The supporters must be really upset over Steele Venters’ serious injury, in my opinion.
As per Jeff Goodman, a college basketball expert, Steele Venters suffered a knee injury during practice this week and will miss the entire season. Goodman shared the news on Twitter. (The Gonzaga men’s basketball team announced in a news statement on Friday that Venters tore his right ACL during practice, forcing him to miss the whole season.)
The 6-foot-7 wing was slated to start Friday at home against Yale in the Bulldogs’ 2023–24 season opener after starting in the Zags’ exhibition game over Lewis–Clark State last week.
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Venters played his final four seasons at Eastern Washington, where he was named the 2022–23 Big Sky Player of the Year, before transferring to Gonzaga in April. After averaging 15.3 points per game and shooting 37.1% from beyond the arc for the Eagles, he was one of the most sought-after players in the transfer portal. With 78 triples in the conference, the Ellensburg, Washington native led the team in 3-point percentage made last season and was in the 89th percentile among all players.
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Venters, who only received one Division-I offer after high school, was anticipated to be a key member of the Bulldog starting lineup this year. In over eighteen minutes of action during the exhibition game against Lewis-Clark State, he finished with two points on 1-for-4 shooting from the field. That came after a 12-point performance in an October closed-door scrimmage against No. 20 Baylor.
With Venters gone for the season, Mark Few will need to make some tough choices about his lineup. If Few decides to start with a three-guard unit, 6-foot-6 four-star prospect Dusty Stromer is a contender to jump in and start on the perimeter. On the other hand, Ben Gregg or Braden Huff might play alongside Graham Ike in the frontcourt for a more “tall-ball” lineup if Anton Watson slides to the wing position.
