Season Recap: Steele Venters, Gonzaga’s Greatest What-If

On November 3rd, 2025, Steele Venters finally played basketball again. It had been 961 days since his last game. Two torn ligaments. Two surgeries. Two full seasons watching from the bench while two different Gonzaga teams sent three-pointer after three-pointer clanging off the rim. When he checked in against Texas Southern midway through the first half at the McCarthey Athletic Center, the Gonzaga crowd rose to its feet and gave him the kind of ovation usually reserved for buzzer-beaters and championship wins. He scored six points in 15 minutes. Modest numbers, sure. But nobody in that building was watching the box score. They were watching a local dude from a small town in central Washington finally, after all of it, get to do the thing he loved most.

But Venters played in only 27 games for the Bulldogs this season, and saw his role shrink as the year wore on, eventually falling out of the rotation completely. Earlier this week, he entered the transfer portal, and just yesterday he committed to the University of Washington, where he will chase a final year of eligibility in 2026-27, pending a medical waiver from the NCAA. The redemption arc is not finished. It has simply moved 280 miles west down that same stretch of I-90, from Spokane to Seattle. If there is any justice in college basketball, Zag fans everywhere will be rooting loudly for it to reach the ending it deserves.

The Kid From Ellensburg

If you’ve never been to Steele’s home town of Ellensburg, it’s a windswept college town that most Washingtonians know mainly as an I-90 pit stop between the mountains and Yakima. It is also, as it turns out, a fine place to develop a relentless work ethic and silky smooth jumpshot. Steele Venters grew up there, the son of Wade Venters, who played professionally overseas and at Central Washington, and who had also torn his own ACL along the way. He knew better than most what the game demands and what it can take away.

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By his senior year at Ellensburg High…

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Publish date : 2026-04-16 13:00:00

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