2018-19 #WCChoops Schedule | WHAT WE LEARNED, WEEK FIVE
By John Crumpacker
#WCChoops Columnist
It might seem ridiculous to assert that a player central to Gonzaga’s rise to the No. 1 college basketball team in the land was so lightly recruited out of high school that he only received one Division I scholarship offer.
Ridiculous, but true.
Smart fellow that he is, Brandon Clarke accepted that offer, from San Jose State, even though it ultimately did not work out. For that, the Zags are grateful.
“He’s a crazy late bloomer,’’ said Gonzaga assistant coach Brian Michaelson, who worked with Clarke extensively during his redshirt season of 2017-18. “We didn’t recruit him. San Jose State might have been his only offer. He wasn’t 6-foot when he started high school. He didn’t have an (offensive) shot in high school.’’
Maybe so, but Clarke has given Gonzaga a shot in the arm thus far for this 9-1 team now ranked No. 4 nationally following a neutral-court loss to then-No. 7 Tennessee. This player who began high school at 5-foot-11 is now 6-8 and 215 pounds and has an impressive resume in the West Coast Conference. He’s ninth in scoring at 16.9 per game, fourth in rebounding at 8.2, first in field goal percentage at .714 and first in blocks per game at 3.3.
Late bloomer, indeed.
“It’s fair,’’ Clarke said, looking back to his high school years at Desert Vista in Phoenix. “I didn’t reach this height until college. In high school (I started out) 5-11 and grew about three inches each year.’’
At San Jose State, Clarke was voted sixth man of the year as a freshman and set a school frosh record with 39 blocked shots. As a sophomore, he was named All-Mountain West first team as he shot .592 from the field and recorded 2.57 blocks per game. He was the only Mountain West player in 2016-17 to finish in the top three in the conference in scoring, rebounding and blocked shots.
That’s all well and good, but the Spartans had losing records when he was there, and the program experienced a late coaching change prior to the 2017-18 season. Several players decided to transfer. Clarke was one of them.
Asked how he went from one of the country’s worst basketball programs to one of the best, Clarke said Gonzaga “found a way to find me. I knew that was the team I wanted to go to. This is the most fun I’ve had playing basketball ever. It’s been super fun.’’
In turn, Clarke has been super important to Gonzaga’s early success. Before the start of the season, the Zags envisioned a dream front court of the 6-8 Clarke, the 6-8 wondrously talented Rui Hachimura and the 6-10 Killian Tillie, a veritable pogo stick around the basket. But Tillie broke his foot in preseason drills and has not played in 2018-19; the hope is he’ll be able to return for conference play in early January.
“He’s been enormous for his,’’ Michaelson said of Clarke. “He had to do it with the loss of Killian Tillie. It’s been much, much needed. We’ve been happy with what he’s been able to do on both ends of the court. His shot-blocking has been spectacular.’’
In Tillie’s absence, Clarke has been a pivotal player for the Zags, scoring close to the rim and on the other end of the court playing stout defense. His defense in the final seconds was crucial to Gonzaga’s defeat of then-No. 1 Duke in the championship game of the Maui Invitational in November.
“He was obviously a very successful player at San Jose State,’’ Michaelson said. “You saw his athletic ability, his quickness, his ability to get off the floor. You also saw the evolution of his shot, a continued evolution of his skill set, his ability to play face-up or with his back to the basket.’’
Clarke has improved so dramatically since high school that he is now being mentioned as a possible NBA draft pick, perhaps round one. But that’s getting ahead of things a bit. Make that more than a bit. There’s an entire season yet to play out. Before the start of WCC play, Gonzaga has one more stout non-conference test, Saturday at North Carolina.
“I’ve always tried to find ways to have an impact,’’ Clarke said. “My defense and being efficient are two ways I can make a change for the team, a positive impact.’’
Once at Gonzaga, Clarke worked diligently on improving his offensive game while gaining strength through weight lifting and nutrition. When he graduated from high school, at 6-7, he weighed all of 175 pounds, a veritable stick figure of a man. He’s now 215, the product of the weight room and the training table.
While millions and millions of Americans strive to eat less and lose weight, Clarke’s mantra is more, more, more, in the manner of the great swimmer Michael Phelps, who, at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, when asked about his diet said, “I eat whatever I want, whenever I want, in whatever amount I want.’’
Clarke’s version of that seeming gluttony is “lots of extra eating, extra meals, extra snacks.’’
Clarke takes some of those meals with his Japanese-born teammate, Hachimura, to whom he defers whenever they partake of Japanese food. “He knows what to order,’’ Clarke said.
“Rui is a super-chill guy, super humble, really easy to talk to,’’ Clarke said. “His English has gotten better. He’s one of the best players I’ve played with.’’
Gonzaga has done well recruiting international players over the years. Consider Clarke a semi-international. He was born in Vancouver, B.C., to a Jamaican father and a Canadian mother. The family moved to Phoenix when he was three. Clarke is a dual citizen and so is his mother, who obtained U.S. citizenship in 2010.
As Clarke said earlier when deciding to transfer from San Jose State, Gonzaga found a way to find him, and both school and player are the better for it.