WSU signs three, fourth expected
COUGARS
Not a lot to share today, as opposed to yesterday, but there is some, so read on if you like. We have basketball and football news.
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• It was the first day of the fall signing period and Washington State announced three players, one less than was expected. The fourth, center Richard Peters, is expected to return his letter of intent either tomorrow or the next day. He committed to the Cougars a while ago and Brett Boese told me Wednesday the entire class is solid. We put together a story on the class, based around Boese, the Shadle Park High forward. Coach Ken Bone talked about the group this afternoon, and raved about the athleticism of DeMarquise Johnson, known as Que. He compared him to Klay Thompson, who will all know was overlooked coming out of high school. Johnson was not overlooked, rated by Scout.com as the No. 1 shooting guard on the West Coast. Bone also agreed to a comparison of 6-foot-6 power forward Richard Longrus to former UW forward Bobby Jones, who was at Washington when Bone was. Though Bone qualified the endorsement, saying Jones was a bit quicker, he added that he hopes Longrus is that good because that would give the Cougars another NBA player, as Jones became. As for recruiting down the road, Bone said he's always looking for more big men. ... As for football, there was nothing that stood out – mainly because I didn't stand out there the entire time as I usually do. I had a couple of interviews that had to be done during practice time, so I missed the first hour or so of the freezing cold practice. Darn. One thing I saw was Connor Halliday continued to get time with the ones. Coach Paul Wulff said, "with more opportunities, he did better today than yesterday, which is good. The plan is to move forward with getting him his reps. He'll get an opportunity." ... Some players, including middle linebacker C.J. Mizell, sat out some of practice, Mizell with a sore shoulder that Wulff said won't limit him this week. It's that time of year when players start to get nicked up more, though the Cougars, other than the high-profile injury to Jeff Tuel and Wade Jacobson's back problem, have been relatively injury free this season. ... Rico Forbes had to leave early today, so Andrew Roxas moved out to right tackle. That brought me back to his freshman year, when then-line coach George Yarno told me he had better fundamentals than any freshman he had ever coached and that he was tempted to play him at tackle, where Roxas would have been, according to Yarno, the shortest tackle in the Pac-10. Roxas practiced there then, but I don't remember him every getting into a game at tackle. ... We have a story for tomorrow's S-R on Casey Locker and those flags he's been attracting. He was way more calm over the calls than I would have been in his shoes, I'm sure.
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• Here's a video of Bone's LOI press conference, courtesy of WSU's athletic department ...
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• That's all for tonight. We'll return in the morning. Until then ...
