In March of 1999 the Gonzaga Bulldogs went on a magical run to the Elite Eight as an 11-seed, punctuated by a game winner over Florida which led to the iconic Gus Johnson call: ‘the slipper still fits!’
The next year head coach Dan Monson departed for a job in the Big Ten at Minnesota, and an unknown assistant coach named Mark Few took over the program – and the rest is history.
While the story doesn’t quite line up perfectly, there are a lot of similarities to what is currently happening in Boca Raton with the Owls of Florida Atlantic.
FAU went on a miracle run in the NCAA Tournament in 2023, going all the way to the Final Four under coach Dusty May as a nine seed. One year later, he too departed for greener pastures in the Big Ten – taking the head coaching job at Michigan. He will be replaced by John Jakus, a relatively unknown assistant coach who has a background at Baylor and – you guessed it – Gonzaga.
Will Jakus turn around and lead FAU to 25 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances and cement himself as a future Hall of Fame coach? It’s unlikely, simply because of the extreme rarity that is Few and Gonzaga’s story.
However, a program coming off a great two year run, in an improved basketball conference, with an invigorated fanbase, hiring a coach who developed under Few and Scott Drew, and who has professional coaching experience in Europe, is certainly one that is trending in the right direction.
Many programs have at times been given the label of ‘the next Gonzaga’ and none have kept it long term – mostly because their coach departed for a bigger job before the program was able to grab a strong enough foothold to succeed without them.
Loyola Chicago lost Drew Valentine, VCU lost Shaka Smart, George Mason lost Jim Larranaga, Florida Gulf Coast lost Andy Enfield, Oral Roberts lost Paul Mills, the list goes on and on – and in the transfer portal era the ability to retain talent at the mid-major level is harder than ever.
Jakus is a phenomenal basketball mind, and both the Gonzaga and Baylor coaching trees are rife with successful names – like Tommy Lloyd, Jerome Tang, Grant McCasland, Leon Rice, and Mills – but the journey to being Gonzaga in Florida will require Jakus not only to stick around long term, but to continue to fight through college basketball rule changes which heavily favor the Power-6 programs.
Perhaps it’s unfair to toss the Gonzaga label around before Jakus has even coached his first game, but FAU has the infrastructure and current momentum to keep it going in the post-May era, and they are a team well worth keeping on the radar going forward.