Gonzaga's Mark Few on why Yale is 'not an ideal' home opener for Bulldogs

Zags officially tip off 2023-24 season against Ivy League favorites on Friday at 6 p.m.

The Gonzaga Bulldogs are in for quite the challenge to open their 2023-24 college basketball campaign.

Following Friday's exhibition opener against Lewis-Clark State, the competition quickly gets steeper for the Zags as they host Yale at the McCarthey Athletic Center on Nov. 10 to officially tip off the new season. Mark Few tested his new-look squad with a scrimmage against preseason No. 20 Baylor toward the end of October, and while there was a lot to like from that scrimmage, Gonzaga's head coach noted that the Zags are in for quite the battle against Yale.

"That's a scary game," Few said after the win over Lewis-Clark State. "It's not an ideal opener for us. They'll be smart, they'll be tough, they're super, super well coached. They're picked to win the Ivy [League] and they have their whole team back."

Indeed, the Bulldogs from New Haven, Connecticut, boast a ton of experience and depth. Head coach James Jones returns four of five starters from last season's team that shared the league's regular season title with NCAA Tournament team Princeton. Unanimous first team All-Ivy selection Matt Knowling headlines the group of returners that includes conference defensive player of the year Bez Mbeng and 6-foot-4 sharpshooter August Mahoney, who led the Ivy League in 3-point field goal percentage as a sophomore.

Graham Ike leads Gonzaga to exhibition win over Lewis-Clark State

Starting the season against the favorites to win the Ivy League, which has become anything but a pushover conference in recent seasons, was admittedly not a part of Few's plan for this season. Gonzaga tried to arrange its opener for earlier in the week, but could not find a suitable opponent with a schedule that aligned. Few added that the Yale game was originally scheduled for last season, though the Nov. 20 matchup against Kentucky in the Spokane Arena nixed that from happening.

Instead, the Zags will host a team ranked 71st in KenPom a week after dismantling a prominent NAIA school. That's quite the leap from a competition standpoint, especially for a team that's still building continuity among its abundance of newcomers, not to mention the returners who are still acclimating to their new roles. It's also out of the norm for Gonzaga in terms of scheduling home openers for the sake of boosting confidence and fine-tuning certain areas before taking on a grueling nonconference schedule.

In fact, Yale could arguably be one of the most difficult regular season openers in recent history. Outside of the 2020-21 season that was inflicted with COVID-19 implications, the last six home openers have been against North Florida (2022), Dixie State (2021), Alabama State (2019), Idaho State (2018), Texas Southern (2017) and Utah Valley (2016). Gonzaga won all of those matchups by at least 23 points, though a similar margin of victory won't be expected against Yale. 

Still, Few has historically had his teams well prepared out of the starting gate. Gonzaga has won the last 32 home openers dating back to 1988 and hasn't lost the first game to start a season since 2003. 

John Stockton makes appearance at Gonzaga vs. Lewis-Clark State game