Announced today by Romar on a conference call, the senior shooting guard will redshirt this season after suffering a broken toe before the season.

This is bad news for the team which is in dire need on on-court leadership. It appears to have been Suggs’ decision as Romar said that he was surprised by his decision but it makes sense.

I’m not sure that I quite agree with that but I’ll trust the player and his confidence on how the injury is healing. Being the leader of the Scott Suggs bandwagon, I feel like it is my duty to support any and all of his decisions.

Impact:

The loss of his veteran presence will be huge to a team that lacks a leader on the court. Suggs has been very vocal on the bench during timeouts and I was hoping that would only improve once he started playing.

On the flip side, without a single recruit signed for next season, Suggs will be a much-needed roster addition. With the potential loss of Ross and/or Wroten, the team could be in need of some guard depth.

More to come later… Bow down.

As we enter the early signing window (when recruits can officially sign letters of intent), Coach Romar and his staff don’t have any verbal commitments which has many people worried.

Romar has stated that next year’s recruiting class (2013) is more of a priority for him than this year’s (2012), but being the only Pac-12 school without a commitment in November is still worrisome.

I’m not in panic mode yet as I believe in Romar’s recruiting ability (he’s very underrated). There is still 6+ months left and he always seems to get great last-minute gems (Ross, Breunig, Aziz, etc).

TheHuskyHaul.com has been doing a great job on keeping up with recruiting this summer/fall and i urge you to head there if you want the latest and greatest.

Here is a recruiting update with who is being reported/rumored to have interest with UW or vice-versa.

Landen Lucas - PF, 6-8 240lb: 

A three-star PF prospect from Portland who just visited Romar and the Dawgs last weekend for the SPU game. Lucas is down to his final four schools (UW, Cal, Stanford, Tennessee) and will announce his choice on November 16th, the last day of the signing period.

Most people feel that UW is in the lead for his services and I believe he is our best bet at landing our first commit/signee.

I’m not a huge fan of Lucas after watching his highlights but I think that he can evolve into a league-average PF. He lacks athleticism but makes up for it in fundamentals. He jumps a little early when contesting shots which needs to be worked on.

It’s never a good sign when your highlight reel doesn’t have you taking one jump shot. I looked high and low for his junior year highlights but they don’t seem to exist.

He is an average to above average passer but his real value is finishing around the hoop and playing defense. He’s basically the ‘yang’ to Breunig’s ‘ying’.

Chances on landing him: 60%

Zena Edosomwan – PF, 6-8 225lb:

Zena is the type of player whose highlights ‘wow’ you. He’s a four-star prospect from L.A. considering Cal, UW, Harvard, USC, and Texas. He also visited UW a few weeks ago but most believe that he will be headed elsewhere.

Between Zena and Lucas, Zena is the far better prospect. He plays much more like MBA and his mid-range game is vastly superior to that of Lucas’. With that said, Lucas does have an edge, it seems, on the defensive end.

Like I said, don’t hold your breath on this one. It seems to be a race between USC and Harvard (so weird).

Chances on landing him: 10%

Anthony Bennett – SF/PF, 6-7 230lb:

He is the type of player that we all dream of watching wear purple and gold. His highlights make you drool. A guy that size who can shoot and jump like that? Incredible. He brings back memories of He Who Shall Not Be Named in terms of size and skill.

Unfortunately, UW is probably not going to land this big fish. He has all of the big schools going after him (Kentucky, Connecticut, West Virginia, Oregon, Pittsburgh, Florida, Missouri, UNLV, Ohio State) which doesn’t bode well. However, he has kept his recruitment very quiet so no one really knows who is in the lead.

He is Canadian, which may help UW, and he has stated that he loves coach Romar (who hasn’t said that). I know that I’m guilty of getting too excited about this guy, so don’t follow in my footsteps. He’s probably not coming here.

Chances on landing him: 5%

Jordan Tebbutt – SF, 6-4 205lb:

Once a budding star, Tebbutt’s stock has taken a large fall as he’s one of those “tweeners”. He’s a little too small for play forward and not quick enough to play guard.

I still like his upside, especially if he were to get into Romar’s system. He’s got a great base to build off of and I think he could be a huge sleeper in this class. He’s got a decent shot but he’s very good at finishing around the rim.

It’s still unclear on whether or not UW has even offered him a scholarship. There’s still a lot of unknowns in his recruitment and I think many schools are waiting to see how he performs during his senior year at Oak Hill before they extend an offer. Don’t expect him to commit anywhere until February or later.

Chance of landing him: 10%

Anrio “Rio” Adams – SG, 6-2 160lb:

He has jumped between the 2012 and 2013 classes but now has stated that he is 100% in the 2012 class and will play his senior year at Garfield.

Adams is a prototype shooting guard whose game is very similar to that of Andrew Andrews. He’s a high-volume scorer who can do a little bit of everything.

After jumping between schools the last few years, many teams are waiting to see how Adams performs during his senior year. While early reports were that Adams wanted to leave the state, it now appears that Romar and Co. are growing on him.

We won’t know more about his decision until February or so. I think UW’s odds are growing and now that he is a 2012 candidate, Romar might put more of his attention on him.

Chance of landing him: 15%

With the summer coming to an end, Percy Allen got a hold of Coach Romar and had a lengthy interview that he is breaking into pieces. I’m sure everyone has read it already but I think there are a lot of interesting chunks of information in there. Many thanks go out to Percy for a spectacular interview.

Romar always gives great interviews and usually gives more than the “no comment” answer that we see from many coaches around the nation. Specifically, his quotes on recruiting are especially interesting with it being such a slow summer in that regard.

If there is something to over analyze, I feel compelled to do so. Like a fly to the flame, I… must… speculate.

“Right now, we just have a couple of pieces to fill. We don’t have very many holes. If we knew everyone was back, we could literally go without signing anyone and be just fine. … If we knew everyone would be back except the seniors, we would be fine.”

While this should seem obvious, it shows that Romar was very pleased with his additions last year. The signings of Breunig and Andrews, specifically, were not “panic signs” but players that he is more than comfortable with putting in key roles.

The second part of that is Romar and the gang are obviously planning as if one or more players will be leaving early to head to the NBA. It’s almost a certainty that either Ross, Wroten, or both will bolt after this season.

“If we went into the spring (with a scholarship) we’d have more of an idea who might leave.”

This is a very interesting quote at the end of a response regarding whether or not he would like to carry an open scholarship into the spring. He begins by saying  “When you need three or four, I think that philosophy would be applicable. This year, I’m good.”, but then ends with the quote above.

Would he hold a scholarship as he waited to see if he needed a point guard (if Wroten leaves) or a small forward (if Ross leaves)? That wouldn’t make much sense as if one of those players leaves it would open up another scholarship.

Perhaps it would allow him to continue to recruit multiple players throughout the season in anticipation of one player leaving after it’s over. In other words, he could tell recruits that he has an open slot available instead of having both scholarships accounted for after the early signing period. Then once another scholarship opens up after a current player leaves, he could sign multiple.

Am I over analyzing? Yes, I am. Deal with it.

“Those are ones that we can’t comment on those. But I’ll say this, in our recruitment I think we’ll be okay.” (in response to whether or not he has received a verbal commitment for 2013 or beyond)

Interesting. Very interesting. Romar admits that he has turned most of his focus to 2013 recruiting. It reads as if Romar said it very confidently and he knows more than he is letting on. Is there a silent commit out there for 2013?

“We’re not recruiting on hype. We’re recruting a guy right now. He’s not going to be a 5-star, if we get him I guarantee you he’ll play like a 5-star.”

This is a quote that got me very excited when I first read it. Oh, awesome, there’s some non-five star kid who Romar loves and thinks will be an All-League guy! Then I started to wonder if he was just speaking hypothetically. I’m going to assume the former because that’s more fun.

Romar is famous for turning lesser ranked players into full-fledged stars. He trusts his staff’s recruiting eye and goes on their instincts. UW’s recent success has been undoubtedly tied to this ability to find these “diamonds in the rough”.

With that said, I hope this unnamed player, who may or may not exist, is one of these players whom Romar has penned as a future star.

Hopefully we get more delicious nuggets from the rest of Romar’s interview that Percy will be posting. All for now. Bow Down.

Coach Romar and the team will be guest serving at Sullivan’s Steakhouse downtown this Friday, the 16th, from noon until 2:00. This is not some crazy Karate Kid “wax on, wax off” training regimen set forth by Romar, but a charity effort in which all proceeds from the lunch will go to Sports in Schools.

This sounds like a very fun event and it’s for a good cause. I’d pay just to see Aziz N’diaye carrying a tray full of drinks for two hours. Bring your raincoat.

If you want to attend, call Sullivan Steakhouse at 206-494-4442.

Here’s the school’s official press release:

SEATTLE – With the college basketball season still weeks away, the Husky Basketball team is using the off time to help out several local charities.

On Friday, Sept. 16, Coach Lorenzo Romar, his entire coaching staff, and all the members of the team will serve guests lunch at Sullivan’s Steakhouse in downtown Seattle from noon until 2:00 p.m. Proceeds from lunch will be generously donated to the nonprofit Sports in Schools.

Guests who would like to attend the lunch, please call Sullivan’s Steakhouse to make reservations: 206-494-4442. Sullivan’s Steakhouse is located at 621 Union Street, Seattle, WA 98101.

Additionally, the team will spend part of their day on Tuesday, Sept. 20 and Thursday, Sept. 22 volunteering at the Seattle Union Gospel Mission.

Players report to campus on Thursday, Sept. 15. Coaches and players will have eight hours a week to be together from then until Oct. 14, when the first official day of practice begins.

About the Charities:
Sports in Schools makes sure athletic opportunities remain available for students in schools across Washington State. More information: www.sportsinschools.org.

Union Gospel Mission has served, rescued, and transformed the hurting and homeless in the community through emergency and long-term services for over 79 years through the grace of Jesus Christ. More information: www.ugm.org. 

I can’t stop laughing at this picture. I think it’s the look on Romar’s face. Please take the time to create your own caption to this photo. It’s the least that this picture deserves.

Zone defenses will neutralize one of the things the Huskies do best: an up-tempo attack with plenty of guard penetration, and it will force them into more outside shooting, still a question mark for the team.

The good news is that this idea of teams trying to beat the Dawgs with a zone has been apparent since training camp, and the Huskies have been preparing for it. Coach Lorenzo Romar mentioned yesterday that Quincy Pondexter quickly becomes scoring option #1 when teams drop out of man-to-man defense. Quincy’s big game last night (including the first 13 Husky points of the second half, all against a zone) was a big part of the reason San Jose State’s upset dreams never came closer to fruition.

While Quincy will continue to find success working out of the high post against the zone, Isaiah may have his difficulties at times, particularly if his jumper isn’t falling.

In my opinion, there is a lineup the Huskies can employ that’ll be set up for dismantling the zone. However, it will at times require Lorenzo Romar to shorten his bench and take a leap of faith with his three best defensive players (Overton, Holiday, and Gant) all on the bench for certain stretches.

The “Zonebuster” squad looks like this: Abdul Gaddy, with his precision passing and more controlled tempo is necessary when the Huskies find themselves playing against a defense that neutralizes their athletic advantage. Isaiah Thomas is too good not to find a way to be successful against the zone, but will need to temper his urge to drive, and look more to dish once the defense has collapsed on him. Elston Turner is the perfect wing to receive these passes. Clearly more comfortable without a defender in his face, Turner could shoot 40%-45% from deep if most of his shots were the open ones often earned against the zone. Quincy Pondexter moving freely between the high post, or making back door cuts along the baseline, gives the Huskies a zonebusting specialist. And, Tyreese Breshers, who can receive the ball and get a shot up even against double coverage, rounds out my Zonebusters lineup. Breshers is enough of a presence not to get swallowed up even when outnumbered in the post.

What do you think? What will the Huskies do to combat the zone this season? Are you concerned? Let me know below, and thanks for coming.

Ryan Petitt / UDubSports.com

Coach Lorenzo Romar may have gotten all the proof he needed, during last week’s exhibition game as Tyreese Breshers was dazzling the arena, that this year’s team may be a lot more similar to last season’s squad than originally envisioned.

Today’s decision to redshirt freshman C.J. Wilcox, universally proclaimed by coaches and teammates to be the Huskies’ “best shooter,” seemed like an odd move to me at first. We’re just not deep enough with shooters for C.J. to be expendable. Not if we’re a team that, having lost its best forward, will rely much more heavily on its strong backcourt for production.

But, then it clicked. Maybe in Coach’s ideal vision, we’re not going to play all that differently from last year. And, if we’re going to rely heavily on our inside game, who’s going to lead that charge? Do we trust MBA yet? Not completely. At least, I don’t.

I kept hearing voices mention Tyreese Breshers. There were hints on media day. Heck, Jon Brockman even said it to me.  And more recently statements by Coach Romar that a starting role may be in line once he’s healthy enough to run 20-25 minutes per game.

A lot more is being expected of Breshers, once he’s finally healthy, than I’d anticipated coming into this season. And, if he can live up to these expectations, and we can get some major production in the paint, then we can get by with one sharpshooter on the roster, with Elston Turner playing the role of gunner-off-the-bench. This allows C.J. to be a part of Husky basketball until 2014, and helps ease some of the crowding in the Husky backcourt.

Of course, Breshers needs to get fully healthy. If Coach too often needs to move Quincy Pondexter down low to the “4″ spot just to firm up a weakness in rebounding, or the lack of a low-post scoring threat, I think there will be nights we miss C.J. too much to make the move worth it.

But, if Tyreese can live up to the growing cacophony of whispers, and be that main presence in the paint, this years’ Dawgs might resemble last years’ more than we ever expected.

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!

Can you tell that I’m excited?

A couple of links this morning:

Here’s Rivals.com’s Pac-10 preview, picking Cal to win the league, and Quincy Pondexter as its most underrated player.

Percy Allen blogged about Lorenzo Romar’s press conference yesterday, and reported that Tyreese Breshers will be ready to start the season, but not at 100%. He also reported that Justin Holiday should be ready for the November 13th opener against Wright State.

Here’s the Times story on Breshers’ journey back to health.

UW’s website did a preview of the team’s guards.

And, it isn’t Husky-related, but this article should be required reading for anyone who’s ever thought of saying “I can’t” when faced with a steep challenge (read: all of us).

Tomorrow: An interview you’re not going to want to miss.

Coming up soon: The Montlake Madness Pac-10 Preview. We’ll preview the players and teams likely to make the most noise in the conference this season.

Thanks for coming!

Big Foot not pregnant with coach’s baby: In a little bit of Northwest basketball drama, Washington proposed a series of games to Gonzaga, all taking place at Key Arena, and alerted the media. Gonzaga fired back, saying “not so fast,” first through its athletic director, then with some tough talk from coach Mark Few, who seems to have given more thought to the idea of sasquatch/human copulation than may be healthy.

Dawgfluenza: More than half of the Husky roster came down with the flu, starting with Darnell Gant shortly after the team’s Midnight Madness event on October 16th. While it’s likely the afflicted players put in an impressive amount of virtual court time on NBA 2K10, the illnesses preventing the team from starting their real practice regimen until late in the week. Here’s our post on the outbreak, and here’s the wire story from the AP (national coverage!) picked up by ESPN.

LoRo wants you!: The flu bug seemed to trigger Coach to reconsider his reluctance to add a walk-on or two to this year’s squad, likely to warm the bench during games, but push players in practice (and, ensure enough healthy bodies to run a full-court scrimmage). Eight players showed up to Thursday’s walk-on tryouts, and Coach planned to call any lucky winners on Friday. No word in this recap from The Times as to whether one of the contestants was UW tight end, Kavario Middleton.

Sports Illustrated <Hearts> the Huskies!: CNNSI picked the Husky backcourt as the sixth best in the nation, but left out Scott Suggs when they listed the Dawg’s guards. Montlake Madness is channeling Shaq and suggesting the nickname “The Big Oversight” for Suggs this season. We also sincerely hope Scott makes Luke Winn feel stupid by season’s end. (Cal was picked fifth.)

Sports Illustrated <Hearts> the Huskies!, part II: CNNSI also picked Isaiah Thomas as the ninth most exciting player in the country, ranked ahead of Michigan State’s Kalin Lucas and NCAA Tournament opponent, Jarvis Varnado, but behind Willie Warren, and number-one pick, Greivis Vasquez of Maryland.

In case you missed it: We caught up with Husky legend Jon Brockman to talk about his NBA experience so far. . . We spoke to Abdul Gaddy. . . And, check out Doug Haller’s blog. He covers Arizona State for The Arizona Republic, but often does a good rundown of what’s going on around the Pac-10. . . And, here’s another great college hoops blog as well, called March Madness All Season.

Thanks so much for coming!

*We may move these to Mondays once the season gets going, so they can cover the weekend’s games as well.