Gonzaga transfer Steele Venters announces commitment to Washington
Steele Venters is moving on to his third school, but the Gonzaga transfer won't have to leave his home state as he pursues a final year of college eligibility.
The 6-foot-7 wing who started his career at Eastern Washington before transferring Gonzaga will look to complete an Evergreen State trifecta, announcing a commitment to the University of Washington on Wednesday.
Venters would be an eighth-year senior in 2026-27 and it's expected the Ellensburg native would need a medical waiver to play for the Huskies next season. The wing redshirted as a walk-on at Eastern Washington in 2019-20 and missed two full seasons at Gonzaga with successive ACL and Achilles' injuries.
Venters was a highly-coveted transfer in 2023 after winning Big Sky Conference Player of the Year honors as a junior. The wing averaged 16 points per game in 2021-22 and 2022-23, shooting 40% from the 3-point line while leading the Eagles to a Big Sky regular season title as a junior.
Venters transferred to Gonzaga, adding perimeter shooting to a team that was coming off an Elite Eight run in the NCAA Tournament, but the wing ruptured his ACL roughly one week before the Zags' first game and missed the entire 2022-23 season.
After recovering from the ACL tear, Venters was dealt another unfortunate injury blow when he tore his Achilles' during an offseason workout with GU assistant Stephen Gentry. It forced the wing to miss another full season, pushing his Gonzaga debut back to the team's opening game in 2025-26.
Venters appeared in 27 games for the Zags last season and was in Mark Few's rotation early, hitting double digits five times in nonconference play, including a pair of 14-point games against Maryland and Oregon.
The senior saw his role diminish during West Coast Conference play as GU shifted to more of a defensive-oriented look with the knee injury to junior forward Braden Huff. Venters, who appeared in just one of the team's final nine games, also encountered a late-season shooting slump, making just 6 of his final 23 shots from 3-point range while losing minutes to surging freshman Davis Fogle.
Venters becomes the second Gonzaga transfer to announce a new destination, committing to the Huskies two days after wing Emmanuel Innocenti committed to Arizona State.
Approximately one hour before Venters' announcement, Dawgman.com's Jack McCauley reported that the wing's Gonzaga teammate, Braeden Smith, was on a visit to UW. Smith, a Seattle native who redshirted with Venters in 2024-25, lost his starting point guard spot to freshman Mario Saint-Supery and averaged 5.1 points and 3.6 assists for the 31-win Zags.
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