Gonzaga’s Steele Venters suffers Achilles injury, will miss 2024-25 season

Eastern Washington transfer missed all of 2023-24 with a torn ACL

Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford

Gonzaga men’s basketball wing Steele Venters suffered an Achilles tendon injury and will miss the 2024-25 college basketball season, according to a news release from the school.

Venters, who transferred to Gonzaga from Eastern Washington in April 2023, had to sit out all of the 2023-24 campaign with an ACL injury.

“We are heartbroken for Steele,” Bulldogs head coach Mark Few said via a news release. “He was working so hard to come back from his knee injury. We will continue to support Steele through his healing process and know he will come back better and stronger.”

The 6-foot-7, 200-pound Ellensburg, Washington, native was listed on the official 2024-25 roster as a redshirt junior after he received a medical redshirt for the 2023-24 season. NCAA athletes are granted a medical redshirt year if they suffer an injury that is deemed “season-ending” and occurs prior to the halfway point of the season. Student-athletes can be granted multiple medical redshirts by the NCAA.

Venters also took a redshirt year as a walk-on freshman at Eastern Washington back in 2019. Over the course of three seasons with the Eagles, he was twice named All-Big Sky and was crowned as the Big Sky MVP in his redshirt junior year in 2022-23. Venters averaged 15.3 points and shot 45.7% from 3-point range that season before transferring to Gonzaga later that spring.

Venters tore his ACL just days before the Bulldogs’ regular-season opener against Yale last November. He played nearly 18 minutes in the exhibition win over Lewis-Clark State on Nov. 4 and finished with two points and one assist.

With Venters out again, Gonzaga’s wing depth consists of 6-foot-7 All-WCC wing Michael Ajayi, 6-foot-6 sophomore Dusty Stromer and 6-foot-8 sophomore Jun Seok Yeo. Arkansas grad transfer Khalif Battle has the flexibility to play some minutes at the “3” as well at 6-foot-5, 185-pounds. Tarleton State transfer and sophomore Emmanuel Innocenti is versatile too at 6-foot-5, 198-pounds.

The 2024-25 nonconference schedule has yet to be confirmed, though as of now the Zags’ first confirmed game of the season is at home against Arizona State on Nov. 10.