Chet Holmgren Fucking Rules
Let me be very clear about something first. The fact we have a star named Chet is awesome. He's a first name kind of guy. We don't need to add Holmgren or some sort of nickname. Chet works perfectly. Throw in the fact he's 7'0" and 190 pounds? Makes it even better. He's a cheat code. The dude can do it all and showed it today in what was supposed to be a showcase game. Now, sure, UCLA isn't the 2nd best team in the country with or without Cody Riley. But this was more about Gonzaga and how damn good they are again. I never understood the 'Gonzaga is a fraud' talk. It makes no sense every year. Because they haven't won a title? They've been to 2 of the last 4 title games. Lost one when Nigel Williams-Goss rolled his ankle with 6 minutes to go and then got hammered by a Baylor team who was awesome. Not exactly 'fraud.'
Look at this stat line:
15/6/4 doesn't even tell the whole story. Here's what Chet does. He makes Gonzaga unreal defensively. UCLA was scared of him. He blocked a couple shots early and then they were hesitant to ever really go after him. It also lets him/Timme rotate playing center field and how they rotate. It lets the guards get a little more aggressive defensively too and really challenge outside because they have Chet at the rim. Offensively he can shoot well enough from 3 to give Timme space in the post. Good luck figuring out where to send the double or a matchup. Rare to see a 7-footer that can do this sort of stuff.
That's before we even get into the rest of Gonzaga. Obviously Timme, but Andrew Nembhard is one of the best point guards in the country.
Strawther is turning into a go-to scorer as well. Bolton can get his own bucket. Nolan Hickman and Hunter Sallis are 5-star freshmen who are going to get better as the year goes on. Anton Watson is the prototypical 3rd big man who can rebound, defend and get some putback points. They just reloaded again. There's nothing fraud about them.
Chet. What a perfect name for a kid who is an absolute star. Chet fucking rules.