The transfer portal has been open for nearly a month, and while many teams already have completely full rosters, the Gonzaga Bulldogs still have five open spots to play with.
But even with just ten players on the roster – five who have never played a collegiate game – Gonzaga is still widely considered one of the best teams in college basketball heading into 2026-27.
Advertisement
Bart Torvik, creator of popular college basketball site barttorvik.com, recently launched projections for the upcoming season using his T-Rank model – which carries significant weight as part of the team sheets given to the selection committee to help determine NCAA Tournament seeding
Torvik ranks Gonzaga No. 8 in the country, behind Duke, Michigan, Arizona, Houston, Florida, Arkansas, and Michigan State.
Louisville and UConn round out the top ten, respectively.
Gonzaga comes in No. 13 in adjusted offensive efficiency and No. 10 in adjusted defensive efficiency, one of eight teams ranked in the top 15 in both categories.
Advertisement
Of the top ten, Gonzaga has the second fewest percentage of returning minutes (30.5%) behind Louisville (11.5%) with Houston (35.8%) the only other team in below 40%.
Gonzaga also has the second least experience of the top ten behind Arizona, which is a far cry from where this roster was last year.
After losing five players to eligibility this past season – four who had been in college 4+ years – the Zags currently have just one player on the roster, Braden Huff, who has played in more than 35 total college games.
The roster is made up of four sophomores: Davis Fogle, Mario Saint-Supery, Houston transfer Isiah Harwell, and Arizona State transfer Massamba Diop, as well as five players who have never played CBB before: true freshmen Jack Kayil, Luca Foster, and Sam Funches, as well as redshirt freshmen Parker Jefferson and Alonzo Metz.
Advertisement
With five more spots to fill this experience number will almost certainly increase, although they still expect to be very young in 2026-27.
Back the Pac?
Gonzaga is far and away the highest rated team in the new look Pac-12, with an early peek at the conference not inspiring a ton of confidence at this point.
Four other teams join Gonzaga in the top 100: San Diego State (61), Colorado State (75), Utah State (79) and Oregon State (92).
The final four teams include Boise State (104), Washington State (134), Texas State (137), and Fresno State (151).
Of course, many of these rosters have dealt with far more departures than additions at this point, and it would not be a surprise to see consistently solid programs like San Diego State and Utah State climb as the season gets closer – and even more once games begin.
Advertisement
Gonzaga will open up the 2026-27 season in Las Vegas on Nov. 2 against the Purdue Boilermakers.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/gonzaga as Gonzaga top 10 team in Bart Torvik’s 2026-27 projections.
