Winless In Seattle
Steve Sauro
Elliott SmithWashington Sports Weekly
February 2nd 2011 02:12
:
Back again.
Hello all, sorry for the missed week! We'll get right back into the swing of things here. My focus is going to turn more on the CBB teams and the Mariners for now, for obvious reasons. Not much going on with the Seahawks, unless you count Cromartie wanting to "smash" Hasselbeck's face.
The Mariners are gearing up for Spring Training, and hopefully they'll be able to get the ship turned in the right direction by infusing some young talent into the team. Obviously, there's going to be massive growing pains with a young team, but that's to be expected. Apparently, they're still going to roll along with Milton Bradley, despite his off the field issues (and on the field for that matter). Erik Bedard says his rehab is going well, so he should be injured again shortly after the season starts, if he makes it that far. Chone Figgins and the M's tried to tone down the rumors of a trade to the rival Athletics of Oakland. I'm pretty intrigued by Michael Pineda and his 100 mph fastball. The team seems to do pretty well with the young pitching talent (Felix Hernandez anyone?), and with the way the pitching rotation is looking, I like Pineda's chances of breaking into the lineup. It will be interesting to see what happens this season for the M's, as they usually choke big time if they're expected to do good things, and they surprise everyone when nothing is expected of them. Seems to be a pre-requisite of a Seattle sports team.
Moving right along, we'll visit the upcoming CFB signing day. The top RB prospect in the state had verbally committed to WSU, but after visits with Coach Sark decided that UW was the place he wanted to take his skills. He'll have a beast of a runner to sit behind or perhaps spell in Chris Polk, but overall he was a great runner at Gonzaga Prep and should have a great college career. While it looks like UW has focused quite a bit on recharging their offense this recruiting season, WSU has focused on big, strong linemen, mostly defensive, but a few offensive. I think that was a good call by Paul Wulff, because he already has servicable running backs, WR, and an ever improving Jeff Tuel. Tuel showed a ton of maturity in the face of adversity this last season, and it will be fun to find out how much better he can be with a little help from the o-line. More on signing day in next week's column.
We've reached the halfway point in CBB, and there's been mixed results for the state's teams. UW finds themselves in a first place tie with Arizona atop the Pac-10 after they lost to the rival Cougs this past weekend. I admittedly only watched some of the game, and I also admittedly expected the Huskies to win rather easily. Once I turned the tv on and saw how absolutely crazy that crowd in Pullman was, I had a feeling the Cougs would pull it out. And then came the turnovers by UW, who I believe averages 14 or so a game this season. 23 turnovers in this game. Hard to win a game like that, but it's a credit to the Cougs who were rested up for this game, and tired of hearing the smack talk from Thomas and other players. Klay Thompson, who in the past has been bottled up by UW, had a big game with 25 pts. The Huskies couldn't get much of anything to go in the basket over the zone defense of the Cougs. Thomas had a respectable 19 pts, but he only shot 3-13 from the field. This game was a huge confidence boost to the Cougars, especially after losing a very close game to Arizona. As usual in the Pac-10, it should be an interesting finish to the season. I still expect UW to come out on top and get the auto-bid, but if the game at WSU serves to show the other teams what to do against them, it might not be as easy as it was looking before.
Next we have Gonzaga, and I'll be honest here. They're a very young team, and no one has really stepped up and been a leader. Steven Gray should be the undisputed leader of the team as a Senior, but he has instead looked as selfish as usual. Sacre has tried to step up and be a leader, and at times it works. He bulked up to be more of a physical presence this year and while he is physical, he also tends to get beat up quite a bit by the opposition. He's also got to learn how to stay out of foul trouble, because there's not much of any help for him on the bench. In fact, the only real help off the bench for the Zags this year has been Sam Dower, the guy is a scoring machine. His defensive play is still a work in progress, but it's getting there. Other than that, I think little David Stockton is the team's top PG. Goodson is just not a good PG, and Carter looks like he's genuinely freaked out in every game. Anyway, they've had a rough start to the WCC conference play. They sit at 4-3, which is very unusual for them. They lost a horribly officiated game at San Francisco, but shouldn't have been in the position they were in that game. They came home for a big game against then #24 Saint Mary's. That game was poorly offciated at times, especially game changing times, but it still took a crazy, off-balance, contested shot by Mickey McConnell in the last couple seconds for the Gaels to pull of the W. They come off that game to completely obliterate the San Diego Toreros, which are having an awesome season with their 4 wins. If the Zags would have lost that game, there may have been widespread looting and fire-setting in Spokane. So now the second half of the season starts, and they have a chance to put their troubles behind them finish very strong in the WCC. In my opinion, the Zags have got to win the WCC tournament to keep their streak of NCAA tournament appearances in tact. And there is no time to relax for them, as next year, BYU will be a member of the WCC, and that will be no easy matchup, especially if Fredette is still there.
Should be another exciting week of sports here in the Great NW, and I'll be right back here next week to bring you the highlights. I'd like to close with a quick Super Bowl prediction:
Packers 31 Steelers 28.
The Mariners are gearing up for Spring Training, and hopefully they'll be able to get the ship turned in the right direction by infusing some young talent into the team. Obviously, there's going to be massive growing pains with a young team, but that's to be expected. Apparently, they're still going to roll along with Milton Bradley, despite his off the field issues (and on the field for that matter). Erik Bedard says his rehab is going well, so he should be injured again shortly after the season starts, if he makes it that far. Chone Figgins and the M's tried to tone down the rumors of a trade to the rival Athletics of Oakland. I'm pretty intrigued by Michael Pineda and his 100 mph fastball. The team seems to do pretty well with the young pitching talent (Felix Hernandez anyone?), and with the way the pitching rotation is looking, I like Pineda's chances of breaking into the lineup. It will be interesting to see what happens this season for the M's, as they usually choke big time if they're expected to do good things, and they surprise everyone when nothing is expected of them. Seems to be a pre-requisite of a Seattle sports team.
Moving right along, we'll visit the upcoming CFB signing day. The top RB prospect in the state had verbally committed to WSU, but after visits with Coach Sark decided that UW was the place he wanted to take his skills. He'll have a beast of a runner to sit behind or perhaps spell in Chris Polk, but overall he was a great runner at Gonzaga Prep and should have a great college career. While it looks like UW has focused quite a bit on recharging their offense this recruiting season, WSU has focused on big, strong linemen, mostly defensive, but a few offensive. I think that was a good call by Paul Wulff, because he already has servicable running backs, WR, and an ever improving Jeff Tuel. Tuel showed a ton of maturity in the face of adversity this last season, and it will be fun to find out how much better he can be with a little help from the o-line. More on signing day in next week's column.
We've reached the halfway point in CBB, and there's been mixed results for the state's teams. UW finds themselves in a first place tie with Arizona atop the Pac-10 after they lost to the rival Cougs this past weekend. I admittedly only watched some of the game, and I also admittedly expected the Huskies to win rather easily. Once I turned the tv on and saw how absolutely crazy that crowd in Pullman was, I had a feeling the Cougs would pull it out. And then came the turnovers by UW, who I believe averages 14 or so a game this season. 23 turnovers in this game. Hard to win a game like that, but it's a credit to the Cougs who were rested up for this game, and tired of hearing the smack talk from Thomas and other players. Klay Thompson, who in the past has been bottled up by UW, had a big game with 25 pts. The Huskies couldn't get much of anything to go in the basket over the zone defense of the Cougs. Thomas had a respectable 19 pts, but he only shot 3-13 from the field. This game was a huge confidence boost to the Cougars, especially after losing a very close game to Arizona. As usual in the Pac-10, it should be an interesting finish to the season. I still expect UW to come out on top and get the auto-bid, but if the game at WSU serves to show the other teams what to do against them, it might not be as easy as it was looking before.
Next we have Gonzaga, and I'll be honest here. They're a very young team, and no one has really stepped up and been a leader. Steven Gray should be the undisputed leader of the team as a Senior, but he has instead looked as selfish as usual. Sacre has tried to step up and be a leader, and at times it works. He bulked up to be more of a physical presence this year and while he is physical, he also tends to get beat up quite a bit by the opposition. He's also got to learn how to stay out of foul trouble, because there's not much of any help for him on the bench. In fact, the only real help off the bench for the Zags this year has been Sam Dower, the guy is a scoring machine. His defensive play is still a work in progress, but it's getting there. Other than that, I think little David Stockton is the team's top PG. Goodson is just not a good PG, and Carter looks like he's genuinely freaked out in every game. Anyway, they've had a rough start to the WCC conference play. They sit at 4-3, which is very unusual for them. They lost a horribly officiated game at San Francisco, but shouldn't have been in the position they were in that game. They came home for a big game against then #24 Saint Mary's. That game was poorly offciated at times, especially game changing times, but it still took a crazy, off-balance, contested shot by Mickey McConnell in the last couple seconds for the Gaels to pull of the W. They come off that game to completely obliterate the San Diego Toreros, which are having an awesome season with their 4 wins. If the Zags would have lost that game, there may have been widespread looting and fire-setting in Spokane. So now the second half of the season starts, and they have a chance to put their troubles behind them finish very strong in the WCC. In my opinion, the Zags have got to win the WCC tournament to keep their streak of NCAA tournament appearances in tact. And there is no time to relax for them, as next year, BYU will be a member of the WCC, and that will be no easy matchup, especially if Fredette is still there.
Should be another exciting week of sports here in the Great NW, and I'll be right back here next week to bring you the highlights. I'd like to close with a quick Super Bowl prediction:
Packers 31 Steelers 28.
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