Outlook: The word “rebuild” has no meaning to Mark Few. Losing four starters (Rui Hachimura, Brandon Clarke, Josh Perkins and Zach Norvell) and a hyper-efficient 6th man (Jeremy Jones) has become business as usual for the Zig Zags, so don’t let the roster reshuffle bother you. The last time Few had to integrate a bunch of new pieces, you might recall Gonzaga marched all the way to the national title game (a game in which they could’ve won had Nigel Williams-Goss not gotten hurt).

The 2020 projected lineup may not have quite the superstar power of the 2016-17 juggernaut, but there’s still plenty of bullets in the chamber. The front line is absolutely loaded, headlined by Killian Tillie, who is set to go gangbusters on the WCC now that he’s fully healthy and no longer sharing minutes with Rui and Clarke up front. Once Tillie crosses the timeline, there’s nowhere on the floor where he can’t throw it in the ocean. He’s a career 47% shooter from behind the stripe and his percentages only go up from there as you approach the rim. The French native finished in the top-20 nationally in both true shooting percentage (64.5%) and effective field goal percentage (64.3%) two years ago, but his deadeye marksmanship is just a fraction of his overall toolkit.

Tillie’s versatility is the key to unlocking the upside of all the individual talent converging in Spokane this season. The roster may seem ‘big heavy’ on paper, but Tillie’s mobility on the perimeter, as well as the respect he commands with his jumper, enable him to slide out to the wing in some potentially mammoth lineups. While Corey Kispert has dibs on most of the minutes at the 3, bumping down Kispert to the second guard spot might be necessary to carve out more opportunities for Filip Petrusev (6’11), Drew Timme (6’10), Anton Watson (6’10), Pavel Zakharov (6’10) and Oumar Ballo (6’10).

Confession - I fell in love with Petrusev when I first watched him play with RJ Barrett back in his days at Monteverde Academy. The fact that there’s even a chance he winds up coming off the pine just goes to show how dynamic the freshmen are. Watson is a local kid from Spokane who has reportedly expanded his scoring range out beyond the 3-point line, a lethal pairing with an already established post game. It’s tough to gauge whether Timme or Watson will make the biggest impact right away, but Timme is the one I’ve gravitated towards after watching tape. The video footage below highlights two of my favorite aspects about his game: