Gonzaga’s Mark Few relies on ‘competitive spirit’ in ever-changing college landscape

The date was July 24, 1999. A 36-year-old Mark Few was on the West Coast, driving along Interstate 405, giving thought to who he was going to be recruiting next as the associate head coach to Dan Monson at Gonzaga. Few remembers the phone call like it was yesterday, one that caused him to pull off to the side of the road to make sure he was hearing everything correctly.

Monson was taking the vacancy at Minnesota after putting the Zags on the national map with the program’s first Elite Eight trip since 1999 — but he wasn’t asking Few to come with him.

That’s because Gonzaga athletic director Mike Roth had already made up his mind: the associate head coach was going to become the Bulldogs’ new head coach. With eight of the top-ten players set to return from that Elite Eight team, and the most energy surrounding the program that it had ever seen, the Zags’ brass wanted a familiar face to lead the school into a new era. 

“This was a no-brainer,” Roth said when introducing Few, who spent the previous 11 years as an assistant coach and a graduate assistant prior to that. “We didn’t need to do a search. We couldn’t find a better coach than Mark.” 

Roth was right. What Gonzaga has become is one of college basketball’s winningest programs and most powerful brand names. It went from just getting onto the radar in the sport a quarter-century ago to being a staple in the NCAA Tournament. Yes, Few has never missed the Big Dance. But he’s done more than just make it: Gonzaga holds the nation’s longest active Sweet 16 streak, having made the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament nine consecutive times.

FOX Sports caught up with the USA Basketball Olympic gold medalist and 723-game winner to talk about his Gonzaga program, what his team learned from a 90-89 loss to No. 5 Kentucky this past Saturday, and how he views the topic of retirement ahead of the No. 8-ranked Zags’ heavyweight showdown against back-to-back reigning national champion No. 18 UConn at 8 p.m. ET Saturday on FOX.

John Fanta: What’s your thought process coming off a game as dramatic as the Kentucky one on Saturday night, and how do you respond this week heading into the matchup with UConn? 

Mark Few: “The big thing is we’re in final exams week, so you’re just trying to find the practice times to manage everything and squeeze in the work on the court. It starts with that, and it was a tough, hard-fought game. We got back late, so we’ve tried to mix in a little rest, and we’ll start to ramp up the work again once the finals get less arduous. 

“But the biggest thing I told the guys is, ‘Hey, we’re two possessions away from being undefeated after playing a killer schedule.’ So I hope we’re understanding all of that, but now let’s make some corrections to some of the mistakes we made in the Kentucky game.”

When you look back at Saturday’s game, your first half was about as well as a team has played this season. 

“Well, how about the halves against Baylor?” (laughter ensues)

That’s very true. I’m sure Scott Drew is happy to be reminded of that 101-63 game. That said, what are the things you point to from that second half that you want to fix going forward? 

“I think coaches understand this well and players do to a certain extent: You’re not just going to make every shot, you’re not going to make every single play. Sometimes, a game just gets going like that. It’s going to settle in and even out a little bit. Kentucky is a very, very good basketball team. You knew they were going to make some sort of run, and they did. But then, look, the lid just got on the basket for us. We had open 3s, layups and postups. We missed three front ends on free throws, and then you look up and you’re really in a game. It was a great basketball game down the stretch, but from a coach’s point of view, I told our guys, ‘You’re going to have ups and downs in a game but we’ve got to be able to count on our defense.’ I thought our defense got a little panicky. So then we started to deviate from the plan and we did some real uncharacteristic things. 

“Kentucky is just an excellent offensive basketball team. They spread you out, they’re dangerous from 3, but they really hurt us on 2s. They hurt us inside. And then after doing a great job on the glass in the first half, Kentucky pounded us on the glass in the second half, which is obviously a big concern for us heading into the weekend.”

Let’s go big picture. If I had told you in 1999 when you became the head coach at Gonzaga that you would be sitting here in 2024 and entering 2025 still the head coach with all you’ve accomplished and the great players you’ve coached, what would you have said to me? 

“I would have said you’re insane. Absolutely insane. John, I remember riding on the bus to Missoula, Montana, to play Montana in my first game as a head coach and just sitting there and praying. I was praying that if I could just stay in this profession as a head coach for three years — I swear, because I don’t know what the average life cycle is for a Division I head coach [and] it’s got to be 3-5 years, if that. I just remember wanting to get through that.

“Look, we captured lightning in a bottle with that first Elite Eight team in 1999. And, that team had lost some games. The expectations were so much different back then, so then it was feeling those and figuring out what to do as I took the lead job. But what an incredible run and ride. What I take away from this is, when you surround yourself with great people, anything can happen. It’s been such a rewarding, awesome and fun experience — from spectacular players to even better people.”

What do you remember about taking over for Dan Monson when he left for Minnesota in July 1999? 

“I remember I was on the 405 freeway recruiting. It was a late change in jobs. It was, I want to say, either the last day in the July recruiting period or the last week in the July recruiting cycle. We had just been together somewhere looking at a player, and then he told us what was going on and [that] he was looking at the Minnesota opportunity. When I got the call that he was going to take the job, I had to pull over. I said, ‘Whoa.’ It was totally surreal to see that transpire in real time [and] then get the job.”

Every coach talks about the art of staying with their core principles versus adapting and trying new things. I know you’re constantly trying new things, but at what point in your tenure did you perhaps adapt? Obviously, when you’re in national title games in 2017 and 2021, there’s a difference in success level there. Is there anything you attribute to that other than years of experience? 

“Every program, every coach’s deal is unique to them. This has been incredibly unique. Obviously, it’s been unique in college basketball — with us going to nine consecutive Sweet 16s — and even in American sports. Nobody’s done anything like this before. I’m not getting up onto a stump here and talking down to people, but it’s hard to fully sum it up. When we started this run, we were low-major on the resources, on the facilities and everything you could have possibly imagined. There were Division II schools operating with more resources than we were. And you see this on the NBA level. In fact, I was glancing at this in an article on The Athletic. They had polled people across the league on the best front offices in the NBA because they had voted on them. If everybody’s in sync, great things can happen. 

“We’ve always been in sync, from the president to the [athletic director] to me, through our staff as well. Everybody’s been on board with the same goal. Nobody’s gotten in the way of the same goal. Jealousy has never entered the fray. The school recognized after the Elite Eight that if we really support this thing and aim to grow this program, everybody’s going to benefit from it at the university. That’s what has happened here. We went from 2,5000 students enrolled [and] being on the brink of financially not doing so well to over 8,000 students with a bunch of new buildings and all kinds of new stuff with a lot of great things going on. I don’t know if I could pick one moment, but I always wanted to say, ‘We have to have this growth mindset.’ If we weren’t growing, somebody’s passing us. We couldn’t stand still because then it would be over. For a while, that was the facilities; we needed to upgrade our arena. Then it was how we traveled. Then it was amping up and going after higher-level type recruits. Then it was about recruiting higher-level recruits. But still, in this day and age, this has probably been the most monumental and craziest type of changes because we’ve had to figure out how to navigate through these last 18 months.”

Do you still love it as much as when you started this job? 

“Yeah. Listen man, I get up every morning and thank God. Think about it: I got to coach in the Olympics and help the United States to a gold medal. Being a part of teams that are in the hunt every year, and living in a great part of the country with a family that can enjoy this year in and year out. I love many parts of it. The players are still fun and great to be able to hang out with. Then, there’s the competitiveness of this. All I wanted to do when I was getting out of college was get involved with college athletics somehow — any way, shape or form. I had such a blast all through high school and all through college, that I wanted to just get any job in college athletics to be able to say, ‘How cool would that be?’ 

“It’s a challenge, though, and it has some frustrations. There’s a lot of it that eats right at your core values, and the item of transfers, where people feel they can be on the move to where they need to or want to, the system is so broken and not in the best interest of young people. You’re going to hit adversity, you’re going to hit bumps … and you have to learn how to pack your bags instead of just falling into them and not doing anything about it.”

It had to give you goosebumps to win an Olympic gold medal this year. In that experience, who is a player or set of players who you didn’t know as well heading into the Olympics that you just marveled at being around every day. 

“I marveled at all of them, and I truly mean that. Golly, I just marveled at how gifted they were and how professional they were. Between the way they handled everything and the way they took care of their bodies, it was amazing. You know, these guys have it great, but in some ways they don’t … because they can’t even go outside. I mean, outside of our hotel, there were thousands of people per day waiting outside. It was ridiculous, like at a rock star or rapper level, but I don’t even think those types of people get the treatment like this team did. There were throngs of people everywhere, so they didn’t have the luxury like Erik Spoelstra and I had of getting 30,000 steps in across Paris when we had hours of downtime. I marveled at how they managed all that and still were so focused. 

“From LeBron [James’] alpha personality and ultra-professional and competitive spirit to Stephen Curry’s workouts and unbelievable process, there’s such a reason why he’s incredible and the joy he brings to every minute of the day both on and off the court is incredible. Two guys that I didn’t know well going in that I thought were incredible for us were Devin Booker and Anthony Davis. I had seen it from afar, but Anthony was unbelievable. For long stretches early on, you’d have to say he was our MVP between defense and rebounding.”

Let’s turn to Saturday night with UConn on the other side. Is there truth to you and Geno Auriemma spending time together previously? 

“That is very true. We’ve been on Nike trips together with them and USA Basketball. We’ve spent time together. With all of his accolades and achievements beforehand in his career, and whenever we have a big win, he’ll text me or I’ll reach out to him. We’ve played a lot of cards as well through the years.”

You would never know he’s won to the degree that he’s won. He’s such an easy-going, normal guy. 

“Well, he’s funny and he’ll bust anybody’s chops. He’s really enjoyable, and he’s fun to share things with. Very enjoyable, and just ridiculously successful and has made history. Yet, he’s always yearning to learn and always asking questions. That’s why he’s so good.”

You’re one of the champions of the sport at playing big games and being willing to do so. It’s healthy for the sport and look where it lands when you play UConn – on primetime on FOX. What are going to be the keys to this matchup?

“Listen, they’re two-time defending champions — and clearly they have their mojo back after beating Baylor and Texas this past week. They do so many things well. To me, it starts with their physicality and rebounding. The two times we’ve run into them, you’re just kind of humming along in a normal game and then they just slowly, methodically put it on us in the second half. It’s that, and it’s what they do with their offensive execution. It’s terrific, and not what you often see. It’s not like 90% of the teams that you see, so there’s adjustments to be made with defending them. 

“They’re a great program with a great coach and a great staff. There aren’t a whole lot of weaknesses when you’re scouting and preparing for them, so you have to put your hard hat on and compete. You know it’s going to be physical and high-level stuff.”

In this world where Tony Bennett retired just before the season, and Jay Wright — along with Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski — have hung it up, do you ever give thought to retiring? 

“I think it entered my thoughts when I was on the bus ride to Missoula for my first game as a head coach at Montana. You’re wondering how long you can hold on to something. I think any coach would tell you that those thoughts run through, but it’s more about the lack of direction or clarity that we’re getting from leadership. There’s just nothing out there right now, John. We’re just out there in the middle of the ocean with no rudder and no motor, and nobody providing us any leadership, or structure, or anything. That’s probably a source of frustration that makes you say, ‘What are we doing?’ But mostly, you’re so caught up in the beauty of the sport and being a coach at your level, there’s such a competitive spirit and purpose every day. You’re looking at recruiting and the next big game and raising NIL dollars. It’s a purpose that welcomes you to be ready in college athletics. 

“But yes, I have thoughts, I do, and bouts of frustration all the time like you have in your job.”

But you’ll keep going a little while longer before you go and fly fish exclusively? 

“Well, I fly fish a lot now. I don’t think you should be worried about that. I’m getting my reps in a lot, although the Olympics cut into that, but it was worth it to win a gold medal.”

John Fanta is a national college basketball broadcaster and writer for FOX Sports. He covers the sport in a variety of capacities, from calling games on FS1 to serving as lead host on the BIG EAST Digital Network to providing commentary on The Field of 68 Media Network. Follow him at @John_Fanta.

[Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily.]

---

---