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The 2026 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame class announced Saturday includes coaches Doc Rivers and Mark Few, referee Joey Crawford, and six-time NBA All-Star Amar’e Stoudemire.
Women’s basketball is represented by the 1996 Olympic champion United States Women’s National Team, two-time WNBA Most Valuable Player Elena Delle Donne, three-time NCAA champion Chamique Holdsclaw and three-time WNBA champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist Candace Parker. Mike D’Antoni was included by the Contributors Committee for his coaching innovation in modern basketball.
Few, who led his Gonzaga Bulldogs to two national championship games, including the 2021 final at Lucas Oil Stadium, said the thought of going into a Hall of Fame was beyond his childhood imagination. “Where I come from, a little tiny town in Oregon, it wasn’t a dream come true,” he said. “You couldn’t even possibly dream about something like this happening. The biggest emotion and feeling of just gratitude for everybody every step of the way. As a coach, it always starts and ends with the players.”
D’Antoni coached five NBA teams over 16 seasons and was named Coach of the Year with the Phoenix Suns and Houston Rockets. He echoed the same sentiment as his former player with the Suns, Amar’e Stoudemire, sat on stage with him.
“It’s really special to be able to come in with Amar’e,” D’Antoni said. “He and Steve [Nash] and Shawn [Marion] and different guys on the team, we had a vision that (I) wanted a way to play, and they carried it out.”
D’Antoni’s vision became his sport-altering, seven-seconds-or-less offense. D’Antoni’s high-tempo, fast-break, transition offense specialized in shooting as many 3-point attempts as possible. This style of offensive basketball has become extremely common in today’s game. Few has used aspects of this style of play to evolve his offenses over the years.
Few’s path to basketball immortality was different than the rest of his peers. Few was the only member of the 2026 Naismith Hall of Fame class to spend his entire career in college basketball.
Few became the head coach of the Gonzaga Bulldogs in 1999 after spending 10 years on the staff as an assistant. In 27 seasons at the helm, Few has won or shared 23 regular-season titles in the West Coast Conference, including winning the West Coast Conference Tournament 21 times. From 2000 to 2011, Few won or shared 11 straight West Coast Conferences regular season titles, the third-longest streak in college basketball. From 2012 to 2023, Few would repeat that success, winning another 11-straight conference regular season titles.
Few is currently the winningest active coach in college basketball with a record of 773-156, a winning percentage of .832. He has been to the Final Four twice in 2017 and 2021.
With all this success Few has had in Spokane, he has remained loyal to the Bulldogs, never giving attention to any speculation about job openings at larger schools.
“I didn’t need to,” Few said. “We’ve had numerous teams now that have made it here [Final Four] and could’ve won this thing. We’ve had two teams in the championship game, and a few other teams that probably should’ve made it. I’ve always told everyone, ‘Don’t mess with happy,’ and I’ve been completely happy and content at Gonzaga.”
Few’s closest chances at winning a national title came in 2017 and 2021, when the Bulldogs made the championship game both years. In 2017, Few and Gonzaga lost to North Carolina 71-65 in the final. Four years later, Gonzaga would return to the national title game, this time during the COVID-19 pandemic, attempting to complete the first undefeated national champion in 45 years.
In the national semifinal game against UCLA, Gonzaga guard Jalen Suggs made a banked, game-winning shot from just inside the midcourt line to send the Bulldogs to the championship game, instantly becoming an NCAA Tournament legend and giving fans around the world a sporting moment they would remember forever. There were 8,131 fans scattered around Lucas Oil Stadium.
Two nights later, when Baylor defeated Gonzaga to win the national championship, the attendance was announced as 7,923.
“The greatest regret I’ve had in my career is that that team never got to play in front of a crowd,” Few said. “There should’ve been 80,000 in that arena watching us. There should’ve been 80,000 that saw Jalen’s shot. Instead, there were a bunch of cardboard cutouts. Throughout the whole season, we were undefeated. We were 40 minutes away from doing what that Indiana team did.”
Even without a national title, Few’s 2021 season ranks among the best in the history of the sport. The 2021 Gonzaga Bulldogs are one of only four teams to end their season with one loss or fewer since the 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers went undefeated. A national title victory in 2021 would have cemented Mark Few’s name in basketball history, but now, the Naismith Hall of Fame has done that.
Few now acts as a mentor to his younger coaching peers, including Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd, who spent 20 seasons as an assistant coach at Gonzaga under Few. Lloyd was recently subject to coaching rumors regarding the head coach job opening at the University of North Carolina. Few’s mentorship helped Lloyd decide to stay at Arizona, something Few has done at Gonzaga since 1989.
Loyalty between coaches and universities is rare in 2026. Few’s career has set the precedent for the future generation of collegiate coaches. Few’s career accolades speak for themselves, but the attention he has brought to Spokane, Wash. is a legacy that will remain for generations.
Carter Jones writes for the Sports Capital Journalism Program at IU Indianapolis.
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