Jul. 26—Gonzaga coaches are busy filling the remaining spots on the team’s 2023-24 roster, conducting offseason workouts with players already on campus in Spokane and trying to lock down commitments from high school players who will make up the Bulldogs’ future recruiting classes.
However you slice it, it’s a frantic time of year for a college basketball coach. Gonzaga’s Mark Few is feeling it more than most, preparing to leave next week for Team USA training camp in Las Vegas ahead of the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup from Aug. 25-Sept. 10 in Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Recruiting efforts have particularly been time-consuming over the past 40 days, with GU coaches hopping from city to city to evaluate dozens of Class of 2024 and 2025 prospects at AAU tournaments, top 100 camps and all-star games before the end of the live recruiting period, which started July 15 and ends Tuesday.
The Bulldogs don’t have a commitment from anyone in either recruiting class, but they’ve laid the groundwork with a handful of prospects who’ve either taken official/unofficial visits to Spokane, picked up offers from GU or received offers from Few’s staff.
Below, we look at five players the Bulldogs are targeting in the Class of 2024 and three more in the Class of 2025 who’ve already received Gonzaga offers.
Class of 2024
Zoom Diallo
Position: Guard
Height/weight: 6-4, 190
Hometown/school: Tacoma; Prolific Prep (California)
Gonzaga’s top recruiting priority regardless of class, Diallo left his hometown of Tacoma to finish his high school career at Prolific Prep, an academy based in Napa, California, that’s produced a handful of NBA draft picks including Jalen Green, Josh Jackson, Gary Trent Jr. and recent Washington State standout Mouhamed Gueye.
The five-star guard has visited Gonzaga twice, including an official last January, so it doesn’t appear Diallo’s out-of-state move will seriously jeopardize the Bulldogs’ chances of landing the Gatorade State Player of the Year, who has a top six of GU, Washington, Florida State, USC, Arizona and Kansas.
Diallo spoke to On3.com on July 10 about Gonzaga, telling the website, “They work a lot with their guards. They really install whatever their game plan is, whatever their system is going to be for that game; they really work on that with their guards in and out of practice. They’re really involved in developing their guards, and that really stood out to me.”
Diallo also told On3 he hopes to announce a college commitment prior to his senior season.
Asa Newell
Position: Power forward
Height/weight: 6-9, 205
Hometown/school: Athens, Georgia; Montverde Academy (Florida)
If the Zags can pull off a major recruiting coup and land Newell, he’d come in just behind Chet Holmgren and Jalen Suggs as the third-rated recruit in school history. Not surprisingly, there’s still a lot of legwork to be done on the recruiting trail if Gonzaga hopes to be among Newell’s finalists.
The Bulldogs are off to a good start, hosting the Montverde standout on an official visit this week. Only two other schools — Indiana and Georgia — have done so .
Last month, the country’s top-ranked power forward competed for USA at the FIBA U19 Men’s World Cup in Hungary, averaging 7.7 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.3 blocks in the competition.
Before that, he spoke to Adam Zagoria of Zagsblog.com — a website not affiliated with Gonzaga — about his interactions with Few’s staff.
“Gonzaga offered me about two weeks ago,” he said. “I’m still getting a relationship with them and everything. I think I might try to get on campus with them for them to tell me their full plan as well.”
The Zags’ growing pipeline to Montverde Academy (Ryan Nembhard, Andrew Nembhard, Filip Petrusev) shouldn’t be ignored when it comes to Newell’s recruitment, nor should the connections of new GU assistant R-Jay Barsh, who came from Florida State and is a former head coach at Florida-based NAIA school Southeastern.
Ishan Sharma
Position: Shooting guard
Height/weight: 6-4, 185
Hometown/school: Milton, Ontario; Fort Erie International Academy (Ontario)
The Canadian prospect hadn’t garnered much high-major interest until breaking out at the EYBL Peach Jam, where he made 44% of his 3-point attempts and had a 28-point game for his UPLAY Canada team.
Division I programs that have offered Sharma include Arizona State, Yale, Indiana State, Rice and Sam Houston. Canadian journalist Josh Millican reported the shooting guard has heard from Gonzaga’s staff, though an offer hasn’t been made.
The Bulldogs have a stellar track record with Canadian players. Among them: Kelly Olynyk, Kevin Pangos, Brandon Clarke, Andrew Nembhard and Kyle Wiltjer. That’s something to keep in mind if Few’s staff continues to recruit, or eventually offer, Sharma.
Chase McCarty
Position: Small forward
Height/weight: 6-5, 200
Hometown/school: Huntsville, Alabama; IMG Academy (Florida)
Before he took the head coaching job at Valparaiso, former GU assistant Roger Powell was the primary recruiter for McCarty, a skilled wing whose father played one season in the NBA with the Denver Nuggets.
The Zags are still pursuing McCarty and watched the four-star recruit and Alabama native during an Under Armour AAU circuit event in Arizona three months ago.
“(Powell) was recruiting me the hardest from there, but he left and went to Valparaiso,” McCarty told 247Sports.com on April 23. “Their staff is still recruiting me and one of their coaches was here to watch me.”
Gonzaga has seen McCarty play and the country’s 15th-ranked small forward also took advantage of an opportunity to watch the Bulldogs. If first impressions matter to McCarty, GU couldn’t have been better with the prep standout making the 90-minute drive from Huntsville to attend the Zags’ 100-90 victory over fourth-ranked Alabama in Birmingham.
Johnny Furphy
Position: Small forward
Height/weight: 6-7, 180
Hometown/school: Canberra, Australia; Centre of Excellence (Australia)
It’s understandable if the Zags are treading carefully around Australian prospects at the moment, especially those from the Canberra-based Centre of Excellence. Alex Toohey, a COE product who was supposed to be on GU’s campus, decommitted from the Bulldogs less than a week before he was scheduled to arrive in the United States.
Like Toohey, Furphy is a skilled forward who could play at the “3” or “4” and may end up on a college campus this fall if he reclassifies into the 2023 class — which appears to be a real possibility, according to 247Sports recruiting analyst Eric Bossi.
Bossi reported that “coaches from Duke, Gonzaga, Kansas, North Carolina, Providence, UCLA” were following Furphy while the Australian prospect was competing for the NBA Global Academy at the Vegas-based Sportradar Showdown from July 13-16.
Class of 2025
Jalen Haralson
Position: Combo guard
Height/weight: 6-6, 205
Hometown/school: Fishers, Indiana; La Lumiere (Indiana)
Haralson, the nation’s second-rated combo guard in the 2025 class, might be another long shot for the Zags. The five-star prospect has also picked up offers from Duke, Michigan State, Indiana, Florida State, Auburn and a dozen other high-major schools.
After averaging 23.4 points, 7.7 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game as a high school sophomore, the big combo guard spoke to Stockrisers about Gonzaga and the other schools that have extended scholarship offers.
“They love how I operate in the ball screen game,” he said. “Gonzaga has a guard-based offense that sets the other four players on the floor up for success and I’m one of the best in my class at setting others up.”
Nikolas Khamenia
Position: Small forward
Height/weight: 6-7, 180
Hometown/school: North Hollywood, California; Harvard Westlake (California)
Khamenia’s been on Gonzaga’s campus, perhaps giving the Bulldogs an early upper hand when it comes to his recruitment. The young wing was in Spokane for Kraziness in the Kennel, sitting courtside next to incoming freshman and fellow SoCal native Dusty Stromer.
“I took a trip up there, met all of the coaches,” Khamenia told Rivals.com. “Coach Mark Few is a really good dude. He talked to my dad a lot. It’s a really good coaching staff, really good players, really good facilities and a really good campus as well.
“It’s a small, nice community. I saw the Kraziness in the Kennel, so I got to see the whole vibe of the arena. It was nice.”
Gonzaga followed by offering Khamenia in mid-April and Few’s staff was in attendance to watch the four-star prospect in June at the Section 7 tournament in Arizona.
Isiah Harwell
Position: Shooting guard
Height/weight: 6-5, 180
Hometown/school: Pocatello, Idaho; Wasatch Academy (Utah)
Gonzaga’s first offer in the 2025 class went out to Harwell, an Idaho native who’s playing at Wasatch Academy, the same school current Bulldogs point guard Nolan Hickman attended to finish his prep career.
Harwell has offers from 20 schools , including blue bloods Kansas and North Carolina, but also Villanova, Baylor, Texas, Alabama, Creighton, Florida State and UCLA.
In an interview with Zagoria last summer, Harwell said he hopes to visit Gonzaga and reiterated that point while speaking with On3.com a few months later.
“I like Gonzaga a lot,” Harwell told Zagoria. “They like their people to play and they fit in with each other. That’s cool and that makes them stronger and helps them get stronger in the NCAA Tournament.”
