Is it ever going to happen for Mark Few at Gonzaga?

Published 10:12 am Monday, March 23, 2026

Twenty-seven times, Mark Few has led the Gonzaga Bulldogs into the NCAA Tournament, and 27 times it has ended more or less like this.

With soft voices and sunken eyes that tell a story of profound disappointment.

“The suddenness of this tournament,” Few said Saturday, “no matter how many times you’ve done it, is just shocking.”

Under Few, Gonzaga evolved into the face of the mid-major renaissance in college basketball. As much a staple of March as the four-leaf clover.

So long has he survived in a business that either chews up coaches or incentivizes them to leave places like Gonzaga, that he has seen the small Jesuit school in Spokane become the blue-blood and no less an institution than the University of Texas, the Cinderella.

As I watched a 27th straight season end in the NCAA Tournament for the Zags, this one as a No. 3 seed in a 74-68 loss to the 11th-seeded Longhorns at Moda Center, I couldn’t help but wonder what there is left for Few, who grew up in Creswell, attended the University of Oregon and became a god in Spokane, to achieve with the Zags.

He is 63. His 27 straight tournament appearances — a perfect record in that sense — with a dozen Sweet 16s and two national title appearances, ranks as one of the more remarkable runs in the history of college sports.

But a national championship has eluded him. And for as much star talent as Few brings to Spokane each year, as many players as he puts in the NBA, college basketball is doing its best to squeeze out non-power schools. With Saturday’s loss, Few’s program failed to reach the second weekend of the tournament in back-to-back years for the first time in 12 years.

Is it ever going to happen for Few at Gonzaga? Will he ever summit the sport’s proverbial mountaintop? Is he at peace if the answer is no?

More than a national darling, Few has built the Zags into the national team of the Pacific Northwest. I know partisans of any one of the four major state schools might protest, but come March, it is typically the Bulldogs carrying the flag for our corner of the country and most of us have found ourselves on their bandwagon more than once.

Few is at the stage of career, and life, where coaches typically start considering whether they want a new challenge before it’s all over?

It is getting harder and harder to survive, let alone thrive, in college sports. And while the upsets in the opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament remain the very best thing the sports calendar gives us, this was the second straight year that only one double-digit seed made it out of the first weekend.

And both years, those were SEC schools.

Sure, there is an opportunity for schools without football to maximize revenue sharing for its basketball players, those schools also don’t generate the over overall revenue as football powers like, say, Texas.

It wasn’t lost on me that among the things Few pointed to in his praise of Texas was its “incredible resources.”

North Carolina is reportedly considering moving on from alum Hubert Davis after its own tournament disappointment. And if the Tar Heels do that, then shouldn’t they give Few a call?

Hasn’t every major program that’s had an opening over the last two decades at least… wondered?

UNC certainly hasn’t been afraid to swing big, given the football hire of Bill Belichick.

And if UNC does call — or someone else calls — is now the time Few might finally listen to such an overture?

Gonzaga will transition into the new Pac-12 next season, ending its reign of terror on the rest of the West Coast Conference. It will be a better basketball conference top to bottom. That means instead of merely battling Saint Mary’s each year — with an occasional run by Santa Clara or San Francisco — the Zags will be dealing with mid-major forces like Utah State, San Diego State and Colorado State.

Parity is a threat to the Zags’ certainty.

I’m not saying the Pac-12 is the Big East of the 1990s, but it does present as a heck of a basketball conference. As such, this moment does represent the end of Gonzaga’s modern history and the beginning of something else entirely.

Few has always seemed like the ultimate lifer. And he very well may be. The Coach K of the Inland Northwest. But before this weekend, I would have said the same thing about Randy Bennett.

Based on media reports Saturday, it sure sounded like the Saint Mary’s coach was pulling up stakes after 25 years and heading to Arizona State.

Different circumstances. The WCC isn’t the same conference without the Zags. Saint Mary’s won’t be the same program without Mark Few’s teams playing the part of foil.

But it does make you wonder…

Chances are Few rides it out in Spokane for however many more years he wants to coach. I get that is the more likely outcome and certainly the more obvious path. Even with his incredible track record, where else will he be granted the amount of power that he wields at Gonzaga?

In Spokane, he has become a certain Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer. His legacy is cemented.

But things do come to an end. Often in ways you can’t predict.

And when they do, the suddenness can be shocking.