Gonzaga had a big win beating North Carolina last night in a NIT game last night. MArk Few has it going again over in Spokane and once again the rebuilt Bulldogs will challenge for an elusive National title. The one thing that hurts the Zag's is the WCC. The WCC has improved, but they are definitely a couple of steps above the rest of the league. As the season goes on the Zag's end up playing down to the level of competition in their league and that hurts come tournament time.
The young Huskies had a tough time with Sacramento State on Sunday. Young is the key as turnovers have pluged the Huskies in the early going so far this season. Romar has another six weeks to put it together for a strong conference run. It will be interesting to watch the team mature during some tough non conference games between now and then. The muscle of Hawes, and Brockman matched with the fluid quickness of Pondexter fed by the rapidly improving Dentmon should yield a high finish in the tournament. The Gonzaga game should be a pretty good guage of exactly where the team is development wise.
The second season has now begun for the football program and recruits will be streaming from all over the West between now and Christmas. Washington already has cleaned up in state getting committments from anyone they wanted. They also have pulled in a couple ofrom Colorado, with a couple more possibly on the way. UW has never recruited much in that area and it is interesting to me to see the early success from the Bob Simmons pipeline in that area. When I get back we will take a closer look at need and keep a scorecard on how the Huskies are doing.
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Yeah, Gonzaga's win surprised me...hmmm...spellchecking here in the comments? First time I've noticed it, although I've needed it. Maybe it's my new version of Firefox but I think I've made a comment with it before. I'm looking forward to the Gonzaga game for exactly the reason you describe, although we'll have a couple of other tests as well. The team has almost played up to expectations so far, the exception being Sac. St. The conference season should be fun, with a lot of exciting games. UCLA looks as good as expected but Cal was unimpressive against Marshall today. I'm not sure how good Marshall is supposed to be but I expected a better performance from Cal.
I think the basketball season will be a bit like football with a better end result, record-wise anyway. You can't top beating the Cougars in their own house as a way to end the season unless it's a bowl game.
So far so good on recruiting...others are impatient, but there's a lot that will happen between now and LOI day. It's great that Simmons has some pull in the area because the guys that have committed look good on paper, as do a couple of their friends. I'm also glad to a bit wider reach in searching for recruits. That has to be based on various coaches' history and not on our recent seasons. I don't watch recruiting videos so I don't feel qualified to comment on who should and shouldn't be recruited, but there's one name I'm surprised I haven't seen mentioned more. Eric Block from Bellevue impressed me when I watched them vs Long Beach Poly. I understand he's not a high-star type, but I thought he was the best player on the field that day.
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