DONE DEAL: Gonzaga lands Massamba Diop, BEST big man in the transfer portal! What he brings to Zags

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Podcast Network.

I am your host, and longtime Gonzaga Podcast or Andy Patton.

Masambat Diop is here officially.

We're going to talk about his commitment to Gonzaga Spurning, Rick Patino and St. John's

what it means for the Zags to have him alongside Braden Huff in this front court as they

head into the pack 12 in 2026-27.

We're also going to talk about what's next for Gonzaga.

This was the big move, the big fish to fry for Gonzaga.

They finally get it done after weeks of waiting.

What is coming up for Gonzaga after this?

We're going to start just by celebrating, just by taking a deep breath and being finally

rid of this constant exed and just consternation around whether this is actually going to happen

as we watched players like Julius Halifanoa go off the market, Anton Bonk go off the market,

Samut Yudithogli go off the market, and it just felt like if it's not Diop, what is

Gonzaga going to do at the starting center position?

There was this extra added fear when North Carolina lost Henry Vesar to the NBA draft

process and it was like there's another prominent blue blood team now looking for a starting

center and the options just continued to dry up.

But Gonzaga said, we're going to take care of business, don't worry folks, we got it,

we can handle this, we still have our eyes on the prize, we got our guy, and now it is

official, Gonzaga is going to have Mesoma Diop in the mix on this foster alongside Braden

Huff in the front court.

And again, this was a two team race, pretty much from the big belt, the out of the transfer

portal after a prominent dominant freshman season at Arizona State, and you pretty much

as soon as his name was in the portal process, it was kind of confirmed that it was going

to be between Gonzaga and St. John's, I'm sure other teams had been in the mix at some

point had been contacting him either before he entered the transfer portal or shortly

after he did, but Diop received a do not contact or put a do not contacts tag on himself

on the portal.

And at that point, it was like, well, nobody else is even going to reach out to him, he's

not interested in hearing from new teams.

We knew it was going to be between two of the active polyfame head coaches, Mark Fu and

Rick Patino.

Gonzaga got the first visit.

They had him on campus, April 18th, 19th, beautiful, sunny summer days, summer day in

Spokane for Gonzaga and Mario St. Superior showing him around campus, his smile at the

county, who had already entered the transfer portal from Gonzaga, has since committed to

San Francisco.

Diani was still on campus, still showing him around, and they were roommates together

at Real Madrid back in the day, and so you got Diani, you got Mario kind of working their

magic to try to convince Diop to ultimately come to Spokane and commit to the Gonzaga

Bulldogs.

But then Diop left.

He left Spokane, flew back home and did not commit to the Gonzaga Bulldogs.

And from what I was hearing internally, the staff was trying desperately, even after

he left, they were trying to prevent him from getting to Queens.

They did not want him to go on that visit with slick Rick Patino and the Johnny.

For obvious reasons, Rick Patino is a legend.

They obviously have money, we know that, but more than that, Patino is an electric elite

recruiter.

This team did wonderful things with Zubi Ejir for the last couple of years, a player

similar to Diop in a lot of ways.

It was scary that Diop left Spokane without committing, and it was even scarier that

over the next couple of days, Gonzaga was unable to convince Diop to commit to them without

going on that visit.

So Diop goes to Queens.

He spends two days in New York with Rick Patino, with that St. John's team, who had just

added Donnie Freeman, out of the transfer portal from Syracuse, who had added a young 18-year-old

international big, who had added some guards.

This is a really darn good team.

And at the time, it was like, okay, this might be problem for Gonzaga.

This might be, and again, that's when, you know, over the weekend is when we saw guys

like Halifenoa, Pemetro, Oklahoma State, and many of these other bigs end up going off

the market, most of what the arm goes to Michigan, and it was starting to get really panicky.

Then Diop leaves New York without committing to St. John's, and suddenly it feels like

a new ball game.

Maybe it felt like Gonzaga was 60-70% likely to get Diop when he first was in Spokane,

and it dropped to about 50-50, then he goes to St. John's, and it feels like it's flipped

in the other direction.

And then it becomes a true toss-up.

Few things we heard from like tiny sources, tiny little nuggets, morsels that we found

over the next couple of days, pretty much indicated that this was a 50-50 race.

And then we finally get the word, Missamba Diop, as Chose Gonzaga.

And it is a match made in heaven, truly.

Diop, again, to put an emphasis on how big of a gap there is between Diop and the next

best available centers, if you look at Evan Miyakawa's Phenomenal website, EvanMia.com,

he has transfer portal rankings, and among the available players in the transfer portal,

if you sort it by centers, Diop was fourth, not among centers, among all players.

The next highest ranked center was Mike Waltz, who was 48th.

After that, it's Texas Tech's Luke Bamboya, who was 60th, Musa Sagnia 71st.

So Diop was heads and shoulders, ahead of every other available center in the transfer

portal market.

Obviously, there were international players.

They could have been in the mix here for Gonzaga and for other teams, North Carolina did

end up landing an international player.

But with the five and five rule, not grandfathering in last year's seniors, that means you don't

get the Tyler Bilodos.

That means you don't get the Tray-Coffman Rens.

The Ugani Unyensoes, those types of players aren't coming back to college.

So Gonzaga needed to lock this down, a little bit on who Diop is for those who maybe have

forgotten, since we haven't talked about his statistics and his specific performance,

all that much.

As a ladies, a seven foot one center from Senegal, again, he played with his Milo Diani

in the Real Madrid system, they were roommates together because they both were from

Senegal and initially, so they were able to bond over that.

Diop comes to the state's plays as a freshman at Arizona State last year.

Now, he was an old freshman.

He turned 21 last year, during his freshman year, so he will be turning 22 during what

will be his sophomore season in Spokane this upcoming year.

But he was phenomenal for the sun doubles last year.

Played 33 games, started every single one of them, played about 30 minutes per game.

13 and a half points, a little over five and a half rebounds per game.

One over two blocks per game as well.

We'll talk more about that in a second, 59 and a half percent on two pointer, so highly

efficient around the rim.

31 percent on three is pretty low volume.

He was eight of 26 on the year, but still showed at least some flashes of three point shooting

ability, 71 and a half percent from the free throw line.

He played against Gonzaga.

His third collegiate game was when Gonzaga went out to Tempe and played the sun doubles.

He had 11 points, four rebounds, a pair of blocks, and a pair of steals in that game.

The up really got going later in the season, kind of the end of non-conference, the start

of confidence play.

That was when things really, really picked up for Diop.

Get an eight game stretch.

Final four games of the non-conference, first four games of big 12 play.

In that eight game stretch, you average 18 points a game, six and a half rebounds, 2.3

blocks, 71 percent from the field.

Some other big games for me at 19.9 boards and three blocks in Arizona States, shocking

win over Kansas, 17.7 boards, three blocks, and a win over Oklahoma State.

This kid is phenomenal.

He does exactly what Gonzaga wants their post players to do.

He was the best option.

Even when there was tons of other options, even when guys like Tiam and Bonk and Yijitoglu

and many others, Halifanoah were available in the portal.

Diop was the guy, not just the guy that Gonzaga wanted, but the guy that best fit what they

needed in the front court.

They are addressing key issues that have been problems for this program in the last half

decade and beyond.

And I could not be happier that the player that they most needed to get this off season

has officially committed to the Gonzaga Bulldogs.

We're going to talk more about what makes him such a perfect fit.

Why?

This is an outstanding addition for the Zags.

What it means for this program heading into the pack 12 in 2026-27.

All of that coming up here in just a second.

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We're still here celebrating Gonzaga's edition of Star Center, Musamba Diop from Arizona

State.

The player they keyed in on very early in the transfer portal process and had to wait

a near month to get this official confirmation that he will be in Spokane next year.

They took a bit of a risk.

They put all of their eggs into the Musamba Diop Vasket.

He spoke about this late last week on an episode basically saying, yeah, Gonzaga did, they

did put themselves in a position where they don't land Diop.

You don't have options to pivot to and I think it was a mail back question that basically

said, at what point does Gonzaga look to other options and I said, you can't, you can't,

you have to see this all the way through.

You have to you have to pour it all in at this point because there just are not other options.

And so for Gonzaga to finally get this done is just a huge sigh of relief for the coaching

staff for the fan base or Raiden Huff.

I am Hatchin who's quite happy to have a teammate who does the things that Diop does on this

roster next season.

And again, I think it was the staff certainly felt a level of confidence that they would

be able to get this done.

Otherwise, they would have started to pivot or started to at least look at other options.

I'm sure they have their eye on some other players, potentially they could have brought

in.

It's amazing for them that they did not have to do that.

The pit for Diop and Gonzaga is, again, perfect.

If you were building a center in a lab and your only assignment was find a center that can

fit alongside Raiden Huff in Markfew's system, if that was your, your directive.

Your play will look a lot like Miss Amidiam.

He fits the skills perfectly needed to play alongside Raiden Huff because we saw Raiden

Huff play alongside a center last year.

Two years Huff spent as the backup to Graham EK at the five.

And while Raiden Huff can play the five, and potentially will be asked to play the five

in certain lineups next year, I think it's pretty clear he's best served as a four.

And while we only got to see 18 games last year and four games the previous year where

Huff and EK started together, I think you can see that Huff's playmaking ability, his

ability to score in that short role that he and Raiden Smith just perfected last year

before Huff's injury.

The floor spacing is not elite for Huff by any stretch, but he has enough of a jump shot

to at least be forced to keep teams honest.

But the other part of this is that Huff is not a great defender around the rim.

And when he was playing the five, he was getting bodied by bigger stronger dudes all of the

time.

He was forced Graham EK to have to kind of shoulder that load, which he was more than

capable of doing.

Graham EK was flat out one of the strongest dudes in college basketball over the last couple

of years.

He had that kind of old man strength for being one of the older players in the sport,

and he utilized that very well.

The Graham EK was also not a rim protector.

He was a physical player who was good at rebounding and a decent defender.

I think a little better than he maybe got credit for, but he wasn't a great defender.

And he certainly was not a rim protector.

His block numbers were very, very low.

And so the front court was always limited.

With even when both guys were healthy, Huff and EK, they were always limited.

I don't know that that team was national championship caliber.

Even had Huff not gotten injured.

Obviously, we saw the significant catastrophic loss to Michigan.

Michigan ends up, of course, winning the championship.

But even like, even if they won every other game they played together, I don't think that

that team had much more than maybe to lead eight running than because of that lack of

rim protection, that lack of interior size and defensive presence.

That's what Diop brings.

I mean, purely and simply, that is what Diop brings.

He has seven foot one.

He has 240 pounds.

Again, he is a sophomore, but he is going to be 22 this year.

So he is the age of a senior or at least older juniors.

And he is a true rim protector.

In the big 12 last year, as a freshman, again, an older freshman, but a player still playing

his first year of college basketball.

I don't care how old you are, adjusting to college basketball is, I mean, there's a learning

curve.

We've seen that with every player who has come over to Gonzaga internationally, wherever

it has been from.

And for Diop, he blocked 69 shots last year.

In the big 12, the toughest conference in college basketball, a conference littered with

exceptionally talented guards, specifically at getting downhill and getting to the bucket.

Guys like AJD Vansa and Darren Peterson, we're going to be two of the top three picks in

the NBA draft.

A guy like Jaden Bradley from Arizona, a guy like Braden Burries from Arizona, both elite

at getting to the cup.

Diop blocked 69 shots in that conference in his first year playing college basketball.

To put that number into perspective, Gonzaga's leader in block shots last year was tie

and grab foster, he blocked 38.

The year prior, the 23, 24 season, this is not a joke, Gonzaga's leader in block shots

that that year was Grammy K, 22.

If you triple the number of blocks Grammy K got, you still would not have the same amount

as Miss Amadea.

The year prior to that, it was a tie between Bradenhoff and Ben Gregg, they blocked 24 each.

The year before that was Drew Timmy who blocked 36.

So over the last five years, the most blocks any Gonzaga player has recorded in a single

season was Grant Foster last year at 38 and most of those came on the perimeter.

Time Grant Foster was not blocking a bunch of lay-ins at the rim.

He was not what you would call a rim protector.

He was a good shot blocker, he is not a rim protector, he's 6'7", that was not the role

that he was filling.

He just happened to have long arms and good athleticism and timing to block shots at

the perimeter.

Now, the year before that, that Drew Timmy year was Chathonger and Chathonger blocked

117 shots, while I and Gonzaga's a freshman, that tied the program record which had been

set three years previously by Brandon Clark.

Outside of those two guys, outside of Austin Day, outside of Zach Collins, Zach Collins

blocked 69 shots, that's the fourth most in a single season in Gonzaga's history.

That's the same number Diop got last year in a tougher conference.

We are not just adding a rim protector that is good for Gonzaga's roster, like he's a

good rim protector for what Gonzaga needs on this team.

He is a good rim protector for the history of Gonzaga basketball, like he'd be one of

the all-time greats already.

One of the best in college basketball last year, especially considering his age and competition

level, and you consider the growth that can still happen for Missamba Diop, the talent

that is still yet to be unlocked.

And I'm not going to trash Bobby Hurley, I'm just, it's not necessary.

I don't know that Diop was fully unlocked by Bobby Hurley at Arizona State last year.

I think he was pretty darn good, and I think that Hurley, while he has his flaws as a coach,

there's a reason that he is not there anymore.

I don't think that development was necessarily a super problematic issue for them.

I think roster construction was more of an issue in in-game access, and I know as we're

certainly an issue, but Diop still has plenty of room to grow.

And there's no program in the country better at developing bigs, particularly international

bigs, than Gonzaga.

This is what they do.

This is why you have your Shemekarnowskis, your Phillip Petrussev's, your Ronitoriops,

your Kylian tillies, your De Montes subonuses, your Kelly Olenex.

I mean, the list goes on and on and on.

And my somebody out now gets to come into a system that just churns out elite talent

in the front court that has a high, high usage rate offensively, and yes, obviously

Bradenhof is going to get a mountain of touches in the front court for Gonzaga.

He is a threat to score 20 points per game.

He averaged 18 last year on a team with Grammy King.

He can absolutely average 20 per game this year.

I expect Davis Fogel to potentially double his points per game from around 8 to 15-16.

Mario St. Superior, I think, will be better.

Jack Kehl is a tremendously talented player from Germany who should step into a key role

right away for this Gonzaga team, very likely starting the two for this team.

The Masamadiop, while he is on this roster, primarily for his defense, in the sense that

that is the single most important thing that he does for this Gonzaga team.

The opposite darn good offensive player as well.

And we'd be remiss to not acknowledge that that is a huge part of this as well.

His versatility in terms of what he brings on both sides of the basketball is critical.

Again, 60% on two pointers last year.

He was a fishin' around the rim.

He had a ton of dunks.

He scored right up the cup, but he could step out a little bit.

He could hit a mid-range.

He could hit that three-point shot.

He got to the free throw line, a ton, a ton of ton of it.

He made 103 free throws last year.

That would have been second on Gonzaga's roster with only Grammy-K, who made 118 ahead of

him.

So he's kind of replaced.

Now, Diop made 103 free throws on 71.5%.

Grammy-K is about an 80% free throw shooter.

So there's a difference there in some ways, but Diop, 71.5% is not bad for a center.

We've been a little bit spoiled in Spokane by having some centers who are prolific free

throw shooters.

Also, a half-decade have drew Timmy, but for the most part, this has been an area that

Gonzaga has really thrived.

And obviously, Gonzaga's free throw shooting was not good last year.

And Diop probably won't replace EK in the same efficiency, but from a volume perspective,

he's going to get to the line a lot.

And I wouldn't be surprised to see him improve there as well.

He's not a great three-point shooter.

Again, 8 of 26 last year, that's 31%.

That's an area of his game that I think could be there, which allows Gonzaga to kind of

have a two-man game inside out with either Huff or Diop.

Diop can play out at the five or play out away from the rim.

Huff can go down low and score.

Teams are not going to have two six, seven foot, six, eleven guys guarding both Diop and

Huff very effectively.

Somebody is going to have a smaller player on them.

And I think the ability of these two players to say, okay, Huff's got the six, eight guy

on him.

Let's just give him the ball and let him go to work.

Diop steps out.

And then if the defense does what, like we saw San Francisco try this and Portland try

this last year of just packing the paint and daring Gonzaga to shoot from the perimeter.

Diop's a player who, if he's left wide open from three, he's going to shoot it.

You'd like to see him improve on that 31%, but I think he's going to have not a full

green light, but like the ability to say, hey, they're leaving me open, they're disrespecting

me from the perimeter.

I'm going to go ahead and shoot this and try to get this ball in that.

And I think he's going to be capable enough of doing that that it's going to force defenses

to be a little bit honest.

Again, we could spend and we will.

We got months, months and months to talk about the Diop Huff fit and how this is going

to work for Gonzaga in Spokane next year.

But right now we're going to move on to talk about what is next for the Zags, because

they've had their eye on a few other players in the transfer portal, but for the most

part, they have been stuck in waiting mode for the last three-ish weeks, trying to figure

out if they were going to land Missama Diop or if they were going to reallocate a huge

chunk of their NIL budget to spend it elsewhere.

Now they know Diops in the mix, they sign into a contract, they know what kind of money

they're working with, and they know what kind of players they need to add to this roster.

So we're going to take a look at what that might look like, coming up here to close out

the show in just a second.

All right, folks, segment three, still any patents, still locked on Zags podcast, and we are

closing out the show, continuing our conversation around Gonzaga's roster now in the post-Missama

Diop era we know they have now added two players out of the transfer portal, both coming

from the big 12 conference, Isaiah Harwell, their first edition about a month ago, he comes

over from Houston after spending his freshman year with the Cougs.

Now you add Missama Diop from Arizona State, two big time players on this roster, but

the Zags still have five roster spots to play with.

Because you now have your two transfer editions, you have your three other freshman editions

in Jack Cahill, Luca Foster, and Sam Hunches, and then you have your key returners, obviously

that's Davis Fogel, Mario, St. Superior, and Braden Huff, Josef Parker, Jefferson, who

redshirted last year as a three-star power forward, you have walk on Alonzo Metz coming

back as well, five returners, five newcomers, that's 10, you got 15 spots of five, still

to play with.

And while I think the two biggest editions of the offseason have already happened, really

the three biggest editions of the offseason have already happened, that is Diop, Cahill,

and Harwell.

I think Luca Foster and Sam Hunches will fit in potentially, wouldn't be stunned if

Hunches ends up redshirting, depending on what Gonzaga does with one of these five roster

spots.

Foster, I don't think will redshirt, but I think his playing time will look a little bit

like Davis Fogel's in the first month-ish of the season last year now if Foster plays

the way that Davis Fogel did, then Gonzaga is going to have an embarrassment of riches

out on the perimeter.

But I don't project at this moment that either Foster and Fogel or Fogel are within Gonzaga's

eight to nine-man rotation coming into the season.

But I also don't think that Gonzaga's out of these five roster spots still kind of still

sitting open.

I think maybe one of them goes to a player who's guaranteed part of Gonzaga's rotation

next year, maybe two.

But I think there's one for sure, and then two, and maybe one more, maybe two more

ish that are competing for spots in those last couple of spots, probably end up being

more of the walk on or like international edition kind of variety for Gonzaga.

Because right now I look at the rotation, and this is what I see.

I see Diop starting at the five, half starting at the four, I see Davis Fogel starting at

the three, Mario St. Superior starting at the one.

Those spots are locked and loaded.

There's no doubt in my mind that those four players will be starting for Gonzaga this

upcoming season.

The final starting spot will be between Jack Cahill and Isaiah Harwell.

Yes, both those players are in the NBA draft process.

I talked about that in the two recent episodes.

I believe both of them will be back.

Obviously, if one of them is not back, that changes this equation and will have that conversation

at the time.

But if you assume both of them are back, I think they will compete to start.

Ultimately, whoever starts is the starting shooting guard, whoever doesn't start is the

team's sixth man.

For our intents and purposes right now, I'll say Cahill is the starter at the two, and

Isaiah Harwell is your sixth man.

After that, you have Parker Jefferson.

I think he's going to be part of the rotation.

Again, he's the hardest player to project because we didn't get to see him last year.

We know that the growth and development happened, but it happened behind the scenes.

Is he going to be a Braden Huff where he is immediately impactful for Gonzaga after red

shooting?

If so, great.

That is a phenomenal addition for this Gonzaga roster.

The Gonzaga has also had players red shirt who then never really step into that role.

The variety of outcomes for who Parker Jefferson is as a red shirt freshman next year is incredibly

wide.

But let's assume he is good enough to be the third string big behind Diop and Huff.

And again, I think Jefferson is pretty clearly a four, but he could play alongside Diop

at the five.

He could also play the four with Huff sliding up to the five.

I think he can play either of those, I think those two guys are interchangeable, so Jefferson

could sub in for either of them.

And then after that is where I think you have those seven spots pretty locked in.

You have one more spot for number eight.

And who I think that will be or who I think that should be is Ethan Copeland.

And if you want a bigger breakdown of Ethan Copeland, you can listen to Monday's episode

of Lockdown's Ags.

We talked about him for about the first 20 minutes of the show.

He's a six foot two guard from Stetson.

He's actually from Sunnyside, Washington.

Here's the main thing you need to know about Ethan Copeland.

He made 109 threes last year.

That was 21st in the country.

He was one of the most prolific three point shooters in the entire country last year.

Not only did he make 109 threes, he did on a 43% clip.

That is what Gonzaga needs on this roster.

It was the worst three point shooting team in the history of Mark Fuse tenure at Gonzaga

and they watched SEAL ventures leave in the transfer portal.

They watched Adam Miller who admittedly didn't shoot it all that well, but was on the roster

to do that leaving the transfer portal.

Or excuse me, he is technically in the transfer portal, but he left because he's out of eligibility.

This team needs three point shooting bad.

Ethan Copeland gives you that.

I don't think he competes with Cahill or Harwell to start at the two, but I think he is a rotational guard

who can play the mostly plays the two.

I think you play the one in a pinch.

The nice thing is I think Cahill can play the one.

So Cahill slides down to the one and Copeland slides into the two if you need two for certain line-ups and rotations.

I think this is the kind of player.

And if it's not Copeland, it's somebody else like this.

A two guard, a six foot three, six foot five combo guard or peer shooting guard who can light it up from beyond the arc.

This is what Gonzaga needs on this roster.

So you go find a player like that.

I'll use Copeland as the placeholder, not only because I think he's the perfect type of player to fit this mold,

but because Gonzaga has not only been pursuing him, they recently had a Zoom call with him while LMU and Pacific

also had Zoom calls with Copeland.

Don't know that Gonzaga is in the lead.

Those other programs can offer more playing time.

And certainly they're not having Zoom calls with guys just for the fun of it.

Like if they're talking to you, they're interested in bringing you in.

And now they have a better sense of what their budget looks like because they've landed and secured D.O.

So it would not shock me if things move rather quickly with getting Ethan Copeland out to Spokane.

A couple of other guys that are just on my radar, I want to be clear.

There has not been any public connection between Gonzaga and these players at the time.

They're just players that I think could fit what Gonzaga needs with these final few roster spots.

One of them is Mahalo Petrovich.

He's a six-foot three guard from Illinois.

He spent last year at Illinois, but he is from Serbia.

He actually played for the same club as Phillip Petrussev.

Gonzaga has a lot of connections in Eastern Europe, a lot of connections in Serbia.

Petrovich came to Illinois with really high upside.

He was expected to be the starting point guard.

He ended up getting displaced by Keaton Wogler, who ended up being one of the most surprising

freshmen in the entire country last year.

Petrovich ended up only playing 19 games.

He only played about six minutes per game, average two points, one assists per game.

His numbers were not great.

You're not going to look at his numbers from last year at Illinois and think,

well, Gonzaga needs that guy, but he's at a ton of upside before he landed at Illinois.

He may have just been kind of punched in the mouth a little bit by college basketball.

We've seen that happen and those players end up still becoming great players.

Again, the connection with the Gonzaga coaching staff in Serbia is very likely there.

And I think Gonzaga could use another guard on the roster, even if they get Ethan Copeland.

So getting a guy like Petrovich to be your ninth or tenth guy makes a ton of sense to me.

The other player on my list, I talked about him a few times on the show as Dorin Bukka.

He's a seven foot two center who played last year at Kansas State.

The main reason he's here is in 13 minutes per game last year.

Bukka blocked 1.2 shots per game.

He is a true rim protector.

You don't need this as much now that you've landed on somebody out.

And of course, you have Sam Funches, but another big man feel like this is basically

here is Smiley Dionny replacement.

Like this is like deoper places EK Jefferson steps into a bigger role.

And then you need somebody to Funches in that mix as well.

But you kind of need somebody to Funches basically replaces Jefferson on the roster

as a potential red shirt.

And Bukka kind of steps into that developmental big man role that Dionny was filling.

Again, I don't think this is as big of a need as it would have been last week

before deop had committed.

But he's still a player that is on my radar.

I could also see them going after a 3, 4 hybrid player.

You know, like I would have loved Jalen Stewart in that role.

He committed to SMU.

Would have loved Nick Hamini.

He committed to Yukon.

But a 6-foot-8 player who could play the 3 or the 4 feels like a kind of a missing piece

on this roster as it's currently constructed.

And again, I think those last couple of spots will go to walk-ons.

I wouldn't expect to see.

Zeg is not going to bring in five more players who are all competing for rotation spots.

Because I mean, even at this point, without adding Ethan Copeland,

I think you have seven rotation spots pretty much locked and loaded.

And that's not counting the two freshman Foster and Funches.

She just don't have room to add a whole lot more players competing for those spots.

Maybe it's Ethan Copeland.

Maybe it's an international player, somebody like Petrovich,

or a truly international player who's not currently state side.

And then maybe it's a couple of walk-on type players,

or a young freshman, like a decommit,

the way that Parker Jefferson was.

Jefferson committed to Gonzaga in early May last year.

So we could see that kind of addition happening again this year as well.

All right, folks, that's going to wrap it up for me today here in the Lockdown Zag's podcast.

Thank you so much for hanging out with us here on this live edition of the show

as we break down the very exciting news for Gonzaga of landing Masamba Diop out of the transfer portal.

We'll have more on Diop on the next show,

talking about his kind of where he ranks among the great transfers in Gonzaga basketball history

at this point, at least.

We'll talk about that.

This team's legitimate odds of being a national championship team

out they have Diop in the mix.

We'll also talk about NCAA tournament expansion.

Normally that would be the storyline for the show,

but we'll get to that later in the week as well.

Thanks again, folks.

Have a fantastic rest of your day.

And of course, as always, but especially on a day like today, those eggs.