Tyon Grant-Foster accidentally starts for Gonzaga in season opener

Mark Few did not intend for Grant-Foster to start on Monday against Texas Southern

Gonzaga Bulldogs assistant coach Brian Michaelson (left) and forward Tyon Grant-Foster (right). | Photo by Erik Smith

There were a lot of surprised faces at the McCarthey Athletic Center on Monday evening when Tyon Grant-Foster's name was announced among the starting five, none more than Grant-Foster himself.

"I didn't know," Grant-Foster said about his starting spot after the game. "Coach told me, he's like, 'Yo, I'm not gonna start you tonight.' And I was like, it's fine; after everything, I've [missed] so much practice and I have to catch up."

However, a clerical error by one of Gonzaga's assistant coaches resulted in the 6'7 wing starting the team's first game of the season - despite only getting eligible one week ago after a five-month-long battle with the NCAA.

"[Grant-Foster] wasn't even going to start tonight," said coach Mark Few after the game. "This is the first time in 37 years this ever happened: One of our assistants put the wrong name in the book for starters, or whatever, and so he was sitting there in his warm-ups, as we were calling it; we had to get him back out there. [Adam] Miller was supposed to start."

The end result was a sparkling debut for the former WAC Player of the Year, who paced Gonzaga with 15 points in just under 20 minutes of action, while shooting 5-7 from the field and a perfect 5-5 from the free throw line, tacking on five rebounds and a steal as well.

Gonzaga men's basketball team. | Photo by Myk Crawford

Grant-Foster is part of a very deep group of wings for the Zags, including the aforementioned Adam Miller, as well as fellow starter Emmanuel Innocenti and reserves Steele Venters and Davis Fogle. All five of them played between 10 and 20 minutes on Monday, with Miller adding 13 points on 3-5 shooting from deep while Fogle scored 11 points on 5-8 shooting in the final ten minutes of the game, continuing what has been a red-hot start to his freshman season.

That's great news for coach Few, who wants to be diligent about making sure Grant-Foster is fully acclimated to Gonzaga's system before he fully unleashes him.

"He's still got a long ways to go," Few continued. "We're throwing a lot at him. He's having to play multiple positions, so he's really just kind of scratching the surface as far as being totally immersed in what we're trying to do...It's going to take us a while. We got all these days we can use as catch-up days, and then I think we're still a ways from getting him fully immersed."

Gonzaga's balanced playing time on Monday likely won't continue once the team starts playing the meat of their non-conference slate, which starts on Saturday night in the Spokane Arena when the Zags host SEC foe Oklahoma, and continues three days later at the Kennel against No. 23-ranked Creighton.