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For the Zags, a question of identity

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  On a trip last week to southern California, we ventured up the coast to Malibu to take the temperature of a Gonzaga basketball program that in 2023 seems to defy definition. But first, I can report that LA traffic is still awful, and the Pepperdine campus is more odd than it is stunning, notwithstanding the beauty just to the west.

  Give me brick buildings and ivy adorning them and leaves that turn red, yellow and orange in the fall, and snow in December, and if that makes me lunatic, so be it.

  Oh yes, basketball. Gonzaga is either going to do a face-plant in the NCAA tournament or it’s priming for another big run, and it’s either going to bolt to the Big 12 Conference or the Pac-12, or just maybe, nowhere. These days, GU isn’t easily pigeonholed.

  More later on that last part, the future. The Zags’ present seems promising enough. They’re positioned to tie for the WCC title if they can beat Saint Mary’s at home this week. Before the trip to Pepperdine, they went to the gym of the first team to beat them in league, Loyola Marymount, and pretty much vandalized the place. It’s one thing to punk a team by 40; it’s another to lead by 40 at halftime.

  There are nights when I think Gonzaga is headed for an ugly crash in the NCAA tournament, mostly due to a defense ranked No. 87 by KenPom. Rim protection isn’t there, and it’s far too easy for opposing guards to turn the corner, creating all sorts of grim outcomes.

  Other games, they look capable of a march to, or through, the second week of the tournament. The uptick recently has a lot to do with Julian Strawther’s offensive breakout. He’s averaging 27 points over the past three games, shooting in the 50s both overall and on threes.

  His explosion, if it continues, does a couple of things: It creates a dilemma for defenses that want to help inside on Drew Timme. And it at least poses the possibility that on a night when Gonzaga can’t stop the other guys, it could still win a shootout.

  NBAdraft.net has pushed Strawther into the first round of its mock draft, which probably means he’s as good as gone. His matchup the other day against Pepperdine’s Maxwell Lewis, whom that website ranks No. 12 to Strawther’s 24, was choice viewing. (About that Waves team: It’s a mystery how it’s in the WCC basement with Lewis and a representative cast around him.)

  Bubbling beneath the surface of the games and rankings, of course, is the looming question of realignment. Gonzaga is popularly thought to be on the Big 12’s short list of possible invitees, and perhaps the Pac-12’s. Inevitably, that choice will come down to money, as in, what’s the value add for the Big 12 if it beckons Gonzaga, and what sort of financial bump the Zags get for plunking their primo basketball program into the mix of the best hoops league in the country.

  That’s assuming challenges like Gonzaga not having football, and how the rest of its programs would compete in a new league, can be worked out.

  I think there’s something more to be considered, and that’s Gonzaga’s identity. And ultimately, what that’s worth (if anything).

  The Zags made their bones by dominating a lesser conference. They divided and conquered, and built to better things. They stood out in a small kingdom, and layered every success on top of that. When TV networks line up a marquee matchup in December, there’s always the implied subplot that this was the program that rose from nothing to become something.

  Does that go away if Gonzaga enters the Big 12 and joins teams like TCU and Iowa State and Texas Tech in the eternal chase of Kansas, in a league in which it would begin no better than No. 2 or 3? Would it just be one of the guys in that conference, losing the uniqueness that underwrote its candidacy in the first place?

  You assume scheduling would be easier – no need to atone for a relatively soft schedule after the new year by loading up in November and December. But would that also feed into a loss of identity -- a mushier schedule early, creating less appeal to the networks,  followed by two months in which the Zags are essentially unrecognizable from the rest of its new power-conference compadres?

  Finally, pursuant to realignment and the Zags, the question has been posed: What happens to the program, post-Mark Few? Does it recede into irrelevance and thus offer its new conference bupkis?

  Can’t see it. For Gonzaga, the last 24 years has been about upgrading its portfolio. That meant a new arena, charter aircraft for the road, a new building with a practice facility and other related amenities. The program’s prominence has earned it unqualified support from its administration. And it mined a fervent fan base, which today equates to NIL opportunities.

  Those things don’t go away with a new coach. Every program makes mistakes in coaching hires, and Gonzaga is no more or less susceptible. At some point, a downturn is inevitable. But all those aforementioned features – and a rich history among the very best since the turn of the century – combine to make it an attractive job.

  But that’s then. This is now, and as they say, let’s live in the moment. Awhile back, it occurred to me that the Zags were exploring new territory, that this season seemed different from every one since 2014. You have to go that far back, nine years ago, to find a time when Gonzaga’s outlook appeared so limited, to recall when the Final Four seemed out of reach.

  The smart money would say that remains the case. But the Zags may yet have something to say about it.
#pac12mbb #theslipperstillfits #unitedwezag #wcchoops #zaghoops #zagsmbb #zagup

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The Romar conundrum: What's the endgame at Washington?

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The new year has brought a deepening of the Lorenzo Romar conundrum, the one in which the Husky men’s basketball coach’s future is clouded by the ongoing wrangle between his coaching and recruiting acumen.

(This blog typically deals with happenings around Gonzaga basketball, but it will occasionally address the nearby programs and college hoops in general.)

On New Year’s evening, the Huskies started Pac-12 play with a home loss to Washington State, punctuated by the usual heroics from freshman guard Markelle Fultz, plus a lot of vacant looks by the other guys on the floor. Three nights later, 15th-ranked Oregon came to town, and the Ducks won by 22, pretty much treating Washington like a cat batting around a dead mouse.

So by now, we know this: For the Husky men, it’s not a question of whether, but how bad. Any real chance of making something of this season is close to having disappeared, and now it’s more an issue of just how far this will sink. After Washington got clocked by Gonzaga four weeks ago, Romar said he was looking forward to seven straight games in Seattle. Ahead of a visit from Oregon State, those first six have produced a 3-3 record and victories over Western Michigan, Cal Poly and Seattle U., significant only in the fact the Huskies didn’t lose to them.

Washington’s record is 7-7 now, and besides the aforementioned three, the wins are against Long Beach State, Western Kentucky, Cal State-Fullerton and Northern Arizona. A reading early this week of the RPI computer rankings of the seven brings us to an average of 271, which means none of the seven is faintly relevant.

It’s gotten so bad that the Wednesday Seattle Times noted that Washington had failed to make the NCAA tournament six straight years. Actually, it’s only five, but by now, who’s counting?

“Lorenzo’s got pocket aces,” crowed a morning talk-show host.

Of course he does. Romar has signed forward Michael Porter Jr., ranked by some the nation’s second-best high school recruit, the centerpiece of a top-five class. And his brother Jontay, a year younger, is committed to Washington.

They’re playing at Nathan Hale High School, where the coach, in his first job, is former Washington great Brandon Roy.

Speaking of first year, a month before Roy was named at Nathan Hale, Romar added Michael Porter Sr. to his staff. In a revealing December piece, Christian Caple of the Tacoma News-Tribune laid out the circumstances of that hire.

Romar and the senior Porter have a long association, dating to when they played together for Athletes in Action a generation ago. And Romar is godfather to Michael Porter Jr.

From there, it grows murkier. Porter Sr.’s coaching background is rooted in AAU circles, then to three years’ each as Missouri women’s basketball operations director and assistant with the Mizzou women, whose roster included two of his daughters. There had been no experience with college men before Washington.

For this, according to Caple’s story, the Huskies decided on a two-year contract for Porter Sr. worth $300,000 a year, plus a $5,000 monthly housing allowance and another $15,000 annually for family travel. Raphael Chillious, Romar’s top assistant, makes $203,016. The other assistant, Will Conroy, makes $144,000.

The Huskies had thought enough of Chillious to bring him back to the UW for a second run after a stint at Villanova. And last April, they announced a promotion of Chillious to the title of associate head coach. That came a month before they made public the hire of Porter Sr., which was a month before the announcement of Roy as coach at Nathan Hale. And in July, Michael Porter Jr. announced he would attend Washington.

In Caple’s story, both Romar and UW athletic director Jennifer Cohen lament some tight finances at the UW as cramping the salary pool for all the assistants, and they cite another unnamed major-conference program as having been desirous of Porter Sr.’s services.

So the solution was to pay Porter Sr. 48 percent more than the top assistant on the staff, ostensibly because of his experience with the Missouri women’s program. Apparently, Geno Auriemma wasn’t available.

The head spins.

We’ll insert here the disclaimer of every treatise on Romar. He has always been a good and honorable man. And there’s nothing known about the saga of the Porters that would violate NCAA rules.

But in the Huskies’ confounding backslide since 2011, Romar has accomplished a jaw-dropping double. Twice, he has had teams that sent two first-round draft choices to the NBA that year and failed to make the NCAA tournament.

Last year, that edition of the Huskies also included the Pac-12’s leading scorer -- a third player, Andrew Andrews -- and still it didn’t happen, a non-feat of majestic magnitude. It came in a Pac-12 Conference that sent seven teams to the NCAA tournament, which means (a) the games were consistently challenging, and (b) there was opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to build a resume.

All of this leaves some Husky fans behaving like a classic drug addict. Just one more fix. Just one more. Just give us one more recruiting class, and everything will be all right. Just as it was going to be all right when Dejounte Murray and Marquese Chriss entered school in 2015. Just as it was going to be all right when Fultz enrolled for this year.

So far, what Fultz has brought is breathtaking ability, surrounded by a bunch of guys who don’t play defense and don’t seem to fit particularly well. The sum is less than the parts, which means Fultz, if he goes No. 1 in the 2017 NBA draft, is Ben Simmons 2.0, minus the dissension.

Here’s a suggestion, then, for Jennifer Cohen: Forget that Husky basketball has signed anybody for next year. Pretend that the recruiting rankings don’t exist.

The Huskies have 17 games left. Evaluate Romar not on the basis of Michael Porter Jr., but on the development of this team -- you know, the one that actually plays and practices at Alaska Airlines Arena, the one with three four-star recruits around Fultz. By March, make a reading on whether they’re getting better, and growing more cohesive, and defending more competently, and playing like they care.

Because what Lorenzo Romar has shown he’s really good at, in the enigmatic recent years of his coaching career, is getting guys to the NBA. Cohen is going to have to decide whether, in the big picture of Husky basketball, that should be the endgame.




#pac12MBB #pac12hoops #uwhuskies

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