Courtesy Gonzaga Athletics
Dan Dickau took Gonzaga to new heights and helped establish the program as a national contender.
Last week saw disappointment for both the Gonzaga men’s and women’s teams. The women picked up their first league loss on Thursday at Santa Clara. Two days later, the men picked up their second league loss in OT at arch-rival Saint Mary’s. Let’s not look back at those recent negatives, though. This week gives fans of both teams a chance to look way back and remember some glory days, specifically for two of the players who helped put both Gonzaga basketball programs on the map. On Thursday night, before tip-off at the men’s game against San Francisco, Gonzaga will honor one of the men’s program’s first household names — Dan Dickau. The first player at GU to earn a 1st team All-American recognition will have his No. 21 jersey number hung in the rafters at the McCarthey Athletic Center. And it'll soon have company.
On Saturday at the women’s game against Portland, one of the most prolific players in NCAA basketball history — and the only GU All-American on the women's side — will receive the same honor when Courtney Vandersloot’s number (also No. 21!) rises to the rafters. REMEMBERING DICKAU The floppy-haired point guard from southwestern Washington can be viewed as something of a personification of the Gonzaga program back in the late-'90s and early-2000s. When Dickau was coming out of high school in 1997, Gonzaga wasn’t much of anything on the national scene. The Zags wouldn’t make their Cinderella run to the Elite Eight until two years later, at which point Dickau was toiling away mostly as a reserve at the University of Washington. He had the talent, but wasn't making much noise on the court. The Zags were in the same position. The program was on an upswing, but nobody could have seen what was coming just around the corner.
Young Kwak photo
Courtney Vandersloot might not have towered over her male counterparts... but her legacy certainly does.
REMEMBERING VANDERSLOOT Hailing from suburban Seattle, Courtney Vandersloot was an undersized but effective point guard in high school. Gonzaga, at the time, was starting to find momentum under head coach Kelly Graves. Had Sloot (5'8") been a couple inches taller, she could have easily ended up at a power conference program. That size, however, gave more established programs reason to overlook her. Their loss was Gonzaga’s gain, and the Zags extended a scholarship offer during Sloot’s junior year at Kentwood High School. The Zags missed the NCAA Tournament in Vandersloot’s first season in Spokane, but their drought wouldn’t last long. They made it during her sophomore year, and they won a game, too. The first in program history. The next year they won not one, but two games, making the Sweet Sixteen. In Sloot’s senior season the program improved once again, winning three straight to advance to the Elite Eight. All of that on-court success was powered largely by Vandersloot’s absurd production. With 191 assists in her freshman year, Sloot immediately put herself into the Zags’ record book. That season ranked third in program history at the time. Her sophomore campaign set the then-record with 239 assists. She broke that record a year later with 321, and then followed that with 367 as a senior.
Obviously, Vandersloot holds the school record for assists at 1,118. To put that astounding number in perspective, Josh Perkins also started four years at point guard for the men's team and holds the men's assist record... at "only" 712. So if he played two more full seasons averaging the same amount of assists, he'd still fall short of Sloot's mark.
The combo of her passing and scoring skills was literally unprecedented. She was the first player in NCAA history — man or woman — to notch 2,000 points and 1,000 assists. Vandersloot was named First Team All-WCC every season in Spokane, and won WCC Player of the Year as a sophomore, junior and senior. She won two national awards as a senior, the Nancy Lieberman Award for the nation’s top point guard and the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award for the nation’s top player 5-foot-8 or under. Honors haven’t stopped coming in for Sloot since moving to the professional ranks. She’s been the WNBA’s assist leader in six of her seasons, and is currently third all-time in WNBA career assists. Three times she’s earned Second Team All-WNBA honors and twice been named First Team All-WNBA. Four times she’s been named a WNBA All-Star, including each of the past two seasons.
It's about time that a female Zag had her number retired, and the school's GOAT point guard is the perfect first honoree.
NEXT UP
Men Gonzaga vs. San Francisco • Thur, Feb. 9 at 6 pm • ESPN2 Gonzaga vs. BYU • Sat, Feb. 11 at 7 pm • ESPN2
