It was never Steele Venters' intention to nearly complete the Evergreen State's college basketball quartet.

Yet, going into his eighth and final season at Washington after starting out as a walk-on at Eastern Washington in 2019-20 and emerging as a dependable starter before later transferring to Gonzaga, that's just what his path has become.

Venters made 67 starts and 84 total appearances for the Eagles, with back-to-back seasons averaging double digits in scoring 16.7 and 15.3 points per game as a sophomore and junior in 2021-22 and 2022-23, respectively; the latter of which resulted in the Ellensburg, Washington native earning unanimous First Team All-Big Sky honors in his final season in Cheney.

With his name etched in the EWU record books, Venters made the decision to move to Spokane to play for Gonzaga and legendary coach Mark Few for the 2023-24 season. The dream of expanding on his highly touted FCS career in a heartbeat went away when the 6-foot-7 redshirt senior tore his ACL, which put an end to his first year with the Bulldogs.

Before Venters could prove he was back to full health for the 2024-25 campaign, he suffered another season-ending injury. Two years of basketball gone at no fault of his own or others. It's just the way the ball bounced.

"As soon as I got to GU, I tore my ACL, and I tore my Achilles 10 months after I tore my ACL, so I was just sidelined with injuries," Venters said Tuesday. "It was super tough, mentally and physically. Obviously this is what I love to do, and so having that taken away from you is obviously really tough physically. But mentally, I mean, it was definitely hard. But I had a great support system around me, and overall I have good people around me to keep me going.”

Eventually, two years after his initial move to the West Coast Conference school, Venters broke through as a bench option for the Bulldogs in 2025-26, playing in 27 of 35 games for Few and made his best two scoring performances against a pair of Big Ten schools, Maryland and Oregon.

Given his final season at GU ended on a productive note, Venters wanted to use his last—and he is sure this last year in college basketball—playing for a coach he long admired as an opponent when Sprinkle was at Montana State, and the sharpshooter was at EWU.

"No," Venters stated with a laugh. "I’m done. I’m done. This is my last year. I always liked (Sprinkle's) teams. They played physical; he was always winning. He offered me the opportunity to come here and reset, be the player that I think I am, and have that freedom to score whenever I can and play to my abilities."

Venters knocked down a pair of three-pointers (2-of-6 shooting) and added 3 rebounds with an assist in UW's 101-91 preseason loss at Boise State last Saturday before exiting the game with his fifth foul at the 3:37 mark in the second half.