John Rillie - Gonzaga Days

This is from my boy JR's blog (one of the players on my Top Ten Shooters list). Considering how little information there is about his days at Gonzaga, I might have to get my hands on a copy of this book.


JR, On Fire: "Author Dave Boling put together a book titled Tales from the Gonzaga Hardwood.

I was quite surprised to see that he dedicated a whole chapter to me. I'll take it as the book is a good but lighthearted read about some of the characters and moments in Zag basketball history.

Following is an excerpt from my chapter:

Rillie Raining Threes

John Rillie was so hot, so dialed in, that his teammates were leery about even speaking to him, fearful they might disrupt the delicate calibration of his shooting mechanism. It was in Santa Clara, at the West Coast Conference Tournament in the spring of 1995, and Rillie’s uncanny jump shooting had led the Zags into the title game of the tournament against Portland. A berth in the NCAA tournament went to the winner.

Portland was aligned to defend Rillie, to double him every time he got the ball, to bump him, to jostle him, to beat him to his favored shooting spots. But Rillie just backed up a step or two and continued to shoot over the Pilots.

In the title game, he made eight of twelve shots and all 12 of his free throws for 34 points, setting a tournament record for scoring with 96 points in three games. In that three-game state of unconsciousness, Rillie sank 20 of 28 3-point attempts.

“When you get so involved in so many games and practice so hard, it eventually pays off," Rillie explained. “And for me, that was a great time for it all to come together. You’ve heard people say that when you’re going really well, it seems like the game is being played in slow motion. That really was what it was like. Everything felt like I had so much time.

”At the time, he was appropriately delighted with the tournament MVP honor and the NCAA berth. But he didn’t fully comprehend the historical significance, the way his shooting lifted the Zags to their first ever NCAA tournament appearance.

“In all honesty, I was just so happy to be playing Division I basketball in the U.S., that I was pretty oblivious to a lot of the stuff that was going on,” he said. “I watch the NCAAs now and see all of Gonzaga’s success and I’m far more emotionally attached to it now than I was when I was playing. I was so wet behind the ears I didn’t know what was going on. I was like that puppy in the window just waiting for somebody to pick me up and take me somewhere.”

Well, somebody took him to the NCAA tournament, a destination to which previous Zags had never ventured."