Gonzaga Basketball: Analyzing Bulldogs 2020-21 projected rotation

Point Guards

After 20 years of routinely making the NCAA tournament, and eight years of being a contender for a top-3 seed, the Zags finally started to get premier, five-star talent to make the trek to eastern Washington to don the red, white and blue.

First, it was Zach Collins, a late-blooming five-star forward from Las Vegas who ended up coming off the bench in his one and only season with the Zags, before becoming a lottery pick that year.

Next, it was Jalen Suggs, the highest-rated recruit in program history, who committed on national television during a playoff game at Minnehaha High School in Minnesota.

Suggs may not be the highest-rated Gonzaga recruit for long (Chet Holmgren anyone?) but for now, he is expected to be the next in a long line of outstanding point guards in the Mark Few era.

Suggs can do it all. He’s an elite scorer with incredible bounce, which should allow him to knife through the lane and get easy buckets in the half-court and out in transition, where he will be the biggest highlight reel the Zags have had since Jeremy Pargo.

He’s also a good floor general, passer, rebounder and defensive player – which should make him the team’s most well-rounded guard since Nigel Williams-Goss, and an instant candidate to be selected among the first five players in the 2021 NBA draft.

While the Zags have four players who can conceivably play point guard on this roster, I think the majority of backup PG duty will go to Aaron Cook, a graduate transfer guard from Southern Illinois.

Cook only appeared in six games his senior year, hence the extra year of eligibility, but he averaged 15 points per game in those contests, and 10.5 as a junior.

While he won’t replicate those scoring numbers at GU, he brings excellent defense (over three steals per game) and leadership to a very young group of guards in Spokane.