PSU, La Tech favored in women’s basketball
Eastern Washington was picked to finish in the middle of the pack in the Big Sky Conference and Idaho was voted near the bottom of the Western Athletic Conference in women's basketball polls released on Tuesday.
Big Sky coaches picked EWU seventh and the media had the Eagles sixth. Sherri Murrell's Portland State Vikings were picked first in both polls. Montana and Northern Colorado had the next two spots.
Six teams advance to the league tournament at the home of the regular-season champion. PSU won the tournament two years ago in Cheney and the Grizzlies won it at Portland State last year.
Louisiana Tech has the top spot in the WAC with Idaho tabbed for seventh in the coaches poll and by the media. Utah State and Fresno State also received first-place votes. Utah State's Ashlee Brown was the preseason choice as Player of the Year.
As long as we're on the subject of women's basketball, one website is ranking the top 100 women's programs. It started with 71-100, followed by 41-70. Looks like tomorrow is when it's going to get interesting locally, which is quite a compliment to a program that has sold more than 4,000 season tickets for this season. Yes, that would be Gonzaga.
By the way, the Pan American games are undway, which means Gonzaga is practicing without senior starters Kayla Standish and Katelan Redmon, who are on Team USA. Their first game in Mexico is Friday.