Fugeddabout Gonzaga, WSU Cracks Top 10 …

… only five places behind UCLA. Florida, Ohio State, Wisconsin and North Carolina top both Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today polls here

Re: Seattle Times sports columnist Bud Withers deems the WSU men’s basketball team to be the feel-good story of the 2006-07 regular season. See below. Full story here.

Fact: Elson Floyd, the incoming president of Washington State University, is a member of the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, which advocates a curb on spending in sports. Fact: Tony Bennett, in his first year as the head basketball coach at WSU, is thought to be the lowest-paid head man in his sport in the Pac-10. Opinion: Hang the high-minded dogma and pay the man what he wants! Well, something like that, anyway. It’s always the elephant in the room when WSU has some major-sport success, and success doesn’t come much more robust than what Bennett’s Cougars are bringing in 2007. Just when WSU gets good, its partisans have to worry about how long they can hang onto a coach, because it can’t run with Alabama and throw $32 million at a new football coach. What Bennett’s team has done in his first season has not only stretched the bounds of credulity, it demands creative thought on how such a meteoric advance should be rewarded/Bud Withers, Seattle Times sports columnist.

Question: Should WSU pay through the nose to keep basketball coach Tony Bennett for as long as possible?