Area women spending some time at home

After padding their frequent-flyer miles, the four area Division I women’s basketball teams are finally settling in at home.

Gonzaga plays host to Idaho and Washington State entertains Eastern Washington on Saturday afternoon to start some pretty good holiday homestands.

The Bulldogs (6-2) and Vandals (5-3), who have not played since the 2000-01 season, meet at 3 p.m. Their game at GU’s McCarthey Athletic Center will be televised on KHQ-TV.

The Eagles (3-3) play the Cougars (4-3) at 2 p.m. WSU has not won its first three home games since the start of the 1998-99 season.

An 18-11 combined record is impressive considering the four teams have played a total of eight home games.

After playing seven straight on the road, Gonzaga begins a seven-game homestand that takes the Bulldogs into the West Coast Conference season. Of particular interest is highly regarded Utah, with All-America candidate Kim Smith, on Dec. 29.

WSU, which has been on the road for five of the last six, has four straight at home, the last two kicking off the Pac-10 season. Arizona State, which moved into the Top 25 at 23, visits Dec. 27 and Arizona, which just fell out of the Top 25, is in two days later.

Eastern has a pair of home games to close out the month.

Idaho has three more road games before turning to Cowan Spectrum in mid-January.

Milestones, records and honors

Idaho’s phenomenal sophomore point guard Leilani Mitchell picked up her second Big West player of the week honor after scoring 42 points as the Vandals beat Montana and Portland State. The 5-foot-5 guard is averaging 8.5 rebounds to go with her league-leading 19.9 scoring average and 4.0 steals. Teammate Emily Faurholt is second in the league in scoring at 19.1 points per game. …Mitchell had an amazing performance at the Rainbow Wahine Classic in Hawaii that featured top-flight competition. The Vandals went 2-1 with Mitchell averaging 21 points, five rebounds three assists and 2.7 steals, plus shooting lights-out to make the all-tournament team. The Vandals lost to then-No. 3 Georgia, beat California and lost to Utah.

Two games after joining the 1,000-point club in a win at Eastern Washington, senior guard Shannon Mathews became Gonzaga’s all-time assist leader. With four assists in a loss at Arizona State, Mathews passed the 440 of Amy Simpson and has since moved into the WCC top 10. … Mathews and teammate Ashley Burke made the all-tournament team at New Mexico. In losing to the host school in the championship game, the Zags played before their largest crowd ever, 10,150. Burke was named the West Coast Conference player of the week. She averaged 13.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game in leading GU to two road wins. … In the Arizona State tourney, Mathews and the Zags’ Ashley Anderson were all-tournament.

Central Valley grad Felice Moore of Eastern was on the all-tournament team at the Carrs/Safeway Great Alaska Shootout. … Mead grad Adriane Ferguson of WSU was all-tournament at Saint Mary’s. The sophomore leads the Cougars in scoring at 13.7 ppg.

Local roundup

Arizona State sophomore Emily Westerberg, a Central Valley graduate, has been all-tournament in two of the three tournaments the Sun Devils have played. No. 8 Connecticut plays at ASU next Tuesday. … Pullman grad Christa Brossman, a senior at Idaho State, is doing an on-line diary on the school website. She is averaging just under 10 points for the Bengals (3-5). … Former Eastern coach Heidi VanDerveer, now an assistant coach at San Francisco, was on the bench when Stanford, coached by her sister Tara VanDerveer, beat up on the Dons 80-51 on Sunday.

Ferris grad Brynn Kelly has started five games for Davidson (4-3). … Freshman Katy Baker, a Lewis and Clark grad, has started one game for Southern Utah (2-5). She is averaging 10 minutes and 3 points. … Ali Camp, a sophomore from Cheney, is playing sparingly for Wyoming (6-1).

Tip-ins

Gonzaga became just the 19th non-conference team to win at Montana in Grizzlies coach Robin Selvig‘s 26 seasons. He has a 154-19 home record in non-league games. … EWU’s Stephanie Ulmer leads the Big Sky with 2.83 steals a game. … Gonzaga freshman post player Sarah Schramm will redshirt after suffering a stress fracture in her hand just before the regular season started. … WSU sophomore Nikki Stratton is also redshirting because of a foot injury.

Big Sky teams won three championships in Thanksgiving tournaments and boasted three MVP’s. Northern Arizona (Alyssa Wahl) won its own tourney, Montana (Hollie Tyler) won at Pepperdine and Weber State (Julie Gjertsen) won at Loyola Marymount. … Arizona has a home winning streak of 32 games, the second longest in the nation. … UCLA (7-1) is off to its best start since the 1982-83 season with two wins over top-15 programs Texas and Purdue.

The Pac-10 is 5-7 against non-conference Top 25 teams, just one win shy of its total last season when it was 6-19. … Oregon State is the only Pac-10 team under .500.