Gonzaga's Steele Venters suffers season-ending Achilles tendon injury after comeback from cruciate ligament tear

Gonzaga wing Steele Venters will miss the 2024-25 season due to a left Achilles tendon injury, the school announced Tuesday.

Venters — who was named the 2022-23 Big Sky Player of the Year while averaging 15.3 points for Eastern Washington — also missed all of last season after tearing his right anterior cruciate ligament in the preseason. After rehabbing all year, the 6-foot-4 winger was expected to start and play a major role for Gonzaga, the league's No. 2 team. The athlete's preseason top 25 ranking. Instead, the two-time Big Sky award winner now faces another steep climb.

“We are heartbroken for Steele,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said in a statement. “He has worked so hard to come back from his knee injury. We will continue to support Steele throughout his healing process and know he will come back better and stronger.”

Venters posted a 40.3 percent shooting percentage in three seasons with the Eagles, which is a big reason why Few recruited him through the transfer portal last summer. Along with Graham Ike and Ryan Nembhard, Venters was a key addition for the Zags, someone who would help the program move into the post-Drew Timme era.

Instead, Few was left to desperately try to get the rest of the pieces back in working order after Venter tore his ACL just days before the Zags' season opener. Gonzaga started the year 9-4, not entirely but at least partly due to Venter's absence.

Still, Few's team fought back (as they always do) and reached the Sweet 16 for the ninth consecutive year, where they lost to eventual national runner-up Purdue. The return of four of five starters from that team raised high expectations for the upcoming season in Spokane.

With Venters out, Pepperdine transfer Michael Ajayi – a 6-foot-4 wing who made 47 percent of his threes last season, albeit on fewer attempts – should play a bigger role, as should Arkansas transfer Khalif Battle, who averaged 13.3 points during his five-year career at three schools. (Last season with the Razorbacks, Battle averaged 14.8 points and made 35.3 percent of his threes.)

Ike and Nembhard will continue to be Gonzaga's focal points – and should be good enough for the Zags to remain national title contenders – but the loss of Venters is undoubtedly a blow to both the team's depth and style of play.

Venters redshirted as a freshman in 2019-20 but received an additional medical redshirt last season and is therefore listed on Gonzaga's official roster as a redshirt junior. (Players can request multiple medical redshirts if they suffer season-ending injuries, per NCAA rules.)

Assuming Venters is granted another medical redshirt, he should have at least one more year of regular eligibility — but it's uncertain whether or not he'll be allowed to play his additional fifth COVID year. In similar cases, players' requests for waivers have been denied by the NCAA for a variety of reasons.

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(Photo: James Snook / USA Today)