he gets, he's trying to take your throat off, you know what I mean? He's always attacking, he's always going at you, no matter the circumstance or situation, he's always trying to win in every single thing that he can.
After a smile, Huff shares what impresses him about Ike’s on-court performances.
“I think for Graham, just the mixture of strength and skill. Usually, especially at this level, it's like, guys either are just super strong, and that's kind of their game, or they're skilled, but not very physical,” Huff says. “I think he's got that combination of both, which just makes him nearly impossible to guard. So if you're physical with him, he's just gonna out-skill you. And then if you're obviously not physical with him, it's just food for him.
“Graham off the court is, like, the greatest guy ever,” Huff says of his teammate. “The nicest dude, he's the greatest teammate. But then you see him on TV or between those lines, you're like, holy cow, this guy is…he's just the ultimate killer. He's locked in, he's talking trash, he’s like he said, he’s gonna take your throat off and you can see that, so I think that that's the coolest thing. You might not know he's this great dude, great human, because when you see him on the court, he's coming to kill.”
Beware the dogs that run around the still-dormant lilacs. They might not bark all that loud, but they sure do bite something vicious.
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