Gonzaga coach Mark Few one win away from 700 career victories: 'We've really got to come out with a win now'

Few is set to join short list of active head coaches with 700 or more wins in their career

The humble Mark Few is on the verge of making college basketball history.

After his Gonzaga Bulldogs (11-4, 2-0 WCC) defeated league foe San Diego, 101-74, at home on Saturday, Few sits just one win shy of 700 victories in his illustrious coaching career. One more win would put him on a short list of 13 other active head coaches with 700 wins. Few's coaching friend Tom Izzo will likely enter his name onto that list this season as well, as Michigan State's head coach currently sits at 696 career wins.

Despite the looming milestone, Few evidently hasn't mentioned much of it to his players.

"He doesn't talk about [the 700 wins milestone]," Nolan Hickman said after Gonzaga's win over San Diego. "We've really got to come out with a win now [against Santa Clara]. That's going to be huge for him."

Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford

Few's race to 700 career wins is even more impressive considering he already boasts the best winning percentage among all coaches, active and all-time, at 83.6%. The consistency has helped him climb the coaching leaderboards quickly — he was the third-fastest coach to win 500 and 600 career games behind hall-of-famers Adolph Rupp and Jerry Tarkanian. With a win Thursday, Few would be the third-fastest to 700 career wins as well.

Over his 24 years at Gonzaga, Few has put together quite the coaching resume. Along with being the winningest coach of all time, he's also the only coach to make it to the NCAA Tournament 24 consecutive times to start a career and he's the lone coach to win eight or more conference championships in a row twice in a career. His dominance in the WCC is unheard of, as he's won the most coach of the year awards (13), regular season championships (22), tournament championships (19) and tournament wins (45).

The next major benchmark in his career could come against a Santa Clara program that hasn't beaten Gonzaga since 2011 (26 straight losses). 

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