THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Want your beloved Zags to challenge for national title? Then pay up

Gonzaga is not finished mining the transfer portal.

That opinion just popped up three times in the span of a single afternoon.

I wasn’t hearing from anyone affiliated with the Zags, either.

Nope, these were people in the business of sorting out college hoops, piecing together everything from high school recruiting to NIL income and which coaches are hunting which transfers.

Their theory on the Zags makes perfect sense.

If you don’t grasp that Mark Few and his troops are going all-in to reach another Final Four, and do it NOW, then you’re not paying attention.

C’mon, Zag Universe.

Get with the program.

Consider: The two transfers Gonzaga already has plucked out of the portal — Michael Ajayi from Pepperdine, and Arkansas’ Khalif Battle — each has just a single year of eligibility remaining.

These lads are not coming to Spokane as long-term development projects.

They’re here for exposure in a big-time hoops environment, to audition for the NBA, for the fun of winning, for honing their games with a Hall of Fame staff, and (let’s not kid ourselves) for their NIL payoffs.

Hey, collectives repping for Kansas spent over $2 million last year, didn’t get the right result, and are bringing in at least four all-world transfers this time around.

IN WHAT we’ll call a perfect scenario, the Zags would hope to beat KU (as they did in last year’s NCAA tournament) and everyone else while cruising to the Final Four.

Battle and Ajayi have price tags, as do all the key returning members of the team that carried Gonzaga to the Sweet Sixteen for the ninth straight tournament — the longest stretch in the nation.

It’s taken money to gear up for this all-the-way kind of run.

Players like Graham Ike, Ryan Nembhard, Nolan Hickman, Ben Gregg, Braden Huff, Steele Venters and Dusty Stromer might also have transferred OUT if Gonzaga hadn’t come up with the same level of checks they cashed last season.

It’s not all about the good vibes and brotherhood here (see: Hunter Sallis, who took off for Wake Forest a year ago).

Don’t get me wrong, though.

Gonzaga does have a player-friendly program and open-minded culture.

Plenty of big-time stars, guys who could have gone just about anywhere, have loved their visits to GU — and felt the same while they were suiting up at The Kennel.

There’s a bond, long after the fact, among former Zags.

Current NBA players show up to games, simply because they want to feel the goosebumps all over again.

Most will tell you that, even in this era of NIL, Gonzaga can land recruits — either from high school or the transfer portal — if the Zags’ offers are even CLOSE to competitive.

SO, THAT brings us back to “The Final Search.”

Few wants to snag one more player from the portal, I believe, and it’s easy to see why.

Every position is now filled with someone who can do the business.

Except one.

Gonzaga needs a defense-oriented post player.

The Zags’ best teams might have had exciting scorers and wizard ball-handlers — but there almost always was somebody in the middle (or who could roam into the middle) and block/alter enough shots to change the entire look of a game.

The 2017 team that lost to North Carolina for the national championship had three impact big men — Przemek Karnowski, Zach Collins and Johnathan Williams.

So, moving along to the current hunt.

Most of the true centers in the portal have already committed to a very high bidder.

The latest was Rutgers’ Clifford Omoruyi, who landed at Alabama — reportedly for something north of $1.5 million.

The Athletic web site publishes a list of what it considers “quality” players in the portal (it started at 196), and then posts news of a commitment almost immediately.

That list originally contained only 27 true centers, and all but two have reached a deal.

Or their agents have.

Still left: Kentucky’s 7-footer, Ugonna Onyenso, is an elite shot blocker looking for a new campus.

He’s restricted mostly to dunks on offense, but he’s a decent athlete who has improved (quickly) on rolls to the basket.

Kentucky has filled that spot with a portal addition of their own, so Onyenso is available.

Cash, check, wire transfer, Brink’s truck.

No Walmart coupons, thanks.

Now, we get to my own mental wandering, an amateur’s look at some forwards who can just fly to the boards, and might be guys who can block shots, run the floor and learn the Gonzaga system as the season goes on.

We’re talking about athletes with all the skills to play center.

The skills that could complete a Gonzaga title team.

Sean Stewart, who played only eight minutes per game as a freshman at Duke, is definitely a dunker — and The Athletic scouting report called him the most spectacular leaper in college basketball, with a nice shot around the lane.

Sounds like a cross between former Zag stars Collins and Brandon Clarke.

Imagine what the Gonzaga staff could do with Stewart, given a full season of work — and that roster of talent around him.

Is there a donor or collective out there, someone willing to point the Zags toward the Final Four?

Here’s your chance.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press four times each week, normally Tuesday through

Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”