The Golden Age of Basketball

The Bulldogs Team spent the entire month of August traveling by car, on highways, staying in hotels, and playing on different courts.

For the players, it was a tremendous test of physical endurance, as the long journey and back-to-back games left everyone utterly exhausted.

Yet at the same time, for these young people who had yet to step out of the college campus, it was a valuable life experience.

They traveled the length of California along Highway 1, gazing at the vast Pacific Ocean and admiring the afterglow of the sunset.

In Arizona and New Mexico, the boundless red wilderness filled their view; near Phoenix, the sight of giant saguaro cacti in the national park was astonishing.

They encountered some trouble on the high plains of Colorado; the car broke down near the Grand Canyon, and the entire team had to push it for five miles. Exhausted to the core, this led to their defeat at the hands of the University of Colorado the next day.

This was the Bulldogs Team's first lost game on their away trip.

University of Science and Technology's guard Jay Humphries gave Stockton a run for his money; this type of attacking black guard has always been Stockton's nightmare.

Then they went to Kansas, where there are three universities with Kansas in their name: University of Kansas, University of Missouri-Kansas City, and Kansas State University.

The most famous is the University of Kansas Jayhawks Team, Chamberlain's alma mater, and also the place where basketball's inventor Dr. Naismith once coached; it can be said to be the origin of American basketball coaching.

The current coach of the University of Kansas is former UCLA coach Larry-Brown.

This serious white coach was trying to turn the University of Kansas into an All-America defensive team. They allowed an average of 70 points per game last season, which he thought was too much.

As a result, in this warm-up match, a well-rested Gan Guoyang and Stockton took home 91 points in Kansas, with Gan Guoyang scoring 31 points over 7-foot-1 white center Gregg Dreiling.

This made Larry-Brown wonder if his one and a half month's coaching and training efforts had been all in vain.

Leaving Kansas, they traveled north, passing through the great plains of Nebraska, playing a game against the University of Nebraska coached by Willis Reed, and then heading to the northernmost Minnesota to play the last game of this long road trip.

The 6-foot-11 white center John Shasky of the Minnesota Golden Gophers faced the same problem as previous centers like Gray and Kremlin: he simply had no clue how to defend against a center like Guoyang.

In the 80s, the NCAA was full of such tall white centers with average talent, who were tall and strong with solid fundamentals, and essential as a three-second area barrier for their teams.

Compared to the explosion and agility of black centers, their advantage lay in being trained in team basketball from a young age and having a strong sense of tactics, which made them execute a coach's intent well, and thus they were well-liked by college coaches.

Without the three-second defensive rule and the presence of zone defense, they did not fare too badly against some powerful black inside players.

Yet Gan Guoyang was clearly an oddity. He possessed the strength, intelligence, and fundamentals of white players as well as the explosiveness and energy of black players; plus, he had the endurance and cunning unique to Asian players.

In the absence of game videos and prior research, encounters with such an opponent left them clueless on defense, rendering past experience utterly useless.

How do you defend when the center gets the ball at the top of the key to facilitate plays, after guards and forwards run circles, and then he suddenly shoots and even scores?

Back to the basket, he turns with a speed that rivals small forwards, then he faces the basket, drives, and follows up with a precise hook shot from outside—how do you defend that?

What makes these tall white centers even more desperate is that they think he's avoiding a head-on confrontation due to lack of strength or height, choosing to dodge and feint instead.

But that's not the case. Guoyang, when confronting directly, has greater explosiveness than them, his effective height is no worse than theirs, and he possesses astonishing strength.

The reason he avoids direct confrontation is simply because of the exhausting travels that necessitate conserving energy, and as it is a preseason game, it is more polite to hold back a little.

Gan Guoyang had been very polite throughout the trip, never asking anyone "how's your day going?"

After the game against the Golden Gophers, having traveled for over a month and covering one-third of America, they had an outstanding record of 11 wins and 1 loss, and they embarked on their journey back to Spokane.

Departing from Minnesota, traveling west along Highway 94, crossing North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho, they would cover over 1300 miles to get back to Spokane.

Along the way, they crossed the Rocky Mountains; the landscape's magnificence, where late summer meets fall and the vast, lush forests stretch as far as the eye can see, was enchanting.

When the vehicle stopped to refuel at a forest gas station, the players found a small basketball court next to it, got out to play together, and then took a group photo to commemorate the moment.

Once again, the car broke down when it was going over high-altitude areas in Montana, and everyone got out and pushed for five miles, arriving at a small town late in the evening where they stayed for the night.

On the afternoon of the second day, the team played an exhibition basketball game for the residents at the town's elementary school basketball court. More than five hundred townspeople attended, including babies, to watch this exciting match.

The residents waived their accommodation and food expenses, helped fix the car, bought some leftover T-shirts and caps, and finally bid farewell to these spirited college students.

The journey was long and tiring, but being with young people always brought more happiness than boredom, and the victories along the way filled everyone with confidence for the new season.

Gan Guoyang had become the undisputed core of the team; his performance during the away games was like a Sea-Calming Needle, making his teammates play better. Everyone was at ease as long as he was on the court.

Of course, the Sea-Calming Needle of the journey was Coach Delong, handling all sorts of tasks, big and small, including doing laundry and washing shoes.

On the morning of September 1st, Gan Guoyang's 19th birthday, they returned to Spokane, back to the campus of Gonzaga University.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief the moment they got off the vehicle. Stockton said he just wanted to go back to the dormitory and sleep for three days and nights on his bed.

Only Gan Guoyang, after a short rest, went to the gymnasium for training in the afternoon.

During the month on the road, whether on the bus, at games, or in hotels, there was no solid block of time for proper training.

Gan Guoyang felt this was detrimental to maintaining his form and knew he had to train, to get his body back in good shape.

He ruthlessly trained in the basketball court and the gym until it got dark. When he returned to his dorm and tried to switch on the light, he found it wouldn't turn on.

Had the power gone out? Or was it the light bulb that was broken?

Suddenly, the light snapped on and cheers filled the air; the dorm was packed with people—teammates, roommates, and close classmates who had come to celebrate Gan Guoyang's birthday.

While Gan Guoyang was never intimidated by the grandeur of a game, this warm and affectionate scene left him feeling out of his element.

For the first time, his teammates saw shyness and bewilderment on his face. Everyone was more enthusiastic, insisting that he sing a song.

Unable to resist their urging, Gan Guoyang said, "Well, I'll sing that song Coach Delong kept playing on the road then, Simon and Garfunkel's 'The Boxer.'"

A roommate who could play the guitar accompanied him, and after Gan Guoyang started off, everyone, having heard the song so often that they had calluses in their ears, began to sing along:

"...In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade, and he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down...LaiLaiLai, LaiLaiLai..."

This song, with its beautiful melody and catchy tune, tells the story of a persevering boxer. Delong meant to tell the players, no matter how many times you fail, you must get up strong and continue to fight.

However, the brutality of the NCAA lies in the fact that, come the national competition, it only gives you one chance to fail; there's no getting back up.

In the blink of an eye, it was December, and after four months of meticulous preparation, the Gonzaga Bulldogs officially embarked on their 1983-1984 NCAA journey.

The regular season would last from December through March of the following year, with a total of 24 games, including 12 non-conference games and 12 West Coast Conference games.

The top team in the West Coast Conference would secure a wildcard spot in the NCAA national western conference competition.

The Bulldogs' first game took them to Idaho to challenge Idaho State University from the Great Sky Conference. The game was set in Holt Arena, which looked like a massive vegetable greenhouse.

The arena could serve as a basketball court, as well as a track field, a football field, and was considered multi-purpose and quite advanced for the 1980s.

Then, Gan Guoyang, with a staggering performance of 33 points, 22 rebounds, and 10 blocks, led the Bulldogs to an 87:63 victory, a 24-point margin over their opponents.

The tallest starter for Idaho State University was only 6 foot 8, quite shorter than Gan Guoyang, and no match for him at all.

It was from this triple-double game that Gan Guoyang officially re-entered the All-America basketball radar, and media from the West Coast exclaimed, "The Eastern Bionic Man from San Francisco has reappeared."