ShareThisSPOKANE, Wash. - In the TV room of the Holland, Ontario, home of Bill and Patty Pangos, they began to hear the evidence that their only son planned to take basketball seriously.
"He'd be down in the basement on the tile floor and literally handle the ball for an hour, two hours in the wintertime," Bill Pangos said.
Two thousand miles to the west, Gary Bell Sr. and his wife Vivian know all about the boy-and-his-ball thing. At 5, Gary Jr. would cast up a Nerf ball in their kitchen and wail in frustration when it didn't find the basket.
Years later, the sons have come together at Gonzaga, Kevin Pangos and Gary Bell Jr., and their common freshman season has played mostly to rave reviews. A pair of freshman starting guards isn't usually a recipe for an NCAA-tournament team, but that's where it appears Gonzaga is headed again.
"I'm beyond pleased," Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. "They've just done a phenomenal job for two freshmen in every aspect of their life here, whether as students, socially, the chemistry they've formed off the floor -- and on the floor with their teammates, because they're such good guys."
All they've been asked to do is know the offense, regulate tempo, be fearless, shoot the ball, drive it without hesitation, guard the opposition's best perimeter player and find that balance between freshman deference and requisite assertiveness. In the shared effort, they've become close friends.
Of course, it's in the name of keeping Gonzaga's tradition going, and though there have been bumps, like double-digit losses to Saint Mary's and BYU.
"I'm absolutely impressed," said former Zags guard Matt Santangelo, now a Spokane businessman who does radio analysis. "They're both humble-pie gym rats who just want to win, get along with their teammates and have great relationships already."
A mid-January assessment of the nation's top 25 freshmen by ESPN.com named Pangos No. 4, behind Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist of Kentucky and Cody Zeller of Indiana. Few contends that Bell should have been on it, too.
Their first season might be the one in which Saint Mary's breaks the Zags' 11-year run of conference titles, but that's more about the Gaels than any shortfall from Pangos and Bell, who have combined to hit .389 on three-point shots and .805 from the foul line.
Each came from an athletic family. Pangos' father is women's basketball coach at York University in Toronto, and his mother just retired as a high-school physical-education teacher.
Kevin played a variety of sports as a kid -- hockey, volleyball, soccer, badminton -- and his father believes that his game is the collective reflection of all of them.
"In hockey, he was a defenseman," said Bill Pangos. "You've got to scan ahead, see the head man on the puck and recognize time-and-space issues. In soccer, there's footwork. Volleyball helps in jumping and timing."
Kevin gave up soccer and hockey after eighth grade and, his last couple of years of high school, was concentrating on basketball. By then, he had an affinity for fellow Canadian Steve Nash, but he was also studying guys like J.J. Barea and Chris Paul.
The distance to Gonzaga gave Pangos some pause, but he said recently on campus he has adapted.
"I kind of made this my new home," Pangos said. "I love the area I'm from, but I was ready to move on. I have everything I want here."
Bell also had some hereditary help. His grandfather played a year at Alcorn State and his dad, 6-4, was on the team at Navarro (Texas) Junior College. Then Gary Sr., a product of Baton Rouge, La., did a Navy tour before his ship went into dry dock in Bremerton, Wash., in 1990.
Gary Jr. played football through ninth grade -- quarterback and running back -- and his dad thought he might be better at that.
"I always knew I was going to play basketball," insisted Bell, who chose the Zags over California and Washington.
With Pangos and Bell, you don't get bravado, no strutting or preening. It's just old-school grinding.
"I always told him, 'Keep working, stay humble,' " Gary Sr. said. "If you're playing well, everybody sees it. You don't need to pump your chest. Let your basketball speak."
Few appreciates that, even as he worried when the season approached if either player would have that will to kill on the floor.
Pangos and Bell showed that quickly through the Zags' rugged nonconference schedule.
"They're the best kind," said Few. "They've got it, and they don't feel the need to have to show it to everybody."
(Contact Bud Withers at bwithers(at)seattletimes.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com)
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