The highly touted recruit will visit the Kennel in October. His commitment would be a new milestone for Gonzaga basketball.
5-star point guard Kingston Flemings has officially listed Gonzaga in his final 5 potential landing spots for the 2025 season. Along with Gonzaga the San Antonio native has narrowed his list to Arkansas, Texas, Houston, and Texas Tech. As of now, the smart money seems to be on the University of Texas to land the highly touted recruit, but as we’ve seen time and time again, the Gonzaga recruiting machine should not be underestimated.
Who is He?
According to On3.com, Flemings is the number 1-ranked point guard in the class of 2025 and the number 13-ranked player overall. He stands at 6’3, 170 lbs. and is sought after for his selflessness, vision, and uptempo style of play. In his junior season, Flemings averaged 17 points, 7.1 rebounds, 5.5 assists, and 2 steals per game for the Brennan Bears and led his team to the UIL Boys Basketball Tournament semifinals. Along the way went from nationally unranked to a consensus top-30 prospect and one of the most heavily recruited players in the class of 2025. His prospective commitment would make him the highest ranked incoming point guard in program history.
Style of Play
Offensively, Flemings can hurt you from anywhere on the court, but especially in transition. His elite vision and passing make him precisely the kind of point guard defenses struggle to game-plan against and precisely the kind of point guard Mark Few has come to rely on since the Zags’ offensive efficiency metrics went from “really good” to “frankly astounding.” In the lane, he uses his footwork and good body control to get clean looks at the rim or muscle his way towards the basket for a quick, acrobatic finish. At 38% he is also a legit 3-pt threat with a quick trigger from the top of the key. His style of play calls to mind Rasir Bolton, David Stockton, Nigel Williams-Goss, and Joel Ayayi all at once, somehow. In short, he’s the total package. It’s not hard to see why every school in the country is salivating over him.
Defensively, the closest analog to Flemings is probably (and thrillingly) Hunter Sallis. Flemings is one of the best perimeter defenders in the country and he uses his quick hands to easily pick the pockets of those who don’t take care of the ball. He plays fast and relentless; sprinting and cutting and finding open space off the ball while serving as a lockdown defender on the other end of the floor.
Flemings’ game is not without its flaws, though. Historically, if you want to get yelled at by Mark Few, the quickest way is to be a point guard who employs the “drive-hard-to-the-basket-and-figure-it-out-later” style of play popularized by Josh Perkins in his younger years. Flemings can be guilty of this same kind of anguish-inducing impatience in his offensive attack, but like all GU point guards before him, Few and Co. would make deprogramming this impulse a top priority.
Whatever “deficiencies” one can note in Flemings’ style of play are easily trumped by his upside. He will inevitably spend the next year getting bigger, stronger, and more skilled and wherever he ends up will be extremely lucky to have him.
How would he fit in?
What about the Braeden Smith of it all? One of the smartest moves Gonzaga made in this last off-season was to bring in Colgate transfer Braeden Smith to helm the offense once Ryan Nembhard moves on. Smith has already stated his intentions to redshirt this upcoming season and will enter 2025 with a year’s worth of headstart time spent learning the ins and outs of Gonzaga’s punishingly efficient flex-motion offense. He will also do so while practicing against–and learning from–one of the most criminally underrated backcourt duos in the country. Should Flemings commit to Gonzaga he would do so under the implicit understanding that his minutes in the first years of his college career are far from guaranteed. Flemings would arrive at GU already in stiff competition for the role of wheelman in the most punishingly efficient offenses in the county. It’s a highly prized role for a young player, but not one that would be given without considerable behind-the-scenes work on Flemings’ part. In the NIL era, this can turn many gifted recruits like Flemings towards schools where they may take a more prominent role on the team right off the bat.
All that being said, it’s become exceptionally rare for true freshmen to get significant minutes at the point guard spot anywhere. All of the schools Flemings has mentioned in his top-5 are well-stocked at the point guard spot for at least the next 2-3 years and it’s therefore safe to assume that player development is a major priority for Flemings. Although UT is the current front-runner to secure his commitment, the Zags’ player development program is legendarily great and its recent track record with talented point guards in recent years could make the Bulldogs a more attractive option for Flemings than many prognosticators have so far cared to acknowledge.
In conclusion…
Flemings will visit Gonzaga in early October for its annual Kraziness in the Kennel exhibition event. Kraziness has proven to be a powerful recruiting tool in the past that’s helped sway the decisions of high profile recruits like Drew Timme, Julian Strawther, and Jalen Suggs to stay in Spokane. Although some may suspect Flemings’ commitment to the UT Longhorns is imminent, the Gonzaga recruiting apparatus must never be underestimated. Something about stepping foot in the Kennel and hearing the roar of the local crowd in person has
There are plenty of schools in the country that would happily sign Flemings as a one-and-done phenom making a pitstop on his way to the NBA. There are also plenty of schools in the country who would also throw gobs of NIL money at a player like Flemings and make credible promises of significant playing time as soon as he arrives on campus. There is something to be said for this particular career path for a player like Flemings, but it is not one that Gonzaga has historically offered. Rather, Gonzaga is a school where players can spend several years getting league-ready under the tutelage of one of the greatest coaches in the history of the sport. It’s a school where they can play in front of one of the most passionate fan bases on the planet and in one of the most feared arenas in college basketball night after night. Based on the locations of the other schools in Flemings’ top-5, the future star seems interested in staying close to home. Gonzaga’s inclusion on that same list suggests that he is open to making a longer trek for the right opportunity.