Cougs Find Value In Nit Appearance: They’re Still Playing

For the true basketball fan, the 9 a.m. games on the first day of March Madness are a little dose of church. And Mark Hendrickson was up to watch, if not worship.

Stanford and Bradley appeared on the tube, Al McGuire went into his shtick and Hendrickson couldn’t help but think: That should be us.

But the more Hendrickson watched, the more he realized that he and his Washington State teammates have certain blessings to count just being in the National Invitation Tournament - and the count went higher with Thursday night’s 92-73 thrashing of Gonzaga at Friel Court.

“You’re playing in the NIT on one of the most watched days of basketball and it’s a little frustrating and difficult to take,” admitted Hendrickson, who found enough game face to put together another routine double-double - 24 points, 10 rebounds.

“But now we’ve won and we get to sit back and watch all these other teams fall and it kind of thins it out to where there’s just a few teams left playing in the country. That’s a good feeling - to get into next week.”

And if you don’t think that’s a big deal even in the NIT, then you’d better ask Gonzaga.

“It’ll make me feel better,” said Bulldogs forward Jon Kinloch, “if Washington State wins it.”

Four more nights like this and the Cougars will.

At one juncture late in the first half, the Cougs had made 70 percent of their shots to 29 percent for Gonzaga. The spread was already 20, and though the Bulldogs never gave up, they were mostly chasing their tails.

“When we don’t shoot it well, we expose our defense too much,” said Bulldogs coach Dan Fitzgerald. “They played well and we played down - but if we play well, it’s still probably an 8-, 9-point loss.”

Certainly the Cougars dominated, but especially in the one statistical area that matters most: shooting percentage. Inside and out, fouled or home free, Wazzu resembled the team that led America in accuracy a season ago - while the Bulldogs were a cartoonish combination of bad aim and bad luck.

No one was as frustrated as Kinloch, who made just 2 of 15 attempts - both weird, wild drives - and none of his eight 3-pointers.

“It’s ironic how you miss the shots that make you a player,” he said, “and then make a couple of crazy shots in the second half that normally I don’t have a chance of making. There’s no justice.”

Well, there is a little justice.

Just the fact that this match was made was amazing, given the instances when the NIT has passed on it before. Even though they’d met to open the season, it made so much sense it almost balanced the silliness of sending Washington to Michigan State, or Miami of Ohio to Fresno.

Fitzgerald loved the logic, but also dreaded it.

“Believe it or not, it’s tougher for us to come here and win than, say, going to a Nebraska,” he said. “We’re not going to ambush these guys. For Gonzaga to advance, you have to get (an opponent) who might not take you seriously and have them sleepwalk a little bit. That’s not going to be Washington State, by the fact we’d gone overtime with them before and I think (they) respect us.

“Emotionally, they were very ready. I sensed they’re excited about the NIT maybe because they realized it was their destiny and they have a mindset they can win it.”

It wouldn’t hurt if the NIT sent their second-round game against Nebraska to Spokane. Cougars athletic director Rick Dickson remained hopeful, even though the Cornhuskers were sent to Colorado State for their NIT opener; one bit of gossip suggested Nebraska coach Danny Nee would just as soon stay on the road, given all the heat he’s taken in Lincoln this season.

Watching the NCAAs on Thursday morning, Hendrickson expressed surprise at the “dead atmosphere” at the Stanford-Bradley game - probably due to the fact they were playing back in Providence, R.I. The tighter the games on the tube, he said, “the more you miss not being a part of it.”

But then, you could wind up in the part of UCLA stunned by the Pete Carril Farewell Tour of Princeton.

“It hurts a little bit because it’s from our conference and you always want to see the teams in your conference do well,” Hendrickson said of the UCLA loss. “But the selfish part of you wants to be the last team in your conference playing at the end of the year.”

Who knows? By Sunday, the Cougs may be just that.

You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

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