GU notebook: Giacoletti enjoys role
RALEIGH, N.C. – After taking two different teams to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament as a head coach, Ray Giacoletti seems to be enjoying this year’s return trip as an assistant.
“It’s been nice, really,” said Giacoletti, who is in his first season as an assistant under Mark Few at Gonzaga, which faces Davidson today at the RBC Center in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. “I can just work and prepare without having to answer all the media questions like Mark does.
“It’s a little bit unique, really.”
Giacoletti, a close friend of Few’s, landed at GU last spring after he was fired at Utah just two years after leading the Utes to a 29-6 record, a Mountain West Conference championship and the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA tournament. A year earlier, he had guided Eastern Washington University to a Big Sky Conference championship and the school’s first NCAA tournament berth.
Giacoletti still cherishes the memories of those tournament appearances but insists he does not miss the pressure – for now, anyway – that comes with running your own NCAA Division I program.
“I think this has been really good for me,” he said. “It’s been a fun year learning a new system – a system that has been very successful for a decade at Gonzaga. I just kind of look at it as being the halfway point in a career where I get to step back and learn from someone who has been as successful as Mark.”
Giacoletti said three D-I schools with coaching vacancies have contacted him to gauge his interest in becoming a head coach again. He refused to name those schools publicly, but said he told all three he was unwilling to leave GU at this point.
“For one, I’d never leave Mark after just one year,” Giacoletti said. “He gave me the opportunity to come here, and I would never do that to him. And second, I’m happy at Gonzaga. Somewhere down the road, I’ll be a head coach again. I mean, I did it for 10 years, so it’s not like I’ve never done it and I’m just itching for the opportunity. But right now, I’m really happy, and my wife is happy, too.
“And that happiness is more important than anything – right now.”
Diversity at Davidson
Davidson may boast the most culturally diverse roster in the country.
Coach Bob McKillop’s recruiting efforts have spanned the globe, enticing players from five different foreign countries and five different states to Davidson, N.C.
Among the foreign players are Andrew Lovedale, Benin City, Nigeria; Can Civi, Istanbul, Turkey; Ben Allison, West Sussex, England; Boris Meno, Paris; and Max Paulhus Gosselin and William Archambault, who both hail from Quebec.
“The cultural diversity of our team is something I’m proud of,” McKillop said. “And maybe it’s a lesson for the world to understand that no matter what your color, no matter what your religion, no matter what your nationality, you can all come together for a purpose – and the purpose is the team’s effort to become the best they can become.
“If you can do it in a competitive, highly charged atmosphere, why don’t you do it in the world?”
Different memories
Gonzaga junior point guard Jeremy Pargo and Davidson senior counterpart Jason Richards are continuing a proud tradition of Chicago-area prepsters to star at the Division I level. Richards was said he’s well aware of Pargo’s exploits at Robeson High, adding that he played with and against Pargo during their younger days.
Pargo’s recall of Richards, who broke 12 school records at Barrington (Ill.) High, wasn’t quite as vivid.
“Jason? He’s from Chicago? I didn’t know that at all,” Pargo said. “I’m going to look at him like any other great guard that we have played against, the A.J. Prices, the guys that can make shots and get other guys’ great shots.”
Like father, like son
Stephen Curry, son of former NBA sharp-shooter Dell Curry, said his game has been influenced greatly by his father.
Dell Curry resigned as a Charlotte Bobcats assistant coach to become the team’s director of player programs so he could watch more of Stephen’s games.
“Just hanging around him, he’d be in the gym so I always had a ball in my hand,” Stephen said. “One year in high school he helped change my shot to more over my head than down on the hip.”
Stephen defeated his father in their most recent game of H-O-R-S-E.
“I have the win streak going,” Stephen said, “but I know he can still shoot so the competitions are pretty even.”
Notes
The first question lobbed at Gonzaga’s Few in Thursday’s press conference was a head-scratcher. He was asked about his stare, and how it ranked against Tampa Bay football coach Jon Gruden’s. “I was unaware I had a stare,” Few said. “I don’t think I have one. Must be a vicious rumor.” … At the end of dunk and 3-point shooting contests at Gonzaga’s practice Thursday, a 1-on-1 game broke out between walk-ons Andrew Sorenson and Chris Pontarolo-Maag with the rest of the team watching in a semi-circle. Sorenson made a 3-pointer, but Pontarolo-Maag had his teammates hollering with a nifty crossover move and layup. Pargo sprinted over to congratulate Pontarolo-Maag.