Chauncey Wiggins gave Florida State’s upset bid a jolt of life with 37 seconds left during an ACC Tournament quarterfinal game against top-ranked Duke last March.
With the Seminoles trailing 80-77, Wiggins received the ball on the right corner and went to work on Duke’s Cameron Boozer, backing the Naismith Award winner down until he got to his spot outside of the paint. That’s when Wiggins used his long frame to pull up over the sturdy, 6-foot-10 center, and sink a 13-foot step back shot that trimmed the Blue Devils’ lead to one.
The clutch jumper represented the 967th and 968th points of Wiggins’ career – the last ones he’d score as a college basketball player. Or so he thought.
Florida State came out on the wrong end against Duke, losing 80-79, and subsequently turned down an invitation to play in the NIT, signaling the end of Wiggins’ college journey.
The wing was prepared to turn the page, fulfilled with how his four college seasons played out. He made consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances at Clemson, playing key bench minutes for the 2023-24 team that advanced to the Elite Eight. Under first-year Florida State coach Luke Loucks, he averaged double figures for a group that claimed the Seminoles’ first winning ACC record since 2020-21. He nearly eclipsed the 1,000-point milestone, posted a career win-loss record of 92-45 and earned academic honors at Clemson in 2024.
An All-ACC selection would’ve been a nice bonus, but outside of that Wiggins didn’t have too many complaints with his college resume.
“I thought college was over,” Wiggins said. “I thought it was a good four years. Making it to March Madness, that was my dream. I wish I’d gotten on the All-ACC team but I didn’t. I thought my college career was done.”
As Wiggins went through the pre-NBA draft process, there were murmurs that he and other class of 2022 high school graduates might have another shot to play college ball through the NCAA’s new age-based eligibility rules, permitting student-athletes to play five seasons over five years.
Wiggins didn’t think much of it as he traveled for NBA workouts with the Miami Heat, Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns, Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks, eventually latching on with the Boston Celtics for NBA Summer League in Las Vegas.
“I literally kept telling one of my friends, ‘This thing ain’t going to happen at all, we’re not getting another year,’” Wiggins said. “Then a few weeks after that, our class didn’t get grandfathered in. So we were like, yeah it’s done.”
One friend, former Utah State guard MJ Collins Jr., was insistent, telling Wiggins, “Man, it’s going to pass.”
Not long after he completed his Summer League assignment with the Celtics, Wiggins returned home to Atlanta and began to monitor the college basketball news cycle, eventually learning Collins Jr., new Gonzaga point guard Javon Bennett – a transfer from Dayton – and other players in Ohio had challenged the NCAA in court to secure another year of eligibility.
Wiggins got together with family members, his agent and a lawyer to explore the possibilities, eventually joining a separate group of fifth-year hopefuls seeking a similar injunction in his home state of Georgia.
After finishing a workout on July 31, Wiggins opened up social media and learned about the class-wide injunction in Colorado that granted fifth-year seniors in all sports an extra year of eligibility. Less than a week later, a state judge ruled in favor of Wiggins and other players who filed in Georgia, giving the transfer wing another layer of security.
“So I’m kind of double-protected, if that makes sense,” Wiggins said.
Before either ruling, Wiggins was already hearing from high-major college programs around the country, including Gonzaga, Georgia, SMU, Washington and the Florida State program he recently played for. Wiggins also had pro options on the table, including a G League offer from the Kings and an opportunity with a club team in Japan’s top league.
At Gonzaga, his point of contact was assistant coach RJay Barsh, who worked on Leonard Hamilton’s staff at Florida State in 2022-23. Wiggins and Barsh didn’t overlap in Tallahassee, but the Gonzaga assistant was familiar with the wing’s game from Florida State’s encounters with Clemson in the ACC. It also helped they had a mutual friend in FSU assistant Director of basketball operations Ryan Shnider, a former graduate assistant under Hamilton who stayed on staff when the Seminoles hired Loucks.
“From a basketball standpoint, (Barsh) was recruiting me just saying you’re going to play 2, 3, 4 here,” said Wiggins, who primarily played the 4 and occasionally as small-ball 5 at his last two schools. “Even when he said the 2, I was kind of surprised. … He was like, we’ve got some good length and good guys here. He said we have positions but just say if you get the rebound, you’re going to push the ball and now you have to know what to call. Then obviously coaches can say that and not mean it. Obviously I’m an older guy so I know what I want. Also I had to ask him, can I see some clips of this?”
Shnider also had a relationship with Jalen Warley, who successfully made a similar transition from Florida State to Gonzaga, where he was one of Mark Few’s most valuable two-way players during last year’s 31-win campaign. Wiggins reached out to Warley to get an honest and transparent evaluation of Gonzaga’s program, coaching staff and culture.
“He really loved it there,” Wiggins said. “He really loved it, had a lot to say about the coaches in a positive way. I was like, hey just be realistic. He was like the coaches, what they say is true basically.”
An Atlanta native who’s only resided in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, Wiggins was familiar with Gonzaga but couldn’t have identified Spokane on a map of Washington. (He admits he originally thought it was a suburb of Seattle). By the time he was born in 2004, the Zags had already planted their flag on the national stage, and Wiggins became accustomed to hearing the school’s name every year, usually whenever March rolled around.
“I watched Gonzaga when I got into college and when I was in high school, but even when I was a kid I always heard of some school called Gonzaga,” Wiggins said. “They always make it to March Madness, they always win, they’re always putting people in the pros, they have a good coach.”
A 13.3 point-per-game scorer last season at Florida State who made 38.7% of his 3-pointers, Wiggins is encouraged by all the possibilities at Gonzaga. The 6-10 wing has seen and enjoyed the online discourse about potential lineups featuring him next to 6-7 Davis Fogle, 6-11 Braden Huff and 7-1 Massamba Diop.
“That was really (Barsh’s) pitch and saying, with your shooting ability, we’re adding your shooting ability so that’s really going to open up things for everybody on the floor, whether that’s your shooting or B-Huff’s hook shot or Diop, with them doubling the center,” Wiggins said. “It’s just going to open up a lot. Coach Few’s system, a lot of movement, not really standing in the corner. It was a really good pitch and obviously it got me here.”
Wiggins plans to spend the next few weeks working out back home in Atlanta with a longtime personal trainer, “Coach BB” of SmallBall Training, and shooting coach Bobby Perez before moving to Spokane ahead of fall practices.
On the surface, outside shooting projects to be the most valuable asset Wiggins will bring to a Gonzaga program that posted the lowest 3-point percentage of Few’s 27-year tenure last season (34.0%). Wiggins wants to keep that aspect of his offensive game sharp, but the veteran wing is also looking to improve his ball-handling and defense.
“I’m really showing people I can be even more versatile, really just working on putting the ball on the floor more,” Wiggins said. “Rebounding more, crashing offense, defense. I’m always still working on my defense. Offense, just putting the ball on the floor, making sure the shooting is staying sharp, post game if I ever need to and touch around the basket.”