The only constant in college athletics in the modern era is change. From rule changes year-over-year, sometimes even in the middle of a season, to the transfer portal and NIL causing previously unheard of levels of roster turnover, to conference realignment destroying century-old rivalries, it can be refreshing to see some things stay the same.
That’s what has always made Gonzaga so special. Rjay Barsh is entering his third season on the sideline as an assistant coach for the Bulldogs, and his continued presence alongside Stephen Gentry (5th year) Brian Michaelson (13th year) and of course Mark Few (27th year) no doubt plays a role in this program maintaining high levels of success year in and year out, despite a record number of changes to college basketball in a short time frame.
Barsh sat down with Gonzaga Bulldogs On SI to discuss his impressions of Spokane after a couple of years, his role on staff and as a recruiter, what he’s learned from coach Few and what makes this team and program so unique.
(Watch the full interview at the bottom of this story)
Gonzaga men’s basketball team. / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
“Being from Tacoma and having visited Spokane many times, Spokane felt like home right away. The difference is now, when I go back home to Tacoma, just how many people talk about how special it is that I’m at Gonzaga. To them, like my family in Tacoma, the things about Spokane that I love is one, the community really supports us even through our ups and downs. There’s like this underlying thing that we’re in this with you versus, like, all about wins and losses now a competitive community, but also they just kind of ride the wave with us. And I think that’s special. And I see that when I’m at the grocery store, when I’m at the mall, when I’m anywhere with my son, just the hellos go a long way in this community.”
Gonzaga Bulldogs assistant coach Rjay Barsh. / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
“I think every single person in the organization when they show up day one of the summer, they have this vision of who they want to be by the end of the summer. And so my deeper role is to take every single one of those people in our organization top to bottom and make sure I find ways to push them to their goal. And for some guys, it’s strictly a basketball decision. For some guys, it’s how they manage their life. For some guys, it’s being able to handle pressure and handle moments better. So every single guy has a different thing that you walk them with. And this is from GAs to coaches to video guys. I take an assertive approach with everyone individually to make sure that I can help guide them along that process. And to me, that is helping them win. Because if that person grows into the person that they want to become, the whole organization is getting better as a whole.”
Gonzaga Bulldogs guard Nolan Hickman (left) and assistants Rjay Barsh (middle) and Jorge Sanz (right). / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
“I think there’s two approaches. The one that I like to go with is discipline before freedom. So once a player has… You don’t ever master the fundamentals of something that you do every single day. When I was a head coach, I used to call them the daily vitamins. These are things you’re going to do every single day. And if you do these details every day, then you’ll have ultimate freedom. And so I think the way in which we do it—actually, no, the way in which we do it here—we have our breakdowns that are the fundamentals of our program, of our offense. The breakdowns are just fundamentals of our post play. Since we do those things religiously, when they get into a game to perform, they play with freedom because they know the fundamentals of what’s required. But you never get bored of the fundamentals if you’re an elite player because you know that’s what the average player gets bored of, and you want to beat him when you stand up next to him. So that’s why you hone down on the fundamentals part. But you never, never get away from the fundamentals.”
Gonzaga Bulldogs assistant coach Rjay Barsh high-fives forward Graham Ike. / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
“When I was coming through, you really didn’t have that trainer in the gym with you every single day. So what I tell my players is take advantage of having someone, whether it’s a manager or a coach, who will walk you through everything in our offense. Take advantage of all those teaching moments and take advantage of everyone in our organization whose basketball IQ is through the roof. Like, I did not have that growing up. I had to go on YouTube or had to, you know, Google certain things. Like, we have guys in our organization who are so skilled at what they do that I tell them, take advantage of it because in your three years, your four years, or maybe even your one year, you’re going to wish you had more time with said person. Like right now, go all in with those relationships.”
Gonzaga Bulldogs assistant coach Rjay Barsh. / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
“Just how they celebrate their opponent, their teammates when they make a big play, but then how their teammates celebrate them when they make a big play. You can tell real quick if a really good player is selfish or if a really good player fits the team concept, because there’s a lot of elite players out there that don’t fit us, and then there’s elite players out there who fit us like a glove. And those things are not in the stat sheet. If a guy is two passes away defensively, is he on the balls of his feet or is he on his toes? Like, is he anticipating? Those are things defensively that I’ve learned to look for. And then just how he treats his teammates, how he talks to refs. Now, you don’t have to be the nicest guy to the ref, but are you engaging people during the game? Are you communicating? Those things stand out. Now, does a player have to do those things to stand out? No, but if they do, it goes a long way.”
Gonzaga Bulldogs assistant coach Rjay Barsh. / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
“With these players, it’s not tricky at all. If you’re not transactional, then whatever the climate you’re coaching in, working in, you don’t have to follow the trend. So for me, it has not been tricky because I’d rather be true to who I am than anything else. The way that I’m going to do it is going to be totally different than how somebody else does it. The transactional part still comes at the end and is part of it, but it does not get in the way of how I’m going to recruit a player. I’m not adjusting how I recruit because I need that player and that family to know when their son arrives in Spokane and playing in the Kennel, that who I am to their son. And when they see me coaching them, they understand that because of the relationship built through recruiting. So I can’t adjust my approach just because this is how it works. This is how it works. Okay, that kid can go somewhere else then. And we’ll continue to find those families who are mission fits, who are program fits, and would thrive under Coach Few.”
Gonzaga Bulldogs assistant Rjay Barsh (left) and head coach Mark Few (right). / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
“There is a lot of things in recruiting, a lot of things in the games, a lot of things in practice that, in a sense, become fluff. And so he has a very, very high awareness of which detail translates into production, and those are the details you focus on. So for me as a coach, that’s one of the biggest things I’ve learned from him. And then also it’s how he lives his life, right? Like, you know, instead of having a thousand friends, you know, have 10, like, sort of, you know, hone in on what really, really matters. And I think that is, you know, why we are and how we play, the way in which we play, going.”
Gonzaga Bulldogs assistant coach Rjay Barsh. / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
“If you are in our gym from May to September, you will have met 10 to 11 alumni because they just always seem to be hanging out in the practice facility. To me, that’s culture. If your graduated players come back to your facility on their own, that’s culture. Because they could be training anywhere in the world, and they come back so you can have all the slogans on the wall. When your current players look over in the weight room and they see, you know, Joel (Ayayi), I see, you know, (David) Stockton in there. They see these guys like, they see (Kevin) Pangos, like, that’s family. And that shows them that, okay, that’s what culture looks like, is when big brother comes back home and he doesn’t have to. And they become the best teachers of what culture is because they can tell our players, hey, this is how you succeed playing at Gonzaga, playing for Coach Few. These are the things that are passed down. So I think culture is passed down through its players. It’s formed and formulated by the head, by the leadership, but it’s really, you know, translated to the players by the alumni.”
Gonzaga Bulldogs assistant coach Rjay Barsh and guard Ryan Nembhard. / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
“I think being Gonzaga, the level of player we are allowed to recruit, these are elite young men that come from great families that have very high goals. I also think playing here under Coach Few and under our staff, you learn how to work, and you also learn how to develop. So they don’t see the NBA as a finish line. They see it as, okay, once I get here, then what do I do to develop? They learn how to take advantage of resources in their NBA organizations. And then I tell guys in recruiting, if you’re a Zag and you leave Gonzaga to go to the NBA or a GM’s calling you, there’s a couple boxes, you know, can he do this? Can he do this? Is he of high character? That high character box gets checked. Because once you’re here for a certain amount of time, that variable is going to be checked because that’s how we move an organization. And when you’re in the NBA, that’s vitally, that’s so important. Can you learn? Do you have the ability to continue to learn concepts, to continue to improve?”
Gonzaga men’s basketball coaches. / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
“The message is the same: win. You came to Gonzaga because you had a goal, and that goal was to win, to continue to elevate yourself as an individual. And then our returners, you know, Graham Ike, those guys have done a very good job of vocalizing areas on the court we want to be known for next year. But having guys in the program who are saying, this is what we’re going to be known for, those are the things that I think are special with this new team. New team, I would say new players, but it’s going to be the same team. As far as Gonzaga, we’re going to play the same style. We’re going to play a style that’s very hard to defend. And then we have some longer, more athletic guys. So defensively, we’ll add some juice as well.”
Gonzaga Bulldogs assistant coach Rjay Barsh. / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
“Their desire to want to be here was so high, and in their maturity, they’ve all played at high major institutions, so they walked in with little things, but then they also knew that there’s something they wanted to do in their game that in the recruiting process, we hit on that point. So just the maturity in which they’ve showed up has been special. Special to watch. I tell guys all the time when you get to a new place, especially as a transfer, you get a chance to reinvent yourself. So the bad habits that you had at your own institution, like you get a chance for us to never see them, but you got to know what those are. So I tell them all in that first week, remember what you left behind. Take some of those attributes with you. But some of that stuff that you want to grow from, grow from it. And I think those guys have done a great job of growing themselves as individuals within the team concept that way.”
Gonzaga assistant Rjay Barsh (left) and head coach Mark Few (right). / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
“I think the biggest change would just be the small conversations he’s able to have off the floor and on the side with the guys. The way in which he’s equipped our staff to develop and to land on how we want to play X’s and O’s wise, we can do those things in the gym. But the bow that he puts on the deal with just the one-on-one time he gets with the guys. So then when you’re in those early season crunch games, he has that emotional relationship with the player because they’ve been at the lake or they played pickleball, they’ve walked around on campus, those little things. I don’t care what role you are, if you’re not the head coach, it’s hard to be able to push those buttons in the middle of a game. And so him being here for those, I think those have been the sweetest moments, especially for our transfers. And then for the guys who returned, I think that’s the biggest difference I’ve seen as far as on the floor and what we do. I mean, he has done an amazing job preparing his assistants, preparing us to coach the team and to be able to move, you know, throughout a summer the right way. But there’s always that extra season he puts on top of it. That is the reason he’s Coach Few.”
Gonzaga Bulldogs men’s basketball team. / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
“I think Coach Few brings guys into the organization who enjoy the work. Like, I mean, there’s not a coach on this planet, NCAA basketball coach on this planet, and we’re doing this interview in August that is sitting here not working to win a national championship. So no one can put more pressure on yourself. So irrespective of the outside noise, we just do the work. We get lost, literally get lost in the work. And I think that’s one of the things where I said earlier where Coach Few eliminates the fluff and things. He gets us so present in what we’re doing in that moment, who we’re preparing for, what our numbers are, the way Mike and Gentry break down offense and defense and who Jorge does the film, and those things, the details that we talk about, kind of hijack your mind and make you present. And I think those are one of the things that allow us to not hear the outside noise and feel those pressures. But then at the end of the day, man, like, you’re a high-level competitor, you put that— you wake up wanting that pressure. Like, you know, I’d rather have the pressure to win than anything else.”
MORE GONZAGA NEWS & ANALYSIS