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Another week in Husky hoops, and another seven days closer to tip-off. Next week will be the week before the week that the season starts. That’s exciting. Right?

Lucky 13 and picks galore: It’s easy to deride the polls when they don’t give your team enough credit, especially since the only number that really matters in college basketball is whether you’re number 65 (the last team into the NCAA Tournament) or number 66 (the first team out). But, since UW was ranked 13th in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll, and 14th by the Associated Press, I’ve got nothin’ but love for the polls this week.

It also seems that this was the week a lot of sites ran their conference and team preview articles. I enjoyed Rivals.com’s preview, which called Quincy Pondexter the most underrated player in the league. We decided to wait, and you’ll see our big Pac-10 season preview next week.

Walk-on by: The Daily at UW got the scoop on the walk-on situation, which may be a non-factor to the viewing fan, since there’s been no indication yet whether Rudy Sharar and Brendan Sherrer (really? Sharar and Sherrer?) will dress for games.

@LoRo Shhh! This scrimmage is closed: The only information available about last weekend’s closed door scrimmage at St. Mary’s was from Tweets from some of the Dawgs’ players. We, like, totally felt like we’d reached a new low by trying to decipher some of what read.

Pac-10 holds Media Day and reveals that media <HEARTS> Arizona: The Pac-10 asks its regular beat writers (including the Times’ Percy Allen) to submit their 1-10 predictions for order of finish in the league. Arizona, which brings in a strong freshman class, but no one who projects to be a from-day-one impact player in the league, is inexplicably picked fourth. No idea how that makes sense.

Here’s Percy’s first and second post from Media Day. And, if you’re super-interested, watching this video of the event is the best way to hear it all. (As of this writing, though, the video link was not working, although I assume they’ll get it fixed shortly.)

Josh Smith torture show continues: Despite a huge chorus of media calling him a done deal to UCLA, Josh Smith is on his official visit to Washington this weekend. Truly, I hope the kid does what’s best for him, which could be UW and could be UCLA. But, this has reached a whole other level as far as fan investment in a single recruit, and the B of A faithful are not likely to forget this roller-coaster ride in the event Josh’s only college games in Seattle are played in a Bruins uniform.

Shameless: In case you missed them, here are our interviews with Desmond Simmons and Elston Turner.

Big week ahead: This week will mark your first chance to watch the Dawgs play a game, and even though it won’t count, Montlake Madness will be incredibly relieved to have actual basketball to write about.

The exhibition game is Wednesday night at 7 PM against Central Washington at Bank of America Arena. We’ll run a game preview that morning and get you familiar with the opposition, along with pointing out some things to watch for. If you’d like to be there in person (the game isn’t on TV), get your tickets here for only $10.

Thanks for coming!