Tournaments lure teams

The best part of Thanksgiving, after family, feast and leftovers, is basketball, especially at the college level.

It’s tournament time, when most teams get more than one game per trip, which can be to an exotic locale, with some marquee matchups mixed in.

Milwaukee might not qualify as an exotic location, but otherwise the Gonzaga women have the rest of the equation covered.

The Bulldogs (5-0) are at Marquette for the WBCA Classic, featuring three games in three days, starting with the 4-0 host school Friday. The Zags, off to the best start in school history, face Mountain West power Utah (1-1) on Saturday. Sunday’s opponent is No. 16 Virginia (3-1), which knocked off Tennessee a week ago before losing to then-No. 23 Xavier.

“We need that to challenge ourselves,” GU coach Kelly Graves said. “Virginia is 40 minutes of pressure, full-court and pushing the ball. Utah is the complete opposite and Marquette is somewhere in between, so we get to see everything.

“When we recruit, we recruit to the fact we’re going to play as good of a non-conference schedule as we can make. We might not play in a big-time conference, but there is nothing that isn’t big time with our program, from the way we travel, to our building, to our schedule. Our kids want to play those kinds of games.”

Gonzaga has played tougher schedules every year and there is a reason. Twice in the last four years the Bulldogs won 24-plus games but lost in the West Coast Conference tournament and then got snubbed by the NCAA.

“We need to build a resume for March,” Graves said. “We can’t just depend on the league and having to win the tournament. What our kids are thinking is not just building a resume to get in. They want to be good enough to get a seed and see if we can do something.”

On tap

The area’s other Division I teams aren’t going to as high-powered tournaments, but the locales may be deemed superior.

Washington State is headed to San Francisco to face Northern Colorado on Friday and the host Dons on Sunday. Eastern Washington is in Las Vegas, playing the host UNLV Rebels on Friday and either Cal State Fullerton or Georgia on Saturday. Idaho is at San Luis Obispo, playing Cal Poly on Saturday and Cal State Bakersfield on Sunday.

Whitworth plays Cal Tech in Pasadena on Friday and is at Redlands on Saturday. Community Colleges of Spokane plays at North Idaho on Saturday.

Local watch

Three games into the season, sophomore Dara Zack (University High) is averaging 15.7 points and 11.3 rebounds for St. Martin’s (2-1) of Lacey, Wash. … Also in the starting lineup for the Crusaders are sophomore Roni Jo Mielke (Harrington), with freshmen Megan Teade (Colfax) and Kelsey Baker (Lewis and Clark) and senior Katee Nauert (Central Valley). … Emily Kuipers (U-Hi) missed last season with a knee injury but came back to lead Regis (Denver) in scoring in an exhibition game before tweaking her knee. She is expected to return. … According to a Tennessee spokesman, sophomore Angie Bjorklund (U-Hi) remains day-to-day with a bad back. … Weber State junior Tonya Schnibbe (U-Hi) had 16 points and eight rebounds in a win over Washington, ending a 12-year drought against the Pac-10. … Guard JJ Hones, one of Stanford’s leaders, is out with a season-ending knee injury for the second time in her three seasons with the Cardinal.