Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Gonzaga adds badly needed point guard in UNT’s Woolridge

Loyola Marymount v Gonzaga

SPOKANE, WA - JANUARY 12: Head coach Mark Few (R) of the Gonzaga Bulldogs looks on from the sideline with players Zach Collins #32, Killian Tillie #33 and Silas Melson #0 (L-R) during the second half against the Loyola Marymount Lions at McCarthey Athletic Center on January 12, 2017 in Spokane, Washington. Gonzaga defeated Loyola Marymount 93-55. (Photo by William Mancebo/Getty Images)

Getty Images

Gonzaga has found their point guard after whiffing on Derryck Thornton.

Ryan Woolridge, a grad transfer from North Texas, announced over the weekend that he will play his final season of eligibility for Mark Few and the Zags. He picked Gonzaga over Minnesota, Oklahoma State and Arkansas.

“I just had a list of checkmarks and I wanted to see which school would fill the most checkmarks,” Wooridge told the Spokesman Review. “Gonzaga was the best fit for me in all those categories. I’m so comfortable with the coaches and players. It felt like the right move for me.”

Woolridge, who is 6-foot-3 and 175 pounds, had surgery after this past season to repair a stress fracture in his patella, but he still managed to put up 11.7 points, 5.9 boards and 4.8 assists as a junior for UNT.

This will be a solid addition for the Zags. Woolridge is a heady play, the kind of point guard willing to make the right pass and find the open guy. He rebounds, he’s a good defender and he has high-end speed. He’s not going to be a replacement for Josh Perkins - for all the stick I gave Perkins last season, he was a really, really good playmaker and a monster in pick-and-rolls - but he will give the Zags a guy that can initiate offense, set the tone defensively and allow Admon Gilder to play off the ball.

The bottom line is that the Zags needed backcourt depth. The only other point guard on their roster is freshman Brock Ravet. Woolridge isn’t going to be the reason that Gonzaga is a top ten team, but he is a piece that they really needed to add.