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Gonzaga forward Drew Timme’s wide network of college basketball companions includes TCU trio

Gonzaga Bulldogs forward Drew Timme (2) heads to the locker room after defeating the Grand Canyon Antelopes during the second half of a first round NCAA Basketball Tournament game on Friday, March 17, 2023, at Ball Arena in Denver, Colo. Gonzaga won the game 82-70. (Tyler Tjomsland / The Spokesman-Review)
By Theo Lawson theol@spokesman.com(509) 459-5584

DENVER – Drew Timme has cultivated a large network of friends, AAU teammates, high school rivals and offseason training partners that stretches across four time zones, all six major conferences and each of the four regions at this year’s NCAA Tournament.

There was a good chance Timme and Gonzaga would encounter at least one of those if the Bulldogs managed to stay alive at the tournament.

It took all of two games.

Gonzaga’s three-time All-American forward is familiar with three players on TCU’s roster and he’s particularly close with leading scorer Mike Miles Jr., a junior guard and All-Big 12 second-team selection averaging 17.6 points per game for the Horned Frogs.

“We go back awhile,” said Timme, who’s played Miles on the AAU circuit and occasionally trains with the talented TCU guard when he returns home to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the summer. “He used to play up and stuff, so we’ve always been playing with each other and in the summers, working out and all this and everything. He’s a great kid.

“He’s a great hooper but even a better kid. His family, love his mom and his brother and everything.”

Miles and Timme won’t see a lot of each other in individual matchups Sunday, but there’s a good chance the TCU guard offered up some tips to his frontcourt teammates on how to slow Gonzaga’s scoring machine. Timme probably did the same to the Bulldogs’ backcourt when it comes to containing Miles .

“We work out together in the summer with the same trainer, so I’ve been in the gym with him a lot. I know how he plays,” Miles said. “But he knows how I play, so it’s going to be fun.”

Timme also knows TCU’s JaKobe Coles and was watching live when the sophomore forward made a winning floater in TCU’s 72-70 victory over Arizona State on Friday.

“I think he’s pretty undervalued and I think just him showing kind of showed the nation this dude is really good and he’s more than capable and I was just proud of him for that, that moment,” Timme said.

Coles was part of a loaded Guyer High School team that sent Timme’s Pearce High team home from the state playoffs in 2019. Coles’ prep teammates included Kansas All-American Jalen Wilson and Texas Tech guard De’Vion Harmon, two other players who are close with Timme.

“They actually knocked us out, his team knocked us out in the playoffs,” Timme said. “They had a stacked team, so I was never able to beat him in high school. They had a stacked team.”

Timme has a background with junior guard Micah Peavy, another high school rival who attended Duncanville.

“Obviously, want to see them do good,” Timme said, “but not when we play them.”

Throw a dart at the 2023 NCAA bracket and there’s a decent chance you’ll hit someone Timme shared the floor with in high school, on the EYBL AAU circuit or back home in Dallas during offseason training sessions.

TCU Horned Frogs guard Mike Miles Jr. (1), left, and forward JaKobe Coles (21) talk about past matchups against Drew Timme during a press conference on Saturday, March 18, 2023, before the TCU Horned Frogs’ second round basketball tournament matchup against the Gonzaga Bulldogs at Ball Arena in Denver, Colo. (Tyler Tjomsland / The Spokesman-Review)
TCU Horned Frogs guard Mike Miles Jr. (1), left, and forward JaKobe Coles (21) talk about past matchups against Drew Timme during a press conference on Saturday, March 18, 2023, before the TCU Horned Frogs’ second round basketball tournament matchup against the Gonzaga Bulldogs at Ball Arena in Denver, Colo. (Tyler Tjomsland / The Spokesman-Review) Buy this photo

National runner-up Kansas, the No. 1 seed in the West that lost to Arkansas Saturday, features Wilson, a standout wing and the Big 12 Player of the Year. Timme and Wilson have been friends since elementary school, and the Kansas junior made a guest appearance on the Gonzaga star’s “Gimme Timme” podcast earlier this season.

“Jalen and I actually played on the same team since fourth grade, off and on,” Timme said. “We’ve really been together for a long time.”

It wouldn’t happen until the national semifinal, but Timme could square off Houston’s Marcus Sasser, an All-American guard the Gonzaga forward grew up playing with and against on the AAU circuit.

“It’s just funny seeing all of us now all on this stage together,” Timme said. “It’s crazy. We talked about it as kids, but actually doing it’s crazy.”

Timme has connections on the other side of the bracket, too. Mid-major sensation Max Abmas, of Oral Roberts, grew up in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and ran in some of the same hoops circles as Timme.

Texas A&M forward Julius Marble played for Pearce’s top rival, Jesuit High, and Timme was rooting for another close friend, Jalen Jackson, earlier this week during a First Four game between Jackson’s Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Southeast Missouri.

“I feel like I know someone on almost every team, which is crazy,” Timme said. “… That’s the fun part about basketball, a bunch of the friends I have I would never have if I didn’t play basketball. So that’s the cool part, that’s why I like the game so much.”

Timme enjoys watching and monitoring his fellow Texans throughout the regular season and into the NCAA Tournament.

Sunday’s Gonzaga-TCU matchup offers a chance to send a few of them home, or vice versa. Timme gets a kick out of that aspect of the friendships.

“Always want to see the bros succeed,” Timme said. “It’s always fun cheering them on and watching them. That’s kind of the fun thing is, as good as friends as we are there’s no person we want to beat more than our friends. Especially in our little circle.”