Fast Break
Men’s basketball
Stuckey makes Wooden list
Eastern Washington basketball star Rodney Stuckey is one of 50 players on the preseason watch list for the Wooden Award.
Stuckey, the first freshman to be named MVP of the Big Sky Conference, is one of nine sophomores on the list. Another is Jon Brockman from the University of Washington.
Stuckey led all freshmen and sophomores in scoring last year with a school record of more than 24 points a game.
That was in the top 10 in the country and the highest for a player returning for the 2006-07 season.
Women’s basketball
Big Sky poll reflects haziness
The coaches like Idaho State and Montana, but the media picked Northern Arizona in the Big Sky Conference women’s preseason poll.
Eastern Washington is sixth in the coaches’ poll and tied with Portland State for fifth in the media voting.
ISU is the defending regular-season champion and NAU won the conference tournament.
SportsLink
Huskies may be ducking Zags
Are the Washington Huskies ready to dump Gonzaga from the basketball schedule? It looks like it.
With the Pac-10 and Big 12 talking about a challenge tournament between the conferences, the Huskies feel they will have enough tough non-conference matchups, so the Gonzaga series probably won’t fit in their plans after next season.
After all, why would you want to play a high-caliber, non-conference opponent with inexpensive travel costs every year? What could be gained from that?
Check in with online sports columnist Vince Grippi at SportsLink at spokesmanreview.com/ blogs/sportslink.