Mark Few stepped onto the stage in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Saturday and immediately returned to the modest place where his story began.
“The town I grew up in had a population of 1,500 people. It had one stoplight,” Few said during his Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech. “So to be standing where I am today is absolutely mind-boggling.”
The setting might have felt surreal to Few, but his place among basketball’s greatest figures should surprise nobody.
Few has spent more than a quarter-century turning Gonzaga from a captivating March Madness underdog into a national powerhouse. His Hall of Fame induction is the latest reminder that it is finally time to retire the Cinderella label that followed the Bulldogs for far too long.
Mark Few made Gonzaga’s success feel routine
Gonzaga’s breakthrough run to the Elite Eight in 1999 remains an important part of the program’s identity. Few was an assistant on that team before replacing Dan Monson as head coach later that year.
What happened next was not another fleeting tournament run. It was the construction of a college basketball empire.
Few has compiled a 773-156 record across 27 seasons as Gonzaga’s head coach. The Bulldogs have reached 27 consecutive NCAA Tournaments, advanced to 13 Sweet 16s and made five Elite Eight appearances during his tenure. Gonzaga also reached the national championship game in 2017 and 2021.
The Zags have collected 23 West Coast Conference regular-season championships and 21 conference tournament titles under Few, according to Gonzaga Athletics.
Those numbers are so overwhelming that they can almost obscure the difficulty of what Few accomplished.
Gonzaga did not have the natural advantages of a traditional blue blood. It lacked major-conference membership, generations of national relevance and a deep history of sending players to the NBA. Few and his staff had to create those advantages themselves.
They recruited internationally, developed overlooked prospects and gradually convinced elite players that Spokane was a destination. They built demanding nonconference schedules because the Bulldogs could not rely on league play to strengthen their national profile.
Eventually, Gonzaga stopped hoping to compete with college basketball’s biggest programs. It became one of them.
A Hall of Fame legacy without a national title
The absence of a national championship remains the only easy criticism of Few’s resume. Gonzaga came within one victory of the title twice, losing to North Carolina in 2017 and Baylor in 2021.
But reducing Few’s legacy to those two defeats misses the larger achievement.
Single-elimination tournaments can be cruel. Sustaining excellence for nearly three decades is a far more revealing measure of a coach and a program. Few has maintained Gonzaga’s place near the top of the sport through changes in recruiting, conference realignment, the transfer portal and the arrival of name, image and likeness compensation.
Players changed. Assistants left for head-coaching opportunities. College basketball was repeatedly reshaped around him. Gonzaga kept winning.
Few entered the Hall of Fame alongside a decorated 2026 class that included Doc Rivers, Mike D’Antoni, Amar’e Stoudemire, Candace Parker, Elena Delle Donne and Chamique Holdsclaw. Yet even among those recognizable names, his story stands apart.
Few did more than win games. He changed what was considered possible at Gonzaga.
The Bulldogs once represented the magic of a surprising March run. Under Few, winning in March became an expectation.
That transformation, even more than the 773 victories and overflowing trophy case, is why his orange Hall of Fame jacket fits perfectly.
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