Gonzaga coach Mark Few, Team USA eye basketball glory at 2023 FIBA World Cup
It has been a busy offseason for Gonzaga men's basketball coach Mark Few.
He signed three impactful recruits in April, brought in assistant coach R-Jay Barsh from Florida State, hosted recruiting trips for five-star recruits Marcus Adams Jr. and Asa Newell, brought back Anton Watson and signed Croatian Luka Krajnovic in the span of four months.
Now, the program's winningest head coach is halfway around the world as an assistant coach with Team USA in the 2023 FIBA World Cup.
"I feel this is as high of an honor as you can get when you're coaching," Few said in a news release from February. "To represent your country and to be able to do it with the greatest players and coaches in the world is truly special. I've worked with USA Basketball all these years; they are an incredible group of people, and I'm so grateful for this opportunity. Being a part of USA Basketball is something I've really enjoyed doing. It's been a great professional development piece for me, and I am very excited for this."
Few, who was also named to the 2024 Olympics coaching staff, is on a staff that includes Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra and Los Angeles Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue.
Few's USA Basketball experience goes back to 2018 when he was an assistant at the national team minicamp. He helped prepare the national team for both the 2019 FIBA World Cup and returned in 2021 as an assistant for the select team that prepared the gold medalist team at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Two years later and Few is back with the national team, though managing a different cast of players that will look to avenge Team USA's disappointing seventh place finish at the 2019 FIBA World Cup. Losses to France and Serbia marked the Americans' first loss in the FIBA World Cup since 2006, which snapped a streak of three straight gold medal finishes at the tournament. Arguably its worst showing on the international stage ever, Team USA now has a chance to become the only country with six FIBA World Cup titles.
So far this year's 12-man squad is off to a good start, as it went 5-0 in exhibition games that included a double-digit win over No. 1-ranked Spain and a wire-to-wire victory over Giannis Antetokounmpo-less Greece, which Team USA will play in the World Cup group stage on Monday. Even without the two-time NBA MVP, the Greeks are still projected to be the biggest threat to the Americans in Group C. Greece is ranked No. 9 in the world; New Zealand is No. 26 and Jordan is No. 33.
Team USA opened group-stage play on Saturday with a 99-72 victory over New Zealand, a game that Few prepared the scouting report for. Greece opened the tournament with a 92-71 win over Jordan.
Assuming Team USA advances to the knockout stage, No. 8 Lithuania will likely be a tough challenge, even without former Gonzaga star and All-NBA forward Domantas Sabonis, who will miss the tournament after having surgery on his right thumb. Lithuania has three players with NBA experience: Donatas Motiejunas, Ignas Brazdeikis and Jonas Valanciunas.
There are a handful of Few's former players in this year's tournament, including Kelly Olynyk (Canada), Joel Ayayi (France) and Filip Petrusev (Serbia).
The biggest challenger to Team USA is Spain, the reigning FIBA World Cup champions. Spain went 9-1 in the qualifying round and boasts eight players with NBA experience including athletic bigs Santi Aldama and Usman Garuba, national team stalwart Rudy Fernandez and the Hernangomez brothers. A Spain-USA World Cup Final is definitely in play.
After the matchup with Greece on Monday morning at 5:40 a.m. PT, Team USA will wrap up group-stage play against Jordan on Wednesday at 1:40 a.m. PT. Both games will be televised on ESPN2, and you can watch the live stream on fuboTV.
