SPOKANE, Wash. – The weight room inside the Volkar Center at Gonzaga University is relatively empty on this sleepy fall morning. As Rui Hachimura, a 6-foot-8 230-pound junior forward from Japan, does some dumbbell lunges, he is interrupted by strength coach Travis Knight, who is standing beside an iPad mounted in front of a glass door next to the practice court.



“Roo, you have to set this up,” Knight says.



Hachimura stops his workout and strolls good-naturedly toward Knight. He taps the iPad screen a few times, which brings up the official Gonzaga weight room playlist for this season. Every song has been hand-picked by Hachimura, and the list is exclusively rap and hip-hop. “Rich and Sad” by Post Malone. “Esketit” by Lil Pump. “KOD” by J. Cole. Knight had asked him to choose 100 songs, and Hachimura has found 76. When he is done setting up the iPad, he returns to his exercises while Drake’s “The...