Observations from Gonzaga's 2024 Kraziness at the Kennel

While the actual start of college basketball season doesn't arrive until early November, Gonzaga fans got their first taste of what the upcoming season has to offer last Saturday afternoon during the men's teams' annual Kraziness at the Kennel event. While it's always tricky to read too much into anything that happens at the glorified scrimmage, here are a few early thoughts based on watching the action from inside McCarthey Athletic Center.

READY FOR BATTLE

Part of what made the start of the 2023-24 season a bit dicey was the lack of guard depth for the Bulldogs. When Ryan Nembhard and Nolan Hickman were struggling early on, it was clear that Mark Few didn't trust any of his backup guards to relieve the duos' minutes.

That should not be the case this year. Because Khalif Battle has arrived in Spokane.

The senior graduate transfer from Arkansas (who averaged over 14 points off the bench last season) made his presence felt in a big way during Kraziness at the Kennel with fierce offensive aggressiveness. While Gonzaga tends to have guards who are somewhat hesitant to drive into the teeth of the defense and get to the rim — and the rarer ones that have are still beloved fan favs like Nigel Williams-Goss and Jalen Suggs — Battle shows no fear in that department. When he was on the floor it always felt like he was on the attack, consistently getting to the free throw line, which is excellent considering he was top 10 in the NCAA last year in free throw percentage (89.8%).  If Battle can consistently live at the line and be a major scoring punch off the bench for the Bulldogs, he could be the deciding factor in a ton of games this season.

AJAYI IS A-GUY-I

The biggest move of the offseason for the Zags was poaching the best player from WCC foe Pepperdine — Michael Ajayi. After leading the WCC in scoring last season, the thick-built forward/guard probably could've gotten picked in the NBA Draft, but his decision to take his talents to Spokane should be a huge boon for the Bulldogs.

He showed his stat-sheet filling ways during Saturday's action. While he can score both inside and outside, perhaps his most impressive ability was his rebounding. Don't be surprised if Ajayi is putting up double doubles in almost every game for GU this season.

Anyone concerned about the Zags filling the starting spot left by Anton Watson's departure will likely have their fears instantly dispelled once they see Ajayi in action.

ITALIAN ICE

A newcomer with a less obvious role is Emmanuel Innocenti, a sophomore forward from Italy who transferred to GU after playing one season at Tarleton State. Perhaps it's because he knows he won't get a ton of minutes during the actual season this year, but the Italian was unafraid to be aggressive during the Kraziness scrimmage.

Innocenti had an impressive fast-break dunk early on in action and then had a "shooters gotta shoot" mentality for much of the rest of the game. It was a bit hard to watch as his shoot was clearly off... until the final possession of the game where he drilled a 3 to give his team the win on the day. They say scorers need to have a short memory in order to get through rough patches and at least for one afternoon, Innocenti proved that to be true.

K-POPS

It's always fun to see which players the students in the Kennel Club connect with the most. While Ben Gregg clearly is the most beloved of the returning starters based on the crowd reaction, the guy who got the biggest consistent pop was actually junior Korean forward Jun Seok Yeo. While he wasn't able to consistently crack the rotation last year, his impressive frame certainly shows that there's upside in his game. And if Mark Few gave out minutes based on cheers (note: he very much does not), Yeo would be this team's workhorse.

FINDING THE DISTANCE

In terms of the hoops action, the 3-point contest wasn't exactly confidence inspiring. Considering Gonzaga had struggles shooting from distance at times last season, a 3-point contest where players were struggling to score in the mid-teens (out of 30 possible points) without any defensive pressure wasn't a stellar sight to see.

Congrats to Dusty Stromer on taking home the title, but hopefully it's not an indication of the deep shooting to come during the 2024-25 campaign.

JUST BALL

Excuse me for slightly being the grumpy old curmudgeon here, but people come out to events like Kraziness at the Kennel for the basketball, not for an entertainment show. For some reason, Gonzaga brought in ESPN commentator Sean Farnham to host the festivities and his continual attempts to hype up the crowd, make jokes, and comments on the action grew very tired, very fast.

As someone who's attended a lot of these, I never thought, "You know what this is missing? A mildly familiar face yelling at me to stand up for two hours." A public address announcer just saying what's happening next would suffice and be far better than shoving forced Zoom call skits with former players and other unnecessary bells and whistles into the mix.

NOW IT'S THE WOMEN'S TURN

If you're craving more preseason hoops action, you're in luck!

This Saturday, Oct. 12, the Gonzaga women's basketball team hosts the Numerica FanFest at McCarthy Athletic Center at 3 pm. Since there was more turnover on the women's roster this offseason, there's perhaps more rationale to check out and familiarize yourself with the new faces that will surround potential All-American Yvonne Ejim.

The event is free and non-ticketed (doors open at 2 pm), so considering checking out the ladies in action to get another hoops taste before having to wait out the rest of October for the real season to tip-off.