Jordan Mathews' move from Pac-12 has Gonzaga on verge of national title

It didn’t get any easier the next two seasons: UA’s Rondae Hollis-Jefferson. OSU’s Gary Payton II. Utah’s Delon Wright. All while one-and-done talents came and left: UA’s Stanley Johnson, Cal’s Jaylen Brown, UCLA’s Zach LaVine.

“In the Pac-12, you’re going up against pros every night,” said Mathews, the grad transfer wing will play with Gonzaga for a national championship Monday. “Not to knock schools like San Diego, San Francisco or any of those (in the West Coast Conference) but the Pac-12 is a different animal. It was tough for sure.”

In a sense, though, it was nothing compared with what Mathews had thrown at him last summer. Or, rather, threw at himself, trying to figure out a way to graduate after just three years.

Twelve weeks. Six mostly upper-level courses. At Cal, one of the nation’s toughest public schools.

That was a workout.

“I had to take four legal studies classes to finish and I forgot I had to take one legal studies 100 class, which was like the foundations of law,” Mathews said. “I took math. I took stats online. I had to take Chicano Studies. … that was really hard.”

Mathews crammed them all in between May 24 and Aug. 11, with two classes overlapping and making things even worse.

Cal’s team academic advisor tried to warn him, as did nearly everyone else.

“She told me ‘No one’s ever done it before, but if you want to do it, I won’t stop you,’ “ Mathews said. “But everybody told me not to do it.”

That he did is one of many reasons Gonzaga will play North Carolina on Monday in an attempt to win the Spokane school’s first national title.

It also spoke to the intense desire Mathews had to leave the Bears and play immediately somewhere else.

Mathews told reporters last week in San Jose that he found the coaching style of then-coach Cuonzo Martin “difficult,” and said Sunday at the University of Phoenix Stadium that holding a regular starting role for two years with the Bears wasn’t enough to keep him happy.

“It was a difficult jump but everything is not always what it seems on the surface and I needed a change,” Mathews said.

As it turned out, Mathews may have jumped at precisely the right time. Cal failed to make the NCAA Tournament this season, star forward Ivan Rabb declared for the NBA Draft and Martin took off to take the head coaching job at Missouri.

Cal is suddenly rebuilding, while Mathews is playing for a ring.

That makes him a poster boy for aspiring grad transfers.

“If I wasn’t able to leave Cal, I wouldn’t be here right now, so having transfers is very valuable,” Mathews said. “There’s definitely two sides to it; you develop a guy for three years and you’re expecting him to be here for his fourth, and then he tells you he’s leaving (as a grad transfer). Of course, you’re going to be upset.”

But it’s only fair, the way Mathews explains it.

“When coaches leave schools and go other places, there’s never a talk about that. It’s like ‘fine,’ ” Mathews said. “But when we decide to leave a school, it’s like you’re a traitor to your school. How does that work? I’m the one playing. So I’ve never felt that way. I feel if you don’t like where you’re at, you should have the right to leave and go wherever you want.”

So Mathews blitzed through those six classes in Berkeley and made it to the Inland Northwest by the end of the summer.

Once he arrived, change happened quickly and easier than he could have imagined.

“My first day in Spokane, I kind of felt like I was on the team for a year already because the guys were so welcoming,” Mathews said. “There’s so many different cultures but we have great guys. Our foreign guys are great. Przemek (Karnowski, Gonzaga center) orchestrates the whole thing because he’s been in the program all five years. But, I mean, everyone is just a big-time personality and we’re all very close.”

He didn’t expect all that, really. Mathews came to Gonzaga attracted to its track record of basketball success, and because Zags’ assistant coach Donny Daniels is an extremely close friend of his father, former San Francisco coach Phil Mathews.

Jordan didn’t realize that an extended family would grow so much larger, so soon.

But Gonzaga players say that’s the way it is, especially this year: The Bulldogs mixed in Mathews with two four-year transfers, ex-Washington guard Nigel Williams-Goss and ex-Missouri big man Johnathan Williams III, along with a recruiting class led by freshman prodigy Zach Collins and a handful of returners.

Unlike Williams-Goss and Williams, however, Mathews didn’t have the benefit of spending a redshirt year on campus soaking up culture and scheme before playing games.

He had to cram that into a month or so on campus last fall.

“For a guy in that situation, it would be tough but we welcomed him in right away,” sophomore guard Josh Perkins said.

“He’s such a good guy off the court and honestly every time he shoots behind the line, I think it’s going in.”

But like everyone else on Gonzaga’s roster, Mathews had to leave some things behind. He wouldn’t be as much of a featured presence as he might have been at Cal this season along with Jabari Bird and Rabb, just like Williams-Goss and Williams wouldn’t be quite the individual stars they were at their former schools.

Then there’s Collins, a projected NBA lottery pick from Las Vegas, who doesn’t even start for the Bulldogs.

Everybody sacrifices.

“It’s all about communication and believing in the culture… a culture of player development,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. “And in Jordan’s case, he just loves to work. He loves to put his time in and he just wants a plan and he wants some people that will work with him.

“That’s what fits at Gonzaga. Nigel is very much like that. Johnathan Williams is very much like that. When we find these guys and they find us, I mean, it just works perfectly. But the communication line has to be open. The expectations gotta all line up with what the player wants and what we feel like where they’re at within the program.”

Mathews’ expectations were simple. He wanted a change. A place he would feel welcome on and off the court.

And a chance to play on college basketball’s highest stage, maybe not everyday in the WCC, but in the postseason.

He found them all at Gonzaga.

“To be able to play in the Final Four for a great team like Gonzaga is exactly what I was looking forward when I transferred,” Mathews said. “I did have a good situation (at Cal) but this is a better situation. Playing for a national championship on Monday is a better situation.”