Nikola Koprivica, 3-point shooting, last three years:

Discuss.

Hey there Cougar Nation. I just got home from a rather ugly game where the Cougar defense led the way in a 55-33 victory over FDU.

Rather than write a traditional recap, I scored an interview with the three stars of the game. Of course, I'm talking about referees Lars Jurgenson, Joerg Johannson and Smiffy Whitehorse. And yes, I made those names up because I don't want to waste time with tracking down the real ones. But rest assured - they played a key role in a losing effort for Fairleigh Dickinson.

CougCenter: When you're officiating a game horribly, how important is it to come out and set the tone early?

Lars Jurgenson: It's key. When we called only two team fouls on FDU in the first half, we wanted to send the message that we were going to phone in this entire game. Some bad officials give in to the home crowd; others play reverse psychology by officiating against the home team when they get riled up against you. That's what we did tonight, and the anger of the fans really kept us motivated.

Joerg Johannson: My ego is more important than officiating a fair game. So when Cameron Tyler did everything but claw Taylor Rochestie's eyes out on the last possession of the first half, I was pretty amped. Bad officiating means pocketing the whistle, even when it means risking injuries on either side of the ball.

CC: Super. You certainly lost control at the end of the game as well, when you let FDU foul WSU away from the ball in the full court press, leading to turnovers and bad blood that ultimately materialized when 5'10" Ronald Brown attempted to dunk on Charlie Enquist with 1 second left.

Smiffy Whitehorse: You betcha. The WWE is a multi-billion dollar business. People love drama. My favorite show, for example, is "Gossip Girl" on the C-dub. That's why when I officiate a game I like to let things get as chippy as possible. Letting Ronald Brown throw his body around like a Cirque Du Soleil acrobat was just one of the many things that I believe helped make this game entertaining.

CC: Of course, you don't want to be too obvious. Tim Donaghy is in prison, after all. You made a brilliant move when you awarded FDU a timeout when they didn't have the ball, then charged them with a technical foul.

JJ: Things like that are why I got into the reffing biz. That and, of course, the beautiful women and fast cars.

CC: Talk a bit about our CougCenter player of the game, Nikola Koprivica.

LJ: Sure thing. He was four of six from the field, two of four from three, played solid defense and added three steals with no turnovers. 10 points total and efficient doing it. I was hoping we'd rattle him along with the rest of the team, but that just didn't happen tonight. European players just know how to win us over.

CC: You also made an atrocious no-call on our CougCenter play of the game, a fast break dunk by Caleb Forrest over an FDU player, that really should have been an and-one.

SW: Even great plays aren't immune from bad officiating. We made it up to WSU by awarding a series of ticky-tack fouls in favor of Fairleigh Dickinson on the other end.

CC: Made it up to WSU? I'm confused.

JJ: We wanted to help the Cougars. Games with bad officiating build character. That's what this was all about.

LJ: We tried our hardest to frustrate the Cougars, as well as give the visiting Dick Bennett a heart attack in his seat near the WSU bench. It failed. The Cougars played great team defense tonight, and that's really what led them to this win. They also settled down and started making shots against FDU's zone defense in the second half (the first zone they've seen all year). Down the road they'll thank us for doing such a terrible job. WSU is a young team and they can't help but benefit by walking away from this game with a 22-point win.

CC: Well then... Thanks?

JJ: You're welcome.

CC: By the way, please don't show up at any of our home or away games for the remainder of the season.

It's WSU! It's Fairleigh Dickinson! It's the Legends Classic!

Moderate excitement awaits. I'm guesstimating (hate that word, by the way) the starting lineup tonight.

Good guys:

G Rochestie
G Thompson
F Koprivica
F Harmeling
C Baynes

Got to get to Beasley. Enjoy the game.

As pointed out by Coug1990, your Washington State University men's basketball team is the best team in the country -- at least, according to Ken Pomeroy. Why is that significant?

Because it shows just how ridiculously dominant the Cougs were in that opener.

A large component of Pomeroy's rating system is efficiency margin -- the difference between your offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency. (What's efficiency?) While the Cougs posted a high offensive efficiency of 119.0, they posted a ridiculously low 39.2 defensive efficiency. That's easily the most dominant defensive performance of the Bennett era. (Last year, the Cougs held MVSU to 49.3 efficiency.)

What does this tell us? Having not been at the game, I'm speculating just a little bit, but I'm guessing the savvy of the veterans and the athleticism of the new guys just simply overwhelmed a tired team that couldn't match up. And I think you might see that a bunch this year, especially in these first four games against teams that just don't have the same level of talent.

But I also think that combination of experience and inexperience is going to make for some entertaining basketball this year. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, there were times last year when watching WSU was just a little -- dare I even say it? -- boring. They were so mind-numbingly consistent (save for the early games against Boise State and Baylor) that you just knew what you were going to get out of them every night. They didn't beat anybody they weren't supposed to, and they rarely lost to anyone they weren't supposed to. That was a team that truly played to every ounce of its ability level, and it removed a lot of the drama you're used to in a sports season.

This team? There will be nights where they ride the wave of emotion and absolutely overwhelm their opponent, but there also will be nights where the freshmen look like the newcomers they are. Here's to betting one of these four "preseason" games heading toward Mississippi State ends up a lot closer than it ought to, if not in an outright loss. It also is going to make things a lot tougher on nights in the Pac-10 where they can't overwhelm their opponent.

But that's why I am so looking forward to this season. I'm becoming more and more convinced by the day that this is going to be a special season, and that the dropoff we've all been anticipating probably isn't going to happen until next year, when this roster is completely devoid of upperclassmen. So, in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy this ride -- this is going to be one heck of a fun year, if for no other reason than there ought to be no shortage of drama.

I don't think it's any secret that the Cougs are less talented than their opponents, espcially with the state of the infirmary all season long. But what has exacerbated their play to historically poor levels has been the almost unbelievable quantity of mistakes this team has committed.

However, the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. I mean, if you're an offensive lineman, and the guy across from you is a heck of a lot more talented than you, are you more or less likely to commit a holding penalty? If you're a quarterback and you're trying to squeeze the ball into a small hole, are you more or less likely to throw an interception with Kevin Lopina's arm or Mark Sanchez's arm?

You get the picture.

There's also the question of decision making, such as when the secondary completely blows a coverage, or a linebacker over runs a crease. Is that a coaching issue, a learning issue, or a talent issue? It's certainly partly coaching and learning, but I'd argue that decision making ability also is part of the overall talent package. Some guys never learn, regardless of number of reps or the ability of the coaching staff.

To that end, here's a quick look at our team's (extensive) mistakes this season*:

Of course, our numbers in the first three columns probably don't come as a shock to you. We lose the turnover and penalty battle virtually every week, and that's not luck.

More interesting to me is the second set of columns. In a lot of ways, my point about talent is cemented when you look at how many mistakes our opponents have made in the turnover department. Our opponents cumulatively have among the fewest giveaways in the nation. (Incidentally, I'm a little befuddled by the high number of penalties by our opponents. If anyone's got a theory for why we've drawn the 17th-highest number of penalties in the country, I'm all ears.)

I bring all this up because it's tempting to look at Washington's record and think, for the first time all year, we won't be completely outmanned, position for position, against an FBS school. But the statistics don't back that up. Consider:

Washington has committed among the fewest penalties in the country and is in the top quarter of the country in giveaways, suggesting that they might not be as outmanned. If we still suppose they are outmanned, they at least make smarter decisions. Even if ineffective, they're not generally going to beat themselves in the tangible ways that change games. (As if you needed one more reason to be pessimistic right?)

But if you're looking for a ray of light, look at those takeaways. The Huskies have just nine all season, and that includes three interceptions on Saturday against UCLA. This is not a team that makes plays on the ball on defense, so, in a sense, it becomes the irrisistable force of the WSU turnover machine against the immovable object of the polite UW defense. If our defense can come up with a turnover or two, all the better.

Can the Cougs hold onto the ball for once? That would go a long way toward winning our fourth Apple Cup in five years.

Continue reading this post »

With basketball season now upon us, it's time to have a little talk.

You might notice that when we write about basketball around here, we sometimes reference some obscure stats that you might not have ever heard of. "What the heck is efficiency?" you ask. Or perhaps you muse, "Turnover percentage? What is that, and why does it matter?" If you are among the uninitiated, then this post is for you.

First, if you're number phobic -- or have ever had your brain turned to scrambled eggs by baseball sabermetrics -- rest assured that these basketball statistics really aren't all that imposing and sound a heck of a lot more complicated than they really are. Although foreign to you now, most are pretty easy to compute (not that you'd ever have to compute them yourself), and, once you understand them, they all are pretty intuitive and easy to use.

Why do we reference these stats instead of more mainstream stats? Before we get to that, consider a common television talking head conversation that just gets my blood boiling every time:

Announcer A: Boy, you know the Cougars sure have a great defense, Jim!

Announcer B: You got that right, Pat! I mean, they truly are stellar -- they only give up 55 points per game! That is by far the best in Pac-10.

Announcer A: But talk about that Cougar offense a little. It's pretty solid, but hardly spectacular.

Announcer B: Yeah, you know Pat, (insert Cougar player here) is a pretty good player, and they shoot the ball at a pretty good clip as a team, but they only average 62 points per game -- worst in the conference. That WSU offense is hardly overwhelming.

Now, you might wonder why this irritates me so much. Keep that question -- and this announcer conversation -- in the back of your mind as we explore these superior statistics.

Why do traditional statistics suck?

Glad you asked. Most statistics look only at raw numbers -- how many points, rebounds, assists, etc. teams or players have accumulated. These are incredibly misleading. If two teams average 70 points per game, are both teams equally good offensively? How do you know? If a team scores under its average for the season, why did it happen? Is that something to be concerned about? That's what our advanced statistics, pioneered by the ideas of Dean Oliver and now calculated by Ken Pomeroy, measure better than anything else around.

Contrary to popular belief, the primary goal of basketball is not to score the most points. It's also not to accumulate the most rebounds or assists or steals, although that's what most traditional statistics imply. No, the actual primary goal of basketball is simple: At basketball's core, you're either trying to put the ball into the basket or trying to prevent your opponent from doing so. (Remember that. It will come up later.) In the process of doing each, you hope to have scored more points than your opponent when the clock hit's 0:00.

When you shift your thinking this way, you realize that any competent statistic measure has to boil down to just that: How well did you do at converting each opportunity to score, and how well did you so preventing each of your opponent's opportunities to score? This is where the genius of Pomeroy and his statistics come into play, and reveal far more than traditional statistics could ever hope to.

A word about pace

The thing that most basic statistics overlook -- which is a colossal and completely debilitating oversight -- is pace. Pace is simply the number of possessions a team has in any given game. Any meaningful statistic must factor in that not every team averages the same number of possessions in a game. For example, WSU averaged just under 60 possessions per game last year. North Carolina, conversely, averaged close to 75. Comparing raw points scored per game -- or any other of the team's statistics -- is just not an apples to apples comparison.

This concept should come fairly naturally to Coug fans; after all, we've been watching WSU play at a slower pace than many of our Pac-10 counterparts for years now. So ...

POP QUIZ! Remember what I said above about the purpose of basketball? Ask yourself this question: Does the fact that the Cougars typically have fewer possessions in a game make them more or less good at scoring or preventing scoring than anyone else?

The answer is: Of course not. That's why traditional statistics suck.

Efficiency

So how do we level the playing field? It's simple, really. Since the goal of basketball is to score each time you bring the ball up the floor -- or prevent your opponent from doing so each time they bring the ball up the floor -- we need a statistic that measures how effective a team is at doing that. Efficiency wisely boils it down to possessions by calculating how many points a team scores per possession, then expresses that number in terms of how many points a team would score in a theoretical 100-possession game. Part of the beauty of that is that the national efficiency average generally is very near 100 -- 1 point per possession. (Of course, nobody plays 100 possession games, but doing it this way presents nice round numbers for our human brains.)

When we use efficiency, we gain tremendous insight into our team. For example, you intuitively know the Cougs have a great defense, and the statistics bear that out -- WSU had the 19th best defensive efficiency in the country last year. But what about the offense? Try this one on for size: With an offensive efficiency of 111.5, the Cougs actually had the 24th best offense in the country last year. Did you know that's practically the same offensive efficiency as another team announcers just drooled over for their "explosiveness" -- Tennessee? (The Vols checked in at 111.8.)

Now you know why that announcer conversation makes me want to throw something at my TV week after week. It's just a moronic, uninformed statement that could be rectified with just 15 minutes of research in the right place.

(By the way, if you explore Pomeroy and see "Raw Efficiency," that's how the team performed against its actual opponents. "Adjusted Efficiency" is simply an expression of how a team could be expected to perform against an average team on a neutral site.)

The Four Factors

Now the question becomes, What factors influence efficiency the most? While efficiency tells us whether a team is good with or without the ball in their hands, it doesn't tell us why. Oliver's research showed four things impact a team's offensive and defensive effectiveness above everything else: shooting the ball, retaining possession, creating extra possessions, and getting to the free throw line. There is a statistic to measure each, and I'll briefly explain each one:

Effective Field Goal Percentage (eFG%): This statistic measures how well a team shoots both 3-point and 2-point shots in one statistic. It's intuitive, because it gives a 3-pointer 1.5 times the weight in the percentage since it's worth 1.5 times the points. For reference, the national median in 2007-08 was 49.8 percent.

This is a great stat for Coug fans because no statistic bears a greater correlation to defensive efficiency than eFG% (in other words, the higher the eFG%, the higher the defensive efficiency, and higher defensive efficiency is, of course, bad). This makes sense because the WSU defense is predicated on keeping people out of the lane and making them shoot tough shots over you. If a team is hitting the 3's -- think about our difficulties with Oregon and Vandy in 2006-07 -- the vaunted Coug defense can be beaten.

Turnover Percentage (TO%): The percentage of possessions by a team that end in a turnover. It might seem obvious, but I'll point it out anyway: This is important because any possession that ends with a turnover ends without even the chance at scoring points -- a direct hit on the old efficiency. Obviously, you want this number lower on offense and higher on defense. For reference, the national median in 2007-08 was 20.8 percent.

Offensive Rebounding Percentage (OR%): The percentage of missed shots gathered in by the offense. Offensive rebounds result in increased possessions, which result in more chances to score points. Again, this is intuitive, but measuring how effective a team is at doing it in rate form, rather than raw accumulation form, is much more effective. For reference, the national median in 2007-08 was 32.8 percent.

Free Throw Rate (FTR): Of the four factors, this is the only one calculated differently for offense and defense. On offense, it's the team's ability to score from the free throw line, measured by free throws made divided by field goals attempted. On defense, it's free throws allowed divided by field goals attempted (since the defense has no control over whether an opponent makes his free throws). The national median for offensive FTR was 25.3 in 2007-08; for defensive FTR, it was 40.9.

If you want to see how the Cougs performed in each of these categories last year, click here. If you want more detail about how each of these are calculated -- like how do they come up with the number of possessions? -- Pomeroy offers more detailed explanations here and here.

Are there even more stats?

Of course there are, and you can explore them all to your hearts content at KenPom.com. (Highly encouraged.) We'll reference them occasionally, both in regards to the team and individuals. If you've got the hang of the ones I've explained, you'll get the hang of the others, too, without any problem.

For example, we'll often reference rebounding percentage with regards to Aron Baynes. When we talk about his defensive rebounding percentage, it's simply what percentage of his team's overall defensive rebounds he's grabbing. When we talk about Taylor Rochestie's assist percentage, we're talking about what percentage of his team's assists he's dishing out. One key stat this year will be usage: What percentage of a team's possessions is a player personally responsible for ending? Here's to betting Rochestie's usage is among the highest in the country.

Final words

I hope you learn to love and use these stats, because they really do inform our opinions of our team as much as anything else, including simple observation. And if you really want to make yourself smart, make sure you stop by Basketball Prospectus occasionally and check out the writing of Pomeroy and John Gasaway. It'll improve your knowledge immensely.

via grfx.cstv.com

There are nine freshmen on this year's Cougar basketball team.

None stand to make more of an impact than Klay Thompson.

Thompson is best known outside the world of WSU athletics as the son of Mychal Thompson, who was the first overall pick in the 1978 NBA Draft. He was selected by the Portland Trailblazers, but is best known for his time in Los Angeles where he won three NBA championships with the Lakers. The elder Thompson also went a long way to quell some of the anxiety about Tony Bennett's possible departure to Indiana last season, by doubting it on his radio show.

But throw out a lot of the comparisons to his Dad - Klay is his own player, and a very good one at that. At 6'6" he brings more height to the table than your average guard. In addition, he already displays more athleticism than a number of more seasoned players in the Pac-10 conference. His shooting form is excellent. In a year where the Cougars need to replace sharpshooter Derrick Low he becomes even more of an asset. Klay shows the ability to create his own shot, and can make baskets from any spot of the floor. We'll need him to be aggressive on offense, and his teammates have already given him the green light:

"If I have an open shot, I'm going to take it," Thompson said. "I think that's what the coaches want, the other players want me to do."

"I know you asked him, but we're all fine with Klay shooting whenever he touches the ball," senior Daven Harmeling interjected. "He's that schooled. He's that good."

Hat tip to Grippi and the Spokesman for that quote.

And so, already, you see a large number of attempts for Klay. He connected on 3 of 10 in the exhibition, and 3 of 7 against MVSU on Saturday. The low percentages, at least from my standpoint, are due to poor shot selection and nothing else. I wouldn't panic. As Klay integrates himself into Bennett's offense he'll learn from Taylor Rochestie, Daven Harmeling, etc. when to shoot and when to pass. And he can pass - dealing out four assists in the exhibition game and showing a good feel for Tony's modified flex offense. He can also handle the ball well - that will be key with Taylor Rochestie being the only returning Cougar who is skilled in that regard.

As I see it, there are a couple of possible outcomes for Klay this year. And whether he suceeds will ultimately depend on how well he makes the transition to college. He could very well lead the team in scoring this year. Taylor prefers to help the team through setting up the offense, and Baynes, while talented, will be the focal point of many opponents' interior defense. Klay could also be more of a role player - facilitating the offense, getting the ball to Aron down low, and playing good defense.

And defense, when it comes down to it, will really decide how much Klay plays this year. Shooting guard is perenially one of the most loaded positions in the conference. And while he won't be lining up against OJ Mayo or Jerryd Bayless, Klay will have to be ready to react to some of the most talented players in college basketball. He'll also have to find ways to score against teams that are far superior defensively to any of the opponents we'll see in the first two weeks.

Klay Thompson, of all the players on the WSU roster right now, has the best shot at success in the NBA. It's hard to believe the son of a #1 draft pick could be underrated by the mainstream sports media. Klay is, and it's going to be fun to watch him prove some people wrong.

Welcome to Apple Cup week here at CougCenter! We'll have more football content than usual throughout the week, but befitting a pair of teams that have become the laughingstock of college football, it seemed only appropriate that we would kick it off with a post about ... jokes.

So, hit us with your best clean University of Washington humor. Here's how we'd like it to work:

1. If you've got a run-of-the-mill joke that's good for a chuckle -- you know, the kind that would work when you insert any school -- post it in the comments of this post.
2. But, if you've got a good one that you think deserves special recognition, put it in a FanPost. If it passes the CougCenter sniff test, it'll get promoted to the front page, right next to our stuff, where it belongs. (Yes, we have that kind of power around here!) If you're not familiar with how to put up a FanPost, it's easy -- just click on the "New FanPost" link under the CougCenter logo.

By the way, deciding which jokes get promoted will also require a little bit of participatory democracy on your part. If you like a joke, give it a "Rec" at the end of the post. The joke that gets the most recs will get a little special CougCenter recognition at the end of the week. (By the way, you can "Rec" any post. Just a thought.)

To kick us off, here's my best offering. I like it because it's kind of like me -- quasi-original and funny ... but only mildly so.

Did you hear that new UW AD Scott Woodward wants to replace the field turf at Husky Stadium with cardboard?

It's true. Apparently the Huskies always look better on paper.

That's my best shot. I know you can do better. So let us have it.

Fresh off their improbable back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances, there were a lot of prognosticators who thought the Cougs would have trouble maintaining their success this season.

So far, so good.

Aron Baynes scored 14 points and Caleb Forrest matched his career high with 13 as Washington State annihilated Mississippi Valley State, 76-25.

The 25 points allowed are the fewest by WSU in the shot clock era. That stat breaks the record set last year when the Cougars held the same Delta Devils to 26 points in a 71-26 blowout at the Spokane Arena.

Don't be surprised if you have a hard time telling the difference so far between this year's team and last year's. Despite the losses of Derrick Low, Kyle Weaver, and Robbie Cowgill, WSU continues to be dominant on both ends of the floor.

The Cougars held MVSU to 16.7% shooting and held them scoreless for the first 11:32 of the game. During that time WSU opened up a 28-0 lead, and never let up. The Cougars registered eight blocks, including four from freshman DeAngelo Casto and three from redshirt frosh Charlie Enquist. The Cougs only allowed 11 points in the first half, matching the number of MVSU team fouls. Only four Delta Devils scored in the game.

Equally impressive was the Cougar offense. WSU shot 55.3% from the floor, including 46.2% from the new three point line, which is exactly one foot farther from the bucket than last season. Nikola Koprivica, a 14% 3-point shooter last year, went 2 for 3 from behind the arc. Aron Baynes dominated the paint, going 6 for 8 from the field en route to 14 points and five rebounds. Forrest added 13 on a 4 for 8 effort and Daven Harmeling added nine for WSU.

CougCenter player of the game: Aron Baynes. The slimmed down big man looked dominant in the first regular season game of the year, leading all scorers with 14 and playing solid low-post defense on the other end of the court.

Lots of great contributors, though, for WSU last night. Bud Nameck gave his player of the game award to Forrest and the WSUCougars.com basketball blog gave the nod to Marcus Capers (6 points, 6 assists).

CougCenter play of the game: Aron Baynes dunks viciously on a MVSU player who shall remain nameless because 1) I didn't see his number and 2) he really doesn't need further embarrassment.

Now for my notes:

Look who's starting: Nuss was dead on with yesterday's starting lineup, which featured Taylor Rochestie, Klay Thompson, Nikola Koprivica, Daven Harmeling and Aron Baynes. Overall playing time was very balanced for the Cougars, who wanted to give their freshmen some much-needed experience. Ryan Bailey was the only player on the court who played less than ten minutes.

Witherill in, Harthun out: The most surprising move of the night came when Tony inserted freshman Nick Witherill into the lineup. Witherill was expected to redshirt this year, while Mike Harthun, a much more highly-recruited guard out of Oregon, was expected to get playing time. It looks like now it will be Harthun getting the redshirt, while Witherill will be used as another option at guard. It appears that neither will be a part of the regular rotation this season.

While it's a surprise that Harthun may not play this year, it's not a total shock. One of the things I like about Harthun is that he's an honest guy. Here's his own writing from the official athletics blog earlier this month:

The season up to this point has been a humbling experience to say the least. For me it has been a difficult transition from high school, but I look forward to the challenges that it brings each day. In high school I was the best or second best player on the team behind Kyle Singler (currently at Duke). Now on this team I am far from that, but I like it that way. It gives me new goals and things to work on each day in practice. Also I have no choice, but to improve when I am playing against the high level of competition that I am. Right now I am trying to slow down a bit and enjoy the game like I should be doing.

The theme behind this statement, and his whole post (scroll down to 11/7 on the blog to read it), is that it's a big transition from high school to college. And he's exactly right. The transition is strange enough for those of us who don't play sports - I can't imagine what it is like with all the added pressure of having to perform on the court. He's also a bit apprehensive about all the course work with college (who isn't?), so giving him a redshirt will give him the opportunity to spread out his classes and decrease some of the workload there.

I'm still surprised about the redshirt, because in the exhibition game I saw Harthun and he has a ton of promise. At this point I would say he has more raw talent than Witherill. The difference is that Harthun just needs to slow things down and play his game. I think it goes without saying that he will eventually settle in just fine at WSU and be a key contributor down the road. But for now, I think he'll get some benefit out of the redshirt. The reason I'm not a huge fan of the decision is that I think Witherill could benefit just as much from an extra year.

However, both Witherill and Harthun are excellent players and vital to the future of the program. A couple of years from now when they are both helping the Cougs to victory, we'll probably forget about the whole redshirt thing that's going on now. In addition, we'll probably be pretty happy to get five whole years out of Harthun.

Poor MVSU: Mississippi Valley State played #15 Arizona State pretty hard on Friday night, losing by only 16 points. They were also a tournament team last year. That's why I can't imagine anything more demoralizing than a round of applause from the ZZU CRU after Dwayne Harmason made the first bucket for the Devils with 8:28 left to play in the first half.

Klay Thompson, still a key to success. Thompson continues to have the green light to shoot when he's open. He scored eight last night on 3 of 7 shooting. Some of the shots were still suspect in their selection, but as the season progresses expect Klay to get smarter about his opportunities. Thompson is going to have to replace the scoring of Derrick Low if the Cougars are going to succeed this year, and he's off to a great start. I don't think it's a stretch to say that he may even lead the team in scoring this year.

The students aren't going to be happy: A lot of grumblings already out of the resized student section last night, especially with a baseline section that was mostly empty - a few splotches of paying customers here and there. Expect it to get worse when the later-arriving students are shut out of the Gonzaga game on Dec. 6th 10th.

#15 Arizona State beat Mississippi Valley State by 16.

The Cougs just beat them by 51.

They opened the game on a 28-0 run.

I bring this up, in part, because I got my Sports Illustrated college basketball preview issue today. The Sun Devils are on the cover. Scavenger hunt for you - try to find any mention of the WSU team or a Cougar player inside. It's like trying to find Waldo in there.

They also have USC Freshman Demar DeRozan (a 5-star recruit by scout.com) listed under "freshmen who aren't getting all the props they deserve". Excuse me, but I can't think of a talented freshman getting less "props" than Klay Thompson.

They also have Washington placed in their field of 64, but the Cougars conveniently not present.

But guess what? The Huskies just lost to Portland (80-74).

What a great night.

I'll have more on the basketball game later, including my thoughts on a rather surprising redshirt decision by Tony Bennett.