College basketball conference play gets underway this week
Conference play starts this week with Gonzaga expecting to take everyone’s best punch and Idaho and Eastern Washington hoping to deliver a few.
The Bulldogs (12-4), with six straight West Coast Conference titles, are at Portland on Saturday; Idaho (7-5) is at Nevada on Thursday (ESPNU at 8 p.m.) and home for Fresno State to start the Western Athletic Conference; and defending Big Sky Conference champion Eastern Washington (4-8) is home against Portland State Saturday afternoon.
The spotlight is on Gonzaga, coming off two straight NCAA tournament appearances, including a trip to the Sweet 16 last year.
“What I like about our team is its ability the last few years to change its mindset,” Gonzaga coach Kelly Graves said. “We’re the marked team, we’re going to get everybody’s best game. That’s why I say we have to change our mindset. They’ve handled that well in the past.”
The Bulldogs went 14-0 in the first and last seasons of their six title runs and are 77-7 in that time. They play their first three on the road against the expected three toughest opponents, Portland (9-6), Pepperdine (7-5) and Saint Mary’s (8-7).
Tough test for Idaho
The Vandals aren’t going to ease into conference play with Nevada (11-2), off to its best start in school history, and defending champion Fresno State (9-5).
“We had a good nonconference season,” third-year Vandals coach Jon Newlee said. “We played some tough teams and a lot of road games, which hopefully prepared us for travel in WAC.”
He said the top three, which includes Louisiana Tech (8-5), should be followed by parity.
Seven teams are between 9-5 and 6-8.
“The key is you have to win your home games,” Newlee said. “Then you go out on the road and take your chances. The last couple of years we’ve been a pretty good road team.”
EWU, Big Sky struggle
The preseason didn’t quite go as planned for a team with high expectations. Facing a PSU team (7-6) that won the conference tournament doesn’t help.
“Part of it is we’ve played some really good teams,” 10th-year coach Wendy Schuller said. “Some actually ended up being better than we thought they’d be, so we’ve had a challenging nonconference schedule.
“We didn’t do a good job of finishing games right before Christmas and we struggled on the road. January in (conference) is full of road games so we better figure that out.”
As for the conference, favorite Montana is limping along at 5-8. Sherri Murrell’s Vikings and Idaho State (9-4) are the only teams with winning records.
“Nobody established themselves as a favorite,” Schuller said. “I think the league was like us as the season went on, it got better and better.”
Tip-ins
Washington State is at Oregon on Thursday and Oregon State Saturday. … Angie Bjorklund (U-Hi), who broke the Tennessee record for 3-pointers (now 269) in a win over Rutgers, didn’t score against LSU, when the Lady Vols went 0-7 from behind the arc to end a streak of 422 games with a 3-pointer. … EWU senior Kyla Evans has 191 3s, five short of breaking the school record.