Gonzaga lands 2024 recruit Graydon Lemke

Bulldogs landed a commitment from a 6-foot-11 Las Vegas native

Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford

Mark Few and the Gonzaga men’s basketball program landed a late commitment in the 2024 class on Monday when 6-foot-11 senior Graydon Lemke announced he’s joining the Bulldogs for the upcoming season.

Lemke, a native of Las Vegas, made his decision public in a social media post on Monday. The Faith Lutheran (Nevada) product will likely be a walk-on as a freshman given all 13 scholarships have been used. 

As a senior, Lemke guided the Crusaders to a 20-6 record, including a perfect 10-0 showing in 4A Mountain League play, as he averaged 17.4 points and 5.0 rebounds en route to the 4A southern state semifinals. Faith Lutheran fell to Somerset Academy for the right to play in the state championship despite a 19-point game from Lemke. 

After missing part of his junior season due to a torn Achilles, Lemke won league MVP as a senior and was one of the five finalists for the Naismith High School Basketball Courage Award, which is awarded to the high school athlete who demonstrates courage to make their team, school and community a better place. He was also nominated for the McDonald's All-American Games.

Lemke is Gonzaga’s third commitment in the 2024 class, which also includes 7-foot center Ismaila Diagne from Real Madrid and preferred walk-on Cade Orness, a 6-foot-5 guard from North Kitsap (Washington). It remains to be seen how the crop of freshmen figure into a rotation that includes seven of its top eight scorers from a team that went to the Sweet 16 this past season, not to mention the handful of newcomers that come to Spokane via the transfer portal. As freshman walk-ons, Orness and Lemke will likely get their most valuable reps in practice.

In total, Few returned 10 players which equated to 81.4% of the team’s minutes played from last season, which is the fifth-highest return rate in the country and the program’s highest retention rate in a year-to-year span since the 2005-06 season. It’s also the first time since the 2018-19 campaign that Few brought back three All-WCC players from the year prior, as Ryan Nembhard, Graham Ike and Nolan Hickman are all back for their final seasons of college basketball.

Early polls and rankings from both humans and computers have the experienced Zags near the top of the sport’s hierarchy following an offseason filled with chaotic player movement and coaching changes across the country. Few’s stable core and batch of newcomers has Gonzaga ranked in the top 10 in power rankings from The Athletic (No. 2), ESPN (No. 5), CBS Sports (No. 8), FOX Sports (No. 8) and Bart Torvik’s 2024-25 projection model (No. 9). 

Gonzaga has yet to finalize its 2024-25 nonconference schedule, though high-profile matchups against Kentucky (Climate Pledge, Dec. 7), UConn (Madison Square Garden, Dec. 14) and UCLA (Intuit Dome, Dec. 28) have been officially locked in, as well as the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament from Nov. 27-29. The Bulldogs also take on San Diego State (Viejas Arena) and an 18-game West Coast Conference schedule.