SPOKANE, WA - FEBRUARY 25: Gonzaga Bulldogs guard Tyon Grant-Foster (7) raises his arms in celebration after cutting a piece off the net following the game between the Portland Pilots and the Gonzaga Bulldogs at McCarthy Athletic Center in Spokane, WA, on February 25, 2026. (Photo by Oliver McKenna/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) | Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

At roughly 5 o’clock on the evening of October 27th, 2025, Spokane County Judge Marla Polin granted incoming Gonzaga Bulldogs transfer, Tyon Grant-Foster, a preliminary injunction overruling the NCAA’s denial of his college basketball eligibility waiver. It was the legal equivalent of telling the sport’s governing body that no, actually, this man gets to play college basketball one more time. Upon hearing the ruling, Grant-Foster leaned forward and put both palms over his forehead. Then he stood up and wiped tears from his eyes. Coach Mark Few offered a pat on the back on the way out of the courtroom.

NEWS: Tyon Grant-Foster IS eligible to play this season for Gonzaga, per @TheoLawson_SR 🙌

READ ⬇️https://t.co/znNUisJumJ pic.twitter.com/GooU7vP00c
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) October 28, 2025

A couple hours later, Tyon was on the floor at McCarthey Athletic Center.

Somewhere between the Spokane County Courthouse and the arena, he changed clothes, laced up, and walked out to officially play real basketball in a Gonzaga uniform for the first time ever. The three denied waivers, the summer of workouts away from the team in Kansas City and Phoenix while lawyers argued about his eligibility in rooms he wasn’t allowed to enter, the Instagram story that read “What did I do? Why are they so against me?” all of it dissolved the moment he stepped onto that floor.

Tyon Grant-Foster checks in to Gonzaga’s exhibition game less than two hours after being cleared to play and The Kennel goes CRAZY 🥹🔥pic.twitter.com/8rtwzVmX9B
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) October 28, 2025

“I can sleep now,” he said afterward.

That’s the image that should open any honest account of Tyon Grant-Foster’s season with the Zags. The dude sued the NCAA for the right to be here. He won. And then, with the ink barely dry on the court order, he went and played a basketball game. Everything that followed has to be understood through that lens.

Tyon Grant-Foster grew up in Kansas City dreaming of one day playing for the Jayhawks. After two seasons at Indian Hills Community College in Iowa, that dream came true, sort of. He enrolled to play under Coach Bill Self, appeared in 22 games during the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season, eight minutes a night off the bench, then transferred to DePaul looking for more.

He played exactly half a game.

On November 11th, 2021, Grant-Foster collapsed on his way back to the locker room at DePaul’s season opener. Doctors shocked his heart back into rhythm three times. He was diagnosed with arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, a rare condition affecting the heart muscle, and told he would never play basketball again. A few months later he collapsed a second time during a pickup game in Kansas City, went through a second surgery, and spent the next sixteen months away from basketball entirely.

He came out the other side with Mayo Clinic clearance and left DePaul to enroll at Grand Canyon University for 2023-24. What followed was one of the great individual seasons in recent mid-major history: 20.1 points per game, 6.1 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 1.5 blocks, WAC Player of the Year, and an NCAA Tournament run that included a first-round win over Saint Mary’s (played, fittingly, in Spokane) before losing to Alabama. An ankle injury limited him to 26 games the following year, but he averaged 14.8, earned first-team All-WAC again, and then committed to Gonzaga.

"Just because I couldn't play, the dream never went away."

—@GCU_MBB's Tyon Grant-Foster pic.twitter.com/98aYGcBpVD
— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) March 23, 2024

What He Brought to the Floor — And What He Was Working Against

Gonzaga spent the entire summer of 2025 building a roster and a scheme around a player they couldn’t practice with. When the NCAA denied his waiver on October 18th and he sat in street clothes for the Northwest exhibition — watching Davis Fogle go for 18 points in his first college action, watching Steele Venters finally return after two seasons lost to injury, watching Jalen Warley run the second unit like someone who’d been waiting a year to prove himself — the wing logjam that had been theoretical all summer became very real. And with Tyon’s eligibility situation still very much up in the air, the Zags were looking at a rotational problem before he was even cleared to play.

By the time Grant-Foster got cleared and into game shape, Fogle had already begun to establish himself as someone Few couldn’t keep off the floor. Emmanuel Innocenti’s defensive instincts similarly meant minutes might be in short supply even once Tyon got fully up to speed. The hierarchy everyone had assumed — TGF as the clear-cut wing starter alongside Huff and Ike — never fully materialized. He started just 6 of 35 games, and the opening-night situation, where an unnamed assistant accidentally penciled him into the starting lineup before Few corrected it, was an unintentionally perfect metaphor for the early-season confusion around his role.

Tyon Grant-Foster making plays on both ends 😤

(via @espn)pic.twitter.com/Uj5nMXwzQf
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) November 9, 2025

Once he settled in off the bench, the production was genuine. He finished with 387 points and 174 rebounds, led the entire roster with 38 blocks, and shot 47.5 percent from the field. His perimeter shot-blocking — something Few openly said he’d never had from a wing — changed how opponents attacked Gonzaga’s half-court defense all season. The 5-block, 19-point, 7-of-9 performance in the January overtime win over Seattle is the cleanest single-game illustration; the 21 points on 9-of-16 against Alabama in November showed he could go toe-to-toe with high-major defenses; the 20 points on 7-of-11 in the WCC Tournament final against Santa Clara came when Gonzaga needed someone to step up and take over. The 12-rebound night at Arizona State told you something about his motor. The modest averages (1.1 points, 5.0 rebounds, 21.5 minutes) reflect a player who never had a fully stable role to settle into more than they reflect the player himself.

The chemistry is clicking for @ZagMBB 🤝

Graham Ike & Tyon Grant-Foster stopped by the TNT set after putting up 21 points apiece against Bama 😤 https://t.co/zq2nB...

Slipperstillfitsrssindex

Message History

Delivery option(s)