Valencia of the EuroLeague announced the signing of Gonzaga sophomore point guard Mario Saint-Supéry on Saturday, a big blow to the Bulldogs’ hopes of contending nationally next season.
The surprise move leaves Mark Few’s team without an established starting point guard as it prepares for its first season in the new Pac-12. The transfer portal is closed.
Saint-Supéry leaves behind a talented frontcourt that was supposed to benefit from two European guards but now has neither. Jack Kayil, a 20-year-old who averaged 11.6 points and 3.8 assists last season for Alba Berlin, one of Germany’s top teams, remained in the NBA Draft rather than joining Gonzaga for next season. The Houston Rockets drafted him in the second round and traded him to the New York Knicks.
The Athletic’s CJ Moore ranked Gonzaga at No. 12 in his initial early rankings, presuming Saint-Supéry and Kayil would play off each other. Moore dropped the Zags to No. 19 after they lost Kayil, and now there are glaring questions about Gonzaga’s backcourt to offset the return of big man Braden Huff and 7-foot-1 Arizona State transfer center Massamba Diop.
Another European addition, 23-year-old Nathan De Sousa (10.9 points, 4.9 assists for Cholet in France last season), will likely move into Saint-Supéry’s starting spot. Houston transfer shooting guard Isiah Harwell, a 2025 McDonald’s All-American who came off the bench as a freshman, will now have more opportunity.
The 6-foot-4 Saint-Supéry averaged 8.6 points and 3.8 assists, shooting 40.3 percent from 3-point range, in a freshman season that progressed and pointed toward a sophomore breakout campaign. Instead, Saint-Supéry is playing professionally in Spain, where he was before joining Few’s program. And the first Pac-12 Gonzaga team looks vulnerable.
Why leave now, and where do the ‘Zags go from here?
There are two big questions surrounding this decision, and they are fascinating.
First: Why would a player of Saint-Supéry’s caliber leave a starring role at Gonzaga — and the commensurate payday — this late in the summer?
There isn’t a singular answer, but this move coming less than two weeks after the NBA Draft isn’t a coincidence. Valencia just lost guard Sergio De Larrea to the NBA after he was selected 25th in June, and needed to backfill that role in a major way. Considering Saint-Supéry — a native Spaniard who starred in the country’s ACB league before coming to Gonzaga — had already proven himself at that level, the move made a lot of sense for Valencia as a replacement option.
For Saint-Supéry, it had to be attractive to return home to Spain, but that doesn’t address the financial component. A player of Saint-Supéry’s ability at a school of Gonzaga’s prestige could easily expect to earn seven figures next season. (According to multiple industry sources, the going rate for starting high-major point guards this cycle has been approximately $1.5 million, if not higher.) Saint-Supéry signing a four-year deal with Valencia, though, means he could eventually earn more than that, especially if the club redirects some of the contract buyout funds De Larrea paid to Saint-Supéry instead.
So, where does Gonzaga go next? Unfortunately for Zags fans, there’s no good answer.
There’s no sugar-coating how much of a blow this is for Gonzaga, especially at this point in the college basketball calendar. There are no starting-caliber guards — at least not ones Few would be interested in — still available from the transfer portal, and the international market has largely been picked clean, too. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that Few and his staff are as well-versed in the international market as any in college basketball, and will look to add some form of backcourt depth from abroad. But it’s slim pickings this late into July, especially for a program which already unexpectedly lost another expected starting guard, Kayil, to the NBA.
The Bulldogs are likely to slip outside the top 25 without their established point guard. The Zags should still have one of the better frontcourts in the sport, a forever strength under Few, but the lack of backcourt options severely limits the team’s upside as it transitions out of the West Coast Conference. — Brendan Marks, national college basketball writer
