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Gonzaga Basketball

Blanchette: Mark Few has golden opportunity

Gonzaga head coach Mark Few is the head coach for the U.S. men’s basketball team at the Pan Am Games this month in Toronto. The U.S. hasn’t won gold in men’s basketball since Ronald Reagan was president. (Colin Mulvany)
Gonzaga head coach Mark Few is the head coach for the U.S. men’s basketball team at the Pan Am Games this month in Toronto. The U.S. hasn’t won gold in men’s basketball since Ronald Reagan was president. (Colin Mulvany)Buy a print of this photo
By John Blanchette blanchettejp@gmail.com(509) 844-5558

Having reclaimed the summit of international basketball over the past couple of decades, you’d think good old American know-how could subdue the neighborhood ballers of Uruguay and the Dominican Republic in between Olympics.

But that’s the puzzle of the Pan American Games, the scaled down Olympics for us New Worlders.

“We haven’t won,” said Mark Few, “since Nixon was president.”

Well, Reagan, anyway. But once you go back two or three administrations, it’s all hazy nostalgia.

So this is Few’s summer assignment. Gonzaga’s main man has been drafted to be head coach of the USA men’s team for the 17th edition of the Pan Ams this month in Toronto, and he’ll convene the camp in Colorado Springs that will cut 22 prospects to 12.

Coaching a national team is, by Few’s reckoning – and those coaches who’ve come before him – “the highest honor you can get,” and an opportunity to serve in some modest way. And some pretty fair coaches have in the Pan Ams – Tom Izzo, Gene Keady, Denny Crum. Izzo’s old boss, Jud Heathcote, helped Marv Harshman steer the U.S. to a gold medal 40 years ago. Four years later, Bob Knight engineered a repeat, and he also tried for companion gold in boxing by popping a Puerto Rican security cop.

But it can be thankless service. The Pan Ams generate none of the public passion the Olympics do. Yet if someone manages to hear that you didn’t kick Panama’s butt, it’s snark ahoy.

And what’s the story on that, anyway?

The last U.S. gold in the Pan Ams dates to 1983, the team anchored by then-collegians Michael Jordan, Chris Mullin, Sam Perkins and Wayman Tisdale – who also formed the core of the 1984 Olympic champs. By 1992, the Olympics had gone pro and America had enlisted its first Dream Team, and the game did nothing but grow on foreign soil.

But the Pan Ams? In the States, they’re no one’s dream. The NBA was as lukewarm about them as the public. So the U.S. kept sending college kids to the Pan Ams, and not necessarily the varsity. In 2003, America missed the podium; four years later, it didn’t make the medal round. In 2011, a group of NBA D-League players were conscripted, and salvaged a bronze.

Now USA Basketball will experiment again. Sixteen collegians have accepted invitations to camp, along with nine-year NBA veteran Ryan Hollins. Other NBA free agents were approached and passed, so the committee asked five players who’ve been earning paychecks overseas.

“We thought it would be a opportunity for those guys who’ve kind of been forgotten about, but are really good players with international experience,” Few said. “I know when my guys come back after playing international ball, they’re more mature, they’re more physical – they just get it. That’s what we’re hoping that group will bring.

“And maybe it helps their cause and gives them one chance in their lifetime to play on Team USA.”

Few’s thoroughly familiar with one player in that group: former Bulldog Micah Downs.

Since finishing at GU in 2009, the 6-foot-8 forward has had two stints in the D-League and bounced around to seven different European pro teams – averaging 12.1 points and 5.6 rebounds for Avtodor Saratov of Russian last season.

“He’s a little bigger and stronger than people remember him here,” Few said. “He’s developed more guard skills. He was a pick-and-pop ‘4’ for us, but his game is just bigger and bolder.”

There are notable players from the college ranks, too – Virginia’s Malcom Brogdon and Wisconsin’s Nigel Hayes, and Arizona 7-footer Kaleb Tarczewski, who’s done the bump and grind with Zags big man Przemek Karnowski the last couple of seasons. Wichita State guards Fred Van Vleet and Ron Baker, who popped Gonzaga’s No. 1 balloon in 2013, are also prominent in the mix.

“That might be tough for Zag fans to swallow, but those guys are big-time winners,” Few said.

(By the way, the Pan Ams may not be without a Zag. Kyle Wiltjer, using his dual citizenship, will go through Canada’s team trials.)

The cuts will be done by a group headed by Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, a longtime USA Basketball fixture. Few and his staff, which includes Colorado’s Tad Boyle and ex-NBA coach Mike Brown, then have to bake the cake in a microwave.

“I understand why you’re not going to get the $120 million guys for this,” Few said. “But I don’t think it would be a bad idea if you could reward a guy who’s ninth or 10th on an NBA roster. Those are high level players who might still think it’s a good deal to play for a national team.

“But you’re dealing with a myriad of issues with those guys. And Jim over the years has been bent on protecting the college athlete’s opportunity to still get on this team, and I think he’s right.”

So in 2015, they’re going hybrid. And see if they can bring home gold before another administration is history.