SPOKANE, Wash. — Thursday Gonzaga will hang Adam Morrison’s jersey in the rafters of McCarthey.
Now, let’s make this clear, they are not retiring his jersey. Nobody really knows why this is a jersey hanging and not a retirement, but that is besides my point today.
My point today is that if you’re thinking about who’s next in line to get their jersey retired at GU, the answer is pretty obvious.
The answer is Courtney Vandersloot.
VANDERSLOOT'S GONZAGA CAREER
Let’s just talk about everything Vandersloot did at Gonzaga because it is a doozy.
Obviously, Courtney is known most for becoming the first player, men’s or women’s, in NCAA history who recorded 2,000 points and 1,000 assists in their career. The only other player to do that since is Sabrina Ionescu, who is pretty popular right now.
But let’s talk about Courtney's other accomplishments.
She won the Nancy Lieberman Award as the top point guard in the nation her senior season. She also was awarded the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award that year, which is given to the top player in the nation 5’8 or under. Her sophomore, junior, and senior seasons she won the WCC Player of the Year Award. She is still the only Gonzaga player to be named an All-American three times. She also led the Zags to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament, which is still the farthest the team has ever gotten.
VANDERSLOOT'S PRO CAREER
Vandersloot is the only Zag to really stick in the WNBA, and is going into her 10th season in the league with the Chicago Sky. By the way, the team announced yesterday that they had re-signed her to a multi-year deal, so she’s going to be around for at least a few more years.
Vandersloot secured the Sky’s starting point guard job during her rookie season in 2011, and hasn’t relinquished the spot since. She has broken the WNBA single season assists record not once, but twice now. She broke her own record last season, finishing with 300 assists in 2019. That shattered her old record of 258 single season assists set in 2018. She will move up to fifth in career assists this season, passing current Spurs assistant coach Becky Hammon in that category.
Also last season Vandersloot was selected as a WNBA All-Star, the second time she’d received such an honor. She and John Stockton are the only Zags to be named NBA or WNBA All-Stars twice.
VANDERSLOOT'S CULTURAL IMPACT
Okay, so if that all didn’t convince you, let’s talk about Courtney’s cultural impact at GU.
Before Courtney came to Gonzaga, the Zags had only been to one NCAA Tournament. That was during her senior year in high school. The Bulldogs missed the tournament in Courtney’s freshman year. They then made the NCAA Tournament her sophomore, junior and senior seasons. Since she’s left, the Zags have only missed the NCAA Tournament once. To put this in perspective, Courtney’s sophomore season was in 2009. Gonzaga has only missed the NCAA Tournament once since. Oh by the way in 2009, Courtney was on the Gonzaga team that got the program’s first ever NCAA Tournament win.
But her cultural impact goes even farther than that.
The season before Vandersloot came to GU, the Gonzaga women were averaging nearly 1,500 fans per game. By the time she left? They were averaging over 4,000 fans per contest. Courtney Vandersloot nearly tripled the amount of fans coming to Gonzaga games during her time there.
She not only set the standard for the program in the NCAA Tournament, she laid the foundation for the program to grow for years to come.
It's time for that to be remembered forever.