Gonzaga in Next Year's Old Spice Classic

If there is anything we have become used to in the Mark Few era it is that Gonzaga will play top-tier out of conference teams each and every year. This will continue at the beginning of next year when Gonzaga plays in the Old Spice Classic, a preseason tournament held in Orlando, Florida.

Gonzaga will be joined by Georgetown University, the University of Maryland, Michigan State University, Oklahoma State University, the University of Tennessee, Wichita State University and Siena College. Every team in this tournament was a member of a post-season tournament this past year except for Wichita State. The Zags, Georgetown, MSU, Tennessee, and Siena were all in the big Dance and Maryland and OSU competed in the NIT.

The tournament will run Nov. 27-30 featuring twelve games in 3 days. Each and every game will be televised on the ESPN family of networks (ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU).

This tournament should provide Gonzaga with the early type of recognition that it needs next year. Most early pools have Gonzaga as a potential top 10-top 15 team. This would mean that Gonzaga, MSU, and Tennessee will all most likely be highly ranked at this time. Full schedules have not been released yet but Gonzaga will undoubtedly have one of the most difficult non-conference schedules once again.

As a side note, Memphis was scheduled to be in this tournament but dropped out. Also, half the field for this tournament have reached the final four in the 2000's. Maryland, MSU, Georgetown, and Oklahoma State.

Jeremy Pargo and the NBA

As most Gonzaga basketball fans know, our beloved Point Guard, Jeremy Pargo, has declared for the NBA Draft. To clarify, in no way does this mean that Jeremy has given up his senior year of eligibility. Instead, this allows Jeremy to submit paperwork to the NBA offices, and after hopefully participating at the Orlando draft camp (which takes place at the end of May), he will be told in what areas he must improve. After this he will make a decision to either return to Gonzaga for his senior season or to stay in the NBA draft.
I firmly believe that Jeremy will be back next year due to the outstanding amount of talent that will be at this year's draft, as well as due to the overall weakness of next year's draft. In this year's draft Jeremy is not considered to be one of the higher ranked Point Guard prospects. However, if you look at the Point Guards likely to declare, there is an outside chance that he could be the #2 ranked Point Guard in next year's draft. The clear # 1 prospect will be Ricky Rubio out of Spain, who is likely to be the #1 overall pick in the draft. From my understanding, this kid has the potential to be the best player to come out of Spain. Then I think the # 2 Point Guard spot would be up for grabs between Pargo, Darren Collison of UCLA, and Brandon Jennings of Arizona. My main issue with Collison is how he guards the bigger Point Guards that he will face. As everyone saw in the Final 4 against Memphis, it seemed that Collison did not even belong on the same court as Derrick Rose (The great Memphis Point Guard). With Brandon Jennings, there is no questioning his talent, but it seems quite clear that there are times when he is more intent on making the flashy play as opposed to the correct play.
While all 3 are great players, I truly believe that with a summer spent working on his jump shot and decision making, Jeremy can assert himself as not only an All-American, but the # 2 Point Guard in the draft, and potentially a lottery pick.