A Winning UW Team?!

We know the Sonics are gone and the Seahawks and Huskies are awful. What we could find out, however, is that a UW team might be good this season. The Huskies basketball team has some arrows in its quiver and should finish in the top half of the Pac-10.

UW looks to rebound from last year's losing record because head coach Lorenzo Romar is much better than football coach Ty Willingham in one key area: recruiting. As Stanklin recently noted, Lute Olson's retirement allowed UW to persuade Abdul Gaddy to stay home. That's luck more than anything else. But Romar has convinced more local talent to come to UW than his predecessors. And he's done it at a place that's historically a football school.

New to the team this year is Isaiah Thomas (not the suicide-attempting one, although the younger version got his name because his dad lost a bet during 1989 NBA Finals between the Pistons and Lakers). The 5'8" Tacoma product is a guard in the Nate Robinson mold: he averaged 31 points his junior year, before spending two years at a prep school in Connecticut. He's ranked as the #23 shooting guard by Scout.com, although he'll probably play the point at UW. Either way, he should be able to contribute immediately.

The big gun returning is All-America candidate Jon Brockman. The senior from Snohomish averaged nearly 18 points and 12 rebounds last year and, as they say, leaves it all on the floor. And according to his bio, Jay Bilas considers him the best rebounder in the nation. That should count for something, no?

Junior guard Quincy Pondexter should also be a solid contributor, as he moves back into the starting lineup after coming off the bench most of last year. He is the last vestige of UW's version of a Fab Five recruiting class. Led by Seattle product Spencer Hawes, that group was expected to anchor the team for years. But Hawes inadvisedly jumped to the NBA after one year (he would be a junior this year if he'd stayed), and others transferred, but that's hardly Romar's fault. Such is life in college basketball these days.

The Huskies have reached unprecedented heights under Romar. They were a #1 seed in the '05 NCAA Tournament, and that was the first of two straight trips to the Sweet 16. Those squads were led by Nate Robinson and then Brandon Roy, two Seattle studs who chose to stay home. Romar could easily have jumped to a higher-profile program after that, but the UW alum also chose to stay home. If Hawes had wisely chosen to hone his game here rather than languish on the end of the Sacramento Kings' bench, we might be talking about a top-15 team.

As it is, the Huskies are being picked to finish fifth in the Pac-10, but that was before Olson bolted from Arizona. UW has gotten some Top-25 votes, and they could make some hay in conference. UCLA is still stout, even after losing Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love, and Arizona State and USC are also expected to be strong. But Washington State should be down after losing most of last year's starting lineup and there's flux elswhere: four Pac-10 schools have new coaches.

UW's out-of-conference schedule ranges from brutal (Kansas) to cupcake-esque (Portland and Portland State, Cleveland State and Lehigh among others). But it definitely tends more toward more tomato cans than bullies.

Continuity at the coaching position and solid recruiting give UW basketball fans hope for the future. But the present doesn't look so bad either. 20 wins and a run at an NCAA berth are realistic goals for this year's team. And at least we know this basketball team isn't leaving town.