(Baseball cards graphic/s from Lewiston Trib
website.)
WSU Cougar Baseball:
New crew of Cougs hoping to defy expectations in
Pac-12
Lees
excited about young talent heading into season
By Stephan Wiebe Moscow Pullman Daily News Feb
14, 2019
PULLMAN —
When a baseball team loses four of its top six hitters and its top three
pitchers, it’s easy to see why Washington State was picked to finish 10th in
the 11-team Pac-12 Conference this season.
But that
news fell on deaf ears for WSU coach Marty Lees and the 2019 Cougars, who are
excited about their young talent — WSU’s recruiting class was ranked No. 28 in
the country by D1baseball.com — and think this spring could be a surprise
season.
In his fourth
year, Lees and crew will try to improve on a disappointing 16-33-1 mark (8-21-1
Pac-12) from a year ago. The Cougs open the season Friday at Saint Mary’s.
“There’s
not a lot of people who think we have a chance at being good, but we know
what’s in this locker room, we know the grind we’ve went through the last few
months,” Lees said. “The energy is high as it ever has been, so we’re just
excited to get down and start playing.”
Among
WSU’s returners is a core group of solid hitters and fielders.
Lees calls
center fielder Danny Sinatro one of the best outfielders in the conference. The
speedy junior made a name for himself with diving catches last season and led
the team with nine stolen bases in 11 attempts.
Fan
favorite Andres Alvares will hold down the shortstop spot for the third
straight season. The senior will try to improve on his .263 batting average
that was down from his sophomore campaign, but he’s no slouch in the field,
where he committed only one error in conference play.
Rounding
out the trio is utility infielder Dillon Plew, whose .277 average and 30 runs
scored are tops among returners. Plew has moved around the infield, playing
second base as a freshman, third as a junior and, now, first base as a senior.
Add in
senior Rob Teel at catcher and it’s not a bad bunch. Teel hit .267 and tallied
13 RBI despite missing half the season with an injury.
“I really like how this team has come
together,” Lees said. “When you line up from starting at catcher and go to the
middle of our infield all the way out to center, we return a very good
defensive team. Our shortstop had one error in Pac-12 play last year — that’s a
pretty good start.”
The
pitching rotation, meanwhile, features more questions than answers. There are
plenty of new arms in the bullpen and it should be a welcome sight to a
pitching crew that accumulated a 5.66 ERA last season — 10th in the conference.
Junior
lefty A.J. Block (1-4, 4.91 ERA) is the
leading returner and will start in WSU’s first game.
The
Cougars’ other projected starters are sophomore Hayden Rosenkrantz (0-2, 4.95),
junior Dylan Steen of Spokane, a NJCAA All-American last year at College of
Southern Idaho, and freshman Ky Bush, an all-state player out of Utah.
“I’m really excited about our pitching
rotation, especially since we’ve got a lot of new guys this year,” Block said.
“But the most exciting thing about that is it seems like everyone is ready to
go right away.
“There
wasn’t a whole lot of an adjustment period in the fall and early in the spring,
especially the freshman. They seem like they’re ready to get on the mound and
make a difference right away.”
Among
WSU’s newcomers in the field are Clarkston product Koby Blunt in the outfield
and sophomore Garrett Gouldsmith at second base — a transfer from New Mexico.
“The addition of Garret Gouldsmith in the
middle of the field has added a personality that’s needed,” Lees said. “He’s a
real baseball player. He’s great to be around, he knows what he’s doing.”
With the
Palouse in the middle of a days-long winter storm, the Cougars have had to
practice indoors and they’re eager to get out and play another team in warmer
Moraga, Calif. The four-game series will go through Sunday.
WSU’s home
debut is scheduled for Feb. 28 against Nevada.
“We’re tired of being inside and we’re ready
to go play someone else,” Lees said.
:::::::::::::::::::
Feb 14,
2019 at 8:42 am from Pullman Radio News
The
National Weather Service has issued a Winter Weather Advisory for Whitman
County. Another couple inches of snow is possible with a chance for some
freezing rain. The advisory runs from 10:00 Thursday morning until 10:00
Thursday night.
--Pullman
Radio News on Feb. 14, 2019, morning said, “Washington State University is
starting 2 hours late this morning.”
--On
Feb 14, 2019, Moscow Pullman Daily News reported, “There were nearly 180
reported traffic accidents since Sunday in Whitman and Latah counties - and
those are likely to continue based on the rain and snow forecast today and
Friday.” It also said, “From Sunday to noon Tuesday, the Washington State
Patrol responded to 107 traffic accidents in Whitman County, said Trooper Jeff
Sevigney. He said there were no serious injuries. In the same span, the Whitman
County Sheriff's Office responded to 13 vehicle slide-offs and seven vehicles
stuck on the road or in a ditch.” And, it said, “In Pullman, there were at
least 16 reported traffic accidents during that time, but no major injuries,
Pullman Police Cmdr. Chris Tennant said.
--The
Lewiston Trib, on Feb. 14, 2019, said, “The weather outlook through the weekend
into Tuesday is more and plenty of the same, with periods of heavy snow on the
Palouse. The University of Idaho shut down at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday after the
region was hammered by almost nonstop snow since Sunday. A National Weather
Service winter storm warning reported pockets of freezing rain is possible
today.” And, it said, “NWS Spokane Meteorologist Matt Fugazzi said Pullman
reported 6 to 7 inches of snow Wednesday. Fugazzi said that didn’t appear like
a record-breaking amount, but it is a late storm for the snow to be dropping
this heavily in mid-February.”
:::::::::::::
:::::
Alert: Possibly no News for CougGroup report on Friday and Saturday, Feb.
15-16, 2019. If so, sorry about that, but circumstances may dictate. ::::::
::::::::::::::
The Pac-12 Networks are struggling worse than
you imagine
By Jon Wilner Pac-12 Hotline , San Jose Merc
News 2/13/2019
Some
schools are receiving annual payouts from the networks that are a fraction of
what they’d hoped for — and a fraction of what has been reported in the media —
when the real cost of the content is included in the calculation.
Midway
through their seventh year, the Pac-12 Networks aren’t merely stagnating.
They’re shrinking in reach and drastically underperforming revenue
expectations, according to information obtained by the Hotline that sheds
unprecedented light on the financial realities of the conference’s wholly-owned
media company.
Some
schools, for example, are receiving annual payouts from the networks that are a
fraction of what they’d hoped for — and a fraction of what has been reported in
the media — when the real cost of the content is included in the calculation.
“From Day
One, I worried about them having all those channels and having to produce all
that programming,” said USF sports management professor Dan Rascher, referring
to the seven feeds (one national, six regional) and 850 live events per year.
While
frustrated with the lack of revenue, coaches and athletic department officials
told the Hotline that the limited reach of the networks is at least as damaging
to the football and men’s basketball products.
“We’ve got
to get eyes on the product,’’ Washington State coach Mike Leach said. “It’s
about exposure and money, and you don’t have one without the other.’’
On a
relative basis, the Pac-12 Networks don’t have much of either.
Launched
in August 2012, the networks have reached a point in their life cycle,
according to industry analysts, when they should be growing incrementally or
holding steady. Instead, they’re losing audience.
Information
provided to the Hotline by SNL Kagan, the renowned media research firm,
indicates the Pac-12 Networks have lost seven percent of their audience since
the peak in 2016, with much of the decline attributed to the discontinuation of
service on U-verse last year.
With just
17.9 million subscribers (per Kagan), the Pac-12 Networks will have fewer
subscribers in 2019 than The Pursuit Channel, The Sportsman Channel, Fox
Deportes and Z Living, according to Nielsen cable coverage estimates from the
fall.
ESPN
analyst Brock Huard, the former Washington quarterback who hosts a radio show
in Seattle, said the lack of reach has cast a pall over the conference,
particularly in football.
“It
affects everything. It impacts everything. It is your brand,” he said. “It is
what you put out there for the country to see.
“We go on
the road and go out to dinner as a (production) crew … and you go to Buffalo
Wild Wings or a sports bar, anything you can find, and we want to watch these
games and the network isn’t on. You can’t find it.
“It
affects everything.”
By
comparison, the Big Ten and SEC networks have three or four times the audience
of the Pac-12 Networks and are believed to generate three or four times the
revenue for the schools, as well.
That
disparity is due, in part, to contrasting business models:
The Big
Ten and SEC partnered with Fox and ESPN, respectively, which gave them leverage
in negotiating distribution deals; the Pac-12, which has a smaller population
within its footprint, lower ratings for its games and less fan affinity,
eschewed a partner and retained 100 percent ownership.
That
approach has created steep distribution challenges — DirecTV, to cite one
example — but commissioner Larry Scott and campus officials hope having full
control of their content will prove visionary when the conference renegotiates
its media contracts in several years.
“We are
working collectively to be in the best position for the next go around,’’ UCLA
athletic director Dan Guerrero said. “The quality of the network production is
first-rate, and we feel there will be incredible interest in our content moving
forward.”
Guerrero
also acknowledged that the resources generated by the Pac-12 “are obviously not
what schools had hoped for at the outset.”
In fact,
the resources haven’t even met the lowest expectations held by many campus
officials, according to more than 20 interviews conducted for this story. (Most
officials declined to speak on the record.)
The
conference has never disclosed the financial guidance given to the campuses in
2011-12, during the run-up to the launch of the networks.
Officially,
the schools were advised to avoid budgeting for a specific revenue amount and
that in an extreme, worst-case scenario, the networks would still manage to
break even.
However,
in a pre-launch presentation attended by athletic directors, Scott dazzled the
room by providing three ranges of annual payouts (once the networks had exited
the start-up phase).
According
to a source who attended the presentation, those payout ranges were:
High end:
$7 million to $10 million per school per year
Middle: $5
million to $7 million per school per year
Low end:
$3 million to $5 million per school per year.
When asked
about that guidance, former Washington State athletic director Bill Moos said
he didn’t recall the exact figures but remembered vividly the reaction in the
room.
“We were
all giddy,’’ Moos said. “And we wouldn’t have been a giddy over $2 million (per
year).
“We were
just coming off the biggest Tier 1 deal in the history off college sports” —
the $3 billion agreement with ESPN and Fox — “and everybody was jumping up and
down. (Scott) had just walked the walk, so why shouldn’t we believe him?”
The
presidents and chancellors were all in with Scott, to the point that his annual
compensation of $4.8 million — he’s the highest-paid commissioner in collegiate
athletics — is based on his dual roles as conference commissioner and media
executive.
Last fall,
during his court testimony in a high-profile lawsuit against the NCAA, Scott
explained: “An important component of determining my compensation is based on a
unique dual role that I have serving as commissioner of the conference, but
also executive chairman of a media company that’s wholly owned by our 12
schools where we’re unique in that regard.”
But after
six payout cycles, the networks have yet to even hit the low end of the
expected range, according to financial information obtained by the Hotline.
Details of
the networks’ financial performance are closely guarded, with only the total
income provided on the federal tax returns. (In the 2017 fiscal year, the
listed income was $127,850,701.)
The
conference does not separate Pac-12 Networks distributions from the larger
annual payouts to the schools, which include revenue from Fox and ESPN, March
Madness and the football postseason — it does not cut a separate check, so to
speak.
Nor does
the conference distribute financial details to the schools, thereby avoiding
the potential for those details to be subject to public records requests.
Instead,
the annual payout figures are made available for temporary viewing by campus
financial officers on a secure website, according to multiple sources.
“It’s very
frustrating,’’ one administrator said.
The figure
provided on the website is a lump-sum amount. Two Hotline sources with access
have copied down that amount over the years, then divided by 12 to determine
the payouts to each school.
Those
payout numbers are as follows:
2013: None
listed
2014:
$862,000 per school
2015
$1,677,500 per school
2016
$1,980,250 per school
2017:
$2,522,167 per school
2018:
$2,666,667 per school
Over the
six completed fiscal years of the networks’ existence, the total payout per
school, as tallied by campus officials, is $9,708,584 per school — not even at
the top end of the single-year range referenced by the source who attended
Scott’s presentation.
“They told
us, ‘This is what we think it’s going to be,’’’ said John Perrin, the longtime
CFO of the Arizona athletic department who retired two years after the networks
were launched.
“And it
hasn’t panned out anywhere near where they thought.”
But that’s
not the end of the financial story, at least from the schools’ perspective.
Not only
are the annual payouts below the expectations of many athletic department
officials. They are, in the eyes of some, merely a gross number.
The Pac-12
Networks would not exist without an inventory of content, without the games
themselves.
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But in
order to acquire that inventory, the conference needed each athletic department
to buy back the TV rights to local football and basketball broadcasts — the
games not shown nationally on ABC or ESPN — from its sponsorship and marketing
partner.
Once all
the local rights had been repurchased from the likes of IMG and Learfield, they
were pooled together to form the content backbone of the Pac-12 Networks.
(The SEC
went through the same process a few years ago when forming its network.)
The amount
and duration of the buy-back process varied by school and was based on
individual contracts.
Some, like
Washington and Washington State, have completed the repurchasing process;
others have not.
In most
cases, the cost of repurchasing the local rights was substantial.
Over a
four-year period, for example, UCLA had $5.6 million “carved out” of a larger
sponsorship deal with IMG as compensation for the loss of its TV rights,
according to a school official.
Back that
figure out of the $9.7 million distributed to each campus by the Pac-12
Networks, and the Bruins have received $4.1 million in net revenue. That’s an
average of $683,333 per year over six years of the networks.
Cal
reported a bigger hit over a longer buy-back process, reimbursing IMG to the
tune of $7.1 million over five years.
Remove
that from the Pac-12 Networks’ payout, and the Bears have received an average
of $433,333 in net annual revenue — or 1/20th of the amount in the high range
of the scenario presented to athletic directors.
But at
least Cal and UCLA are finished with the buybacks.
Oregon
State must compensate Learfield $1 million annually through 2022 for the
repurchase of its local TV rights.
Carve $6
million out of OSU’s total payout thus far from the Pac-12 Networks, and the
Beavers are left with an average of $616,000 per year in net distributions.
To put
that figure in context with the cost of doing business in major college
athletics consider this:
OSU
defensive coordinator Tim Tibesar was paid $550,000 last season.
“When
you’re trying to measure the true cost associated with the decision to do (the
Pac-12 Networks),’’ a conference source said, “the buy-backs are not
insignificant.”
::::::::::::::
Pullman
finalizes budget to improve downtown
City has
budgeted $100,000 to begin long-term updates
By KURIA
POUNDS, Evergreen Feb 14, 2019
Pullman is
set to experience several appearance renovations in upcoming years, said
Allison Fisher, WSU graduate student and Downtown Pullman initiative
coordinator.
The City
of Pullman has set aside $100,000 to begin improvements around town, according
to an article from the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.
Fisher
said the City of Pullman will be assisted by the Downtown Pullman Association,
a non-profit formed to organize projects and goals for what downtown Pullman
will look like in the future.
The
association focuses on business networking and awareness of what downtown
Pullman offers, she said.
“One of
the ideas generated was to help revitalize downtown Pullman,” said Fisher.
She said
the non-profit is not limited to just students here at WSU or people who are
involved with the community. They encourage anyone interested in the renovation
process, to join in the efforts and offer their opinions.
“If they
have the passion, if they work downtown, [or] they own a business — those are
all people who have great ideas,” Fisher said.
She said
city council members have brought up the idea of “pocket parks,” which are
little green spaces meant for residents to go hang out in the downtown area.
“It’s a
place where we all own it, and have this radical inclusivity,” Fisher said.
“Everyone can go there.”
Fisher
said the association wants to make downtown Pullman accommodating for all
genders, races, ethnicities and ages. They’d like to open more spaces for the
public as a whole to feel comfortable using.
“I think a
lot of different ideas could generate a good solution to that,” said Fisher.
She said
she became involved in these projects as a part of her job working for the
Office of the President. She’s now working on town relations initiatives.
Renovations
are expected to arrive in the next five, 10 and possibly 15 years, she said.
Fisher
said that in the next five to 10 years, they would like to see more students
going downtown. They also want to create a special place for all community
members.
“If the
alumni come back, they say that downtown is special to me and it should be a
part of people’s lives,” Fisher said.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
TRACK
& FIELD Cougars compete in Last Chance Collegiate
WSU
travels to Seattle for final meet before MPSF Indoor Champs
By KATIE
ARCHER, Evergreen Feb 14, 2019
Nearly 30
WSU athletes will compete in the Last Chance College Elite Meet Friday at the
Dempsey Indoor Facility in Seattle.
Wayne
Phipps, director of cross-country and track and field, said the 26 athletes
competing are the pole-vaulters, distance runners and a few throwers.
Last
weekend, some athletes, including the pole-vaulters, did not get a chance to
compete. Typically, the distance runners compete about once every two weeks.
Some have raced once and others have yet to race at a meet, he said.
“I think
there’s a level of confidence to coming off a good performance a week or two
prior to a championship,” Phipps said. “Always, always helps.”
Tentatively,
the meet will start at 2 p.m. with the women’s weight throw followed by the
men’s weight throw. The women’s shot put and men’s shot put will follow. At 3
p.m. the women’s pole vault, women’s long jump and men’s long jump will start,
followed by the men’s pole vault at 4:30 p.m.
The
running events will start at 4 p.m. with the women’s 600-meter dash. The men’s
distance medley relay starts at 6:45 p.m. and will conclude the running events
for the meet.
The last
chance meet used to happen after the conference championship weekend, which for
WSU is the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, Phipps said. Often there’s a
weekend between conference championships and the NCAA championships, which is
where the last chance meet used to happen.
However,
he said it didn’t seem like a fair way to finalize the competition as too many
athletes were qualifying to the NCAA championships in that meet.
“Although
this is called a last chance meet at UW, it’s basically your last meet prior to
your conference championships,” Phipps said.
This is
the last meet before MPSF Indoor Championships on Feb. 22-23 at the Dempsey
Indoor Facility in Seattle.
::::::::::::::::
WSU SWIMMING
Lone
senior reflects on WSU career
Swimmer
Linnea Lindberg originates from Stockholm, Sweden; says she considers Pullman
home after four years
BY JOHN
SPELLMAN, Evergreen February the 14th of 2019
When most
people think of Sweden or Pullman, they might only think of a cold-weather
place. However, WSU swimmer Linnea Lindberg thinks of both places as home.
Lindberg,
the lone senior on the WSU swimming team, is from Stockholm, Sweden.
“It is
difficult to come to a new culture and experience a whole new place and
language and everything,” Lindberg said. “A lot of my teammates back home went
to college to swim and they said it was the best thing ever … and I wouldn’t
want to do it any other way.”
Despite
the geographical difference, Lindberg has enjoyed her time in Pullman. As she
prepares for her final home swim meet, she fondly recalls how she became so
connected to WSU.
“It has
been challenging, but most of all it has been so much fun,” Lindberg said. “I
am so happy with when it has been difficult and still having a team and having
a close relationship with my teammates.”
Lindberg
also had a successful career in her previous three years in Pullman, setting
multiple personal bests at Pac-12 Championships.
“The
Pac-12 is so cool because there are so many fast swimmers and it is so
competitive,” Lindberg said. “I think for me in the pool, it is nice to
experience a meet like that because then going into other meets you’re more
calm and you know what is going on.”
The rest
of the team consists of six freshmen, six sophomores and two juniors. For the
past couple of years, Lindberg acted as a role model to her teammates.
As the
only senior on the team, Lindberg embraces her role as a leader on the emerging
WSU swimming program.
“The
beginning of the year was difficult when there were a lot of changes and, sure,
I would’ve loved to have other seniors here for the senior meet,” Lindberg
said. “But coming out of this, I just want to be a good role model for the
other people on the team.”
Although
she spends a lot of time in the pool, she knows the importance of focusing on
her academics. Between swimming and working toward a psychology degree,
Lindberg stays active on campus.
Lindberg
said the hardest part about being a student-athlete is learning time
management.
“It’s all
about just managing your time well, you know, planning ahead. You have to be
productive you can’t just sit around,” Lindberg said. “Maybe you won’t always
be able to go out Saturday night and hang with friends, but you got to put
yourself first.”
As a key
member of the swimming program, one person who sees Lindberg’s impact on a
daily basis is Head Swim Coach Matt Leach.
“It is
really important having Linnea as a senior,” Leach said. “We want to send
Linnea out in the best way possible and as a program, we can help her make the
NCAA Tournament.”
Even
though she still has a few months left at WSU, Lindberg already has plans for
when she graduates.
“I am
going to spend a couple weeks in Turkey to train for nationals in Sweden.
Depending on how I do at the Pac-12 meet, I might try to go to another event
for the Swedish National team.”
She still
dreams of going to the Olympics for Sweden but is happy with everything she
already achieved. In fact, she wants to apply to graduate school in the fall to
study cognitive psychology.
Though she
may be far from her home in Sweden, Lindberg has found important qualities in
herself by leading others in and out of the pool. Her final home meet as a
Cougar is against Utah this Saturday at Gibb Pool.
“I am
super grateful to have this experience away from home and be a part of college
swimming,” Lindberg said. “Being able to work as a team and with different
kinds of people, facing challenges together instead of just myself is going to
be really helpful.”
::::::::::::::::::
WSU Men’s
Basektball: Growing role of Coug palyer Aljaz Kunc symbolic of team's growth
By BRADEN
JOHNSON Cougfan.com
When it
comes to freshmen basketball players roaming the Palouse, C.J. Elleby is
proving himself an uber-talent this season but as the surging Washington State
Cougars head into this Saturday evening's home showdown with league leader
Washington, another Cougar freshman (Elleby's roommate, in fact) figures to
play a notable part in the proceedings.
Small
forward Aljaz Kunc -- a 6-8, 198-pounder who makes Robbie Cowgill look like a
left tackle -- has worked himself into a prime time slot in the Cougars'
rotation. His rise in play and production is symbolic of WSU's midseason
renaissance. Like the Cougars generally, Kunc has figured it out.
“It feels
great,” he tells Cougfan.com. “When someone passes you the ball, sometimes that
pass is filled with trust, if you know what I mean. It's just easier to play,
easier to shoot, easier to be confident in yourself, you know?”
The
Slovenia import -- nicknamed Jaz -- played 25 minutes in WSU's Sunday upset of
Arizona and while his stats were modest (2 points and 3 rebounds), he was a key
part of a man-to-man defense that held the Wildcats to just 55 points. In the
four games leading up to that victory he averaged 17.25 minutes -- up from 9.5
in WSU's first six Pac-12 games.
Kunc’s
emergence gives WSU a potent option at forward as coach Ernie Kent increasingly
plays Franks, Elleby and Kunc simultaneously. The three pose matchup problems
for opponents at both ends of the court -- all three are 6-6-or-taller, shoot
with touch, and possess the long arms to guard the perimeter.
“He’s a
6-8 do-it-all freshman -- kind of like CJ,” Franks says of Kunc. “CJ has been
able to get more minutes in this season and now Jaz is getting minutes and he’s
making the most of his opportunity.”
Junior
forward Jeff Pollard says the parallels between Kunc and Elleby are notable.
“They’re both super competitive, and that kind of dynamic is good,” he tells
CF.C. “They live together, they’re around each other, so they always have that
natural competition with each other.”
Teammates
also note that the two are both upbeat in attitude.
Kunc said
breaking down film with Elleby and watching the Seattle product adjust,
seemingly effortlessly, to major-conference basketball has helped Kunc become a
more complete forward.
KUNC
WEIGHED AROUND 180 pounds when he arrived in Pullman last June and gained 15
pounds of muscle before the start of fall practices. In many respects, he's a
classic European forward -- excellent court sense, long arms, can shoot, pass
and handle -- but he needed time to adjust to the speed and physicality of
college ball.
Kunc moved
to the United States in 2017 and played his final year of prep ball at Impact
Academy in Florida. "Coming to high school in America, the speed was way
faster,” he said. “The style of the game was more physical. Now that I came (to
WSU), that just doubles or triples.”
Kunc says
he laughs when people in airports mistake him for 7-3 NBA All-Star Kristaps
Porzingas of Latvia. Franks, though, sees merit to the comparison. “You can
definitely see the skillset and the overseas smartness that he brings to the
United States,” he said of Kunc.
Adds
Pollard: “He’ll come up to me sometimes at practice and say, ‘Maybe we should
do this instead of that,’ and I’m sitting there like,’ How did you even come up
with that?’ He sees the game really differently and you can tell he’s been
studying the game for years.”
KUNC SAID
HE HAS NOT struggled to communicate on the court and adjust to college
academics. Part of what Kunc describes as a smooth transition once he got over
being homesick stems from the fact Kunc is multilingual. He is fluent in
English, Slovenian and Serbian and gets by with German. He tells people he
speaks three-and-a-half languages.
A KEY TO
KUNC’S RECENT RISE may have been good-for-the-soul visit from his parents three
weeks ago. Mom, Karmen, and dad, Andrej, visited WSU and traveled to the
Cougars' road games against Oregon State and Oregon on Jan. 24 and 27.
It was the
first time Kunc’s parents had been to Pullman and met WSU’s coaching staff.
Kunc took his official visit to WSU by himself and has not been back to
Slovenia in more than a year.
“The most
important thing for them was to see where I go to school,” Kunc said. “They
really didn’t have an idea of where I am. Then when they met the coaching staff
and all the academic people who are around me, they were just happy that I’m in
such good hands.”
Related:
Kunc says WSU feels like home
Kent said
after the USC game Kunc seeing his parents helped him relax and take a reset.
Franks
also said there is a link between Kunc’s strong play of late and the visit.
“Them coming down here and spending time with him, I think definitely boosted
his confidence as well as his minutes.”
EVEN WHEN
MINUTES WERE tough to find earlier in the season and losses piled up, Kunc knew
not to let go of his faith in WSU. He said his recruiting visit more so than
his recent stretch of games first gave him the confidence that he could be an
impact player for the Cougars.
On
Saturday against UW, Kunc will be a key fixture in breaking the Huskies’ sticky
2-3 zone captained by coach Mike Hopkins and Matisse Thybulle, last season’s
Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year. It projects as Kunc’s biggest test as
fixture in the Cougars’ regular rotation.
It took
Kunc three-quarters of the regular season to get to this point and for the
Cougars to gel, but he said it was just a matter of time.
“It was
hard at first,” he said. “I admit it. The first few conference games, the first
few games in the NCAA, it was kind of a shock for me. I had to adapt a little
bit. But now that I’m being more relaxed, it gets easier and easier every
game.”
NOTABLE:
--Kunc
said he and roommate Elleby -- who are both upbeat in personality -- get along
beautifully but sometimes have small arguments. “Like sometimes whether to
sleep with the fan on or the fan off and the temperature of the room. But
besides that, we get along really good,” he said.
--On the
season, Kunc is averaging 10.7 minutes, 3 points and 1.6 rebounds per game. He
also has 11 steals and 9 assists.
--Right
now, life is all school work and basketball, but come the evening of April 14
he will be parked in front of a TV. He's a big-time Game of Thrones fan.
:::::::::::::::
WOMEN’S
BASKETBALL
UW at WSU Friday
Feb. 15 | 7 p.m. Friel Court at Beasley Coliseum on the WSU campus in Pullman
Live Stats | WSUCougars.com
Pac-12
Networks (Greg Heister & Joan Bonvicini)
Listen | WSU IMG Radio Network
OPENING
FIVE =
> Round
2 of the Boeing Apple Cup Series tips off Friday as the Cougs go for the season
sweep of the Huskies at Beasley. The Cougs last swept the season series in 2014
the only time since the 1970s.
> WSU
came up with a huge win over Arizona last time out, defeating the Wildcats
90-88 to snap a 7-game skid.
GAME
INFORMATION - VS WASHINGTON = The Cougs
clash with the Huskies in round two of the Boeing Apple Cup Series in their
lone contest of the week. The Cougars look for their first sweep of UW since
the 2014 season, the only year WSU swept the season series since the 1970s. WSU
took the first meeting, 79-76, at Seattle in Dec. behind the career effort of
Borislava Hristova who scored 38 points (the third highest single game total in
program history).
The
Huskies have lost seven-straight contests including falling to Arizona in what
became their lone game of the week due to a snow out in Seattle Saturday. (A
game scheduled vs. Arizona State in Seattle was not played.) Amber Melgoza, who
scored 27 in the loss to the Cougs in Dec., enters the week averaging 18.8
points per game, eighth best in the Pac-12.
#
