Roughly 72 hours in the Pacific Northwest gave Sam Funches an idea of what life might look like if the four-star center from Mississippi decides to commit to Gonzaga in the near future.<\/p>\n
Funches\u2019 official visit coincided with a pleasant fall weekend, with temperatures ranging from the mid-60\u2019s to low-70\u2019s. Those conditions were a stark, and welcomed, contrast to the warm and sticky weather Funches often experiences living just north of Jackson, Mississippi.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful area and as far as the weather goes, y\u2019all\u2019s sun is just happy to be there,\u201d Funches said Monday during a phone interview. \u201cOur sun is just beaming us every day. Y\u2019all\u2019s sun is happy to be in Spokane and our sun is just punishing us for our sins, it\u2019s crazy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like 100 degrees every day. Way more humid, we\u2019ve got all these big bugs just flying in our faces.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another thing that struck Funches during his weekend in Spokane: all the trophies lying on the floor.<\/p>\n
During Kraziness in the Kennel introductions, Gonzaga\u2019s cheer team transported about 20 of the program\u2019s NCAA Tournament and WCC trophies to the court at McCarthey Athletic Center, neatly laying them across the hardwood surface.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not what Funches is referring to.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, he was touring basketball facilities when Funches made a pit stop to Mark Few\u2019s office. The same way dirty laundry might cover the floor of a cluttered college dorm room, postseason trophies highlighting GU\u2019s run of success under Few were scattered all across the coach\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was trophies on the floor, then you go right outside of his office and you see all the teams he\u2019s coached,\u201d Funches said. \u201cThen you see all the banners and stuff. Who knows how many Sweet 16s, two Final Fours, I don\u2019t know how many Elite Eights, but it\u2019s crazy. At least it\u2019s good to know you\u2019re playing for a winning team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gonzaga had already checked a few key boxes for Funches by the time he settled into a baseline seat with his parents for Kraziness in the Kennel.<\/p>\n
Widely considered a top-10 center in the 2026 recruiting class, Funches heard plenty about GU\u2019s impressive lineage of big men during conversations with assistants R-Jay Barsh and Brian Michaelson that ramped up in recent months. The Zags have developed many of the top post players in the nation during Few\u2019s tenure and continue to play through the center spot in an era when most college and NBA teams have shifted to guard- and wing-oriented offenses.<\/p>\n
Funches had an idea of what GU\u2019s system looked like and saw it firsthand when \u201cBlue\u201d and \u201cWhite\u201d teams took the floor for an abbreviated scrimmage near the end of Saturday\u2019s program.<\/p>\n
\u201cI looked at that stat sheet and Braden Huff and Graham Ike shot 22 of the team\u2019s 39 shots,\u201d Funches said. \u201cYou had (Ike) take the ball down the floor like four times. It\u2019s a great style of play because it lets the big man play freely, which doesn\u2019t really happen anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
GU\u2019s student section had been looped in on Funches\u2019 visit, serenading the 17-year-old with a \u201cWe want Funches, we want Funches\u201d chant on two different occasions Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved it. I loved it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt makes you feel wanted and I love their culture of basketball. Basketball is like our football (in Mississippi).\u201d<\/p>\n
Funches, who trimmed his list of colleges down to 10 in June, indicated he\u2019s nearing a decision and hopes to announce a commitment in the next three weeks. Along with Gonzaga, he\u2019s already seen Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, California and Kansas, and will to LSU this weekend for his final visit.<\/p>\n
Once he returns from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Funches said he\u2019ll spend a week or two evaluating his options before revealing his plans \u201cwhen everything dies down.\u201d<\/p>\n
There could be a few things working in Gonzaga\u2019s favor as Few\u2019s staff hopes to lock down its second pledge in the \u201926 class after landing a commitment from German combo guard Jack Kayil last week.<\/p>\n
Name Image Likeness (NIL) didn\u2019t come up in discussions between Funches and GU\u2019s coaching staff and compensation won\u2019t be a key factor in the center\u2019s decision-making process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey probably talked about it with my parents,\u201d Funches said, \u201cbut I\u2019m just looking at the NBA.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along those same lines, Funches isn\u2019t too concerned about location and would be willing to leave the south if he\u2019s going somewhere that will prioritize his development and provide the tools necessary to reach the next level.<\/p>\n
\u201cLocation\u2019s not going to matter for me and I\u2019m sure they know that too because if I make it to the league, I\u2019m going to be all over the place anyway,\u201d Funches said. \u201cSo I don\u2019t think it really matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
The top-rated player in Mississippi, Funches received an offer from Gonzaga in April of 2024, but his relationship with Barsh dates back more than three years, when the third-year assistant was still at Florida State. Funches was participating at Team USA\u2019s U-16 minicamp in Colorado Springs, Colorado, when Barsh overheard the young player conducting an interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought nothing of it,\u201d Funches said, \u201cbut he just said the way I answered the questions, he can coach a guy like me.\u201d<\/p>\n
A skilled lefty with a 7-foot-5 wingspan, Funches said college coaches have compared his frame and play style to that of Cleveland Cavaliers\/former USC standout Evan Mobley and ex-Miami Heat\/Toronto Raptors star Chris Bosh.<\/p>\n
During his Gonzaga visit, coaches compiled his statistics from the Puma AAU circuit Funches recently competed in. He made 39.3% of his 3-pointers over the summer and said he\u2019d like to clear the 40% mark during his senior season at Germantown (Miss.) High School.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was right there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Funches arrived back home at 1 a.m. Central on Monday morning and recalled a few other highlights from his trip to Spokane, where Ike, Huff and Jalen Warley were his primary hosts. After Kraziness, Funches joined a handful of GU players for a bowling trip Saturday evening.<\/p>\n
He finished with the third-highest score, at 110, but couldn\u2019t keep up with a graduate assistant who posted a score of 143, or Steele Venters, who impressively rolled a \u201c160-something\u201d hours after winning the 3-point contest at Kraziness and knocking down a trio of 3\u2019s during the scrimmage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started off terrible, because I use my three fingers and then I switched to just palming the ball,\u201d Funches said. \u201cThen I rolled two strikes in a row and I just started feeling it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roughly 72 hours in the Pacific Northwest gave Sam Funches an idea of what life might look like…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":282877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-282876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115330182267702008","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}