College Basketball
Zag Nation still silent on Sound
By Bud Withers
Seattle Times staff reporter
In a moment of introspection between days of the NCAA basketball regional last March at KeyArena, Gonzaga coach Mark Few reflected on a paradox, the relationship of the state's largest city and the program to the east that would be big-time.
So near, yet so far.
"Some people in Seattle think Spokane is in North Dakota or something," he said.
You surmised he was including some high-school coaches and their recruits.
Well, tonight, television brings you a little slice of Bismarck. The Zags will be on TV against Washington's suddenly torrid Huskies from Gonzaga's new McCarthey Athletic Center.
In fact, get used to Gonzaga. The Zags will be splashed onto your screen more than Steve Lavin this winter, when they play Saint Louis next week, when they go to Santa Clara and Saint Mary's, when they host San Francisco and San Diego.
Without a lot of fanfare, the Zags signed a four-year deal last spring that gives them unprecedented television exposure. They were already guaranteed seven national appearances on ESPN or ESPN2 (with a couple of more possible in the West Coast Conference tournament), when they announced an arrangement with KHQ in Spokane and Fox Sports Net that will televise every Gonzaga game in the Seattle area.
It's a remarkable step forward for a program that as recently as a decade ago hadn't yet qualified for its first NCAA tournament.
"We've always had a great brand here in Spokane," said Gonzaga associate athletic director Mike Hogan. "But reaching out to get more people loving the Zags ? the Seattle market is obviously important to that."
Many of those games will carry starting times foreign to Gonzaga fans, as FSN has worked to clear space for them. There are lots of Saturday afternoon starts and several Thursday tips at 6 p.m.
Mark Shuken, general manager and vice president of FSN, says FSN has "cleared" 11 of the 17 dates for which it has contracted. That leaves six conflicts with other programming ? such as Pac-10 Thursday night telecasts ? which FSN plans to farm to other outlets in the Seattle area.
"The first one is Dec. 11 (a Spokane date with Saint Louis)," Shuken said. "Frankly, we're hustling to get that done so we can announce the (six-game) package."
Shuken estimates that a year ago, the Gonzaga TV package with KHQ touched about 400,000 homes east of the mountains. He says the addition of FSN brings that total to about 3.4 million homes.
"Their timing was right," said Shuken, "and so was ours."
The potential is there, as Hogan says, for a lot more loving of the Zags, although if you saw Illinois race to a 58-27 halftime lead against them the other day, you might be tempted to conclude that this will be a hot-and-cold relationship.
Fact is, the TV deal represents only a step ? albeit a big one ? on a long haul for Gonzaga. It's not the culmination of the Zags' rise to prominence, merely another instrument in the symphony.
This is the reality: Odd as it may seem, Gonzaga is a bigger phenomenon nationally than it is around Puget Sound.
Without a lot of fanfare last week, Gonzaga announced the signing of 6-foot-2 guard Jeremy Pargo of Chicago. Buried in a story in the back pages was Few's assessment of Pargo as "the most sought-after player we've ever signed at Gonzaga."
Pargo's signing comes after the most decorated class of Seattle recruits in history was available. Gonzaga didn't seek all of them, but it went hard after Marcus Williams of Roosevelt and Jon Brockman of Snohomish and came up dry.
As Few noted last spring, the Seattle area is a tough nut for Gonzaga to crack. That's why there was such rejoicing when the Zags landed Erroll Knight on the rebound from Washington two years ago. To an inner-city kid in Seattle, Gonzaga is liable to be as jarring a choice as red counties over blue, cold over drizzle, conservative over hip.
When Gonzaga made its first forays into the NCAA tourney, the roster was laden with players from Western Washington, like Casey Calvary of Tacoma. Now the Zags are a mix of the exotic (Martinique's Ronny Turiaf, Brazilian J.P. Batista, Texas Tech transfer Nathan Doudney) and the best of Eastern Washington (Sean Mallon, Adam Morrison).
Says Few, who grew up just outside Eugene, Ore., "I've always thought there was a little bit of an information tunnel that goes up and down I-5. I lived in it for 20-odd years. All you ever read about or see is those schools up and down I-5. Once you branch out of there, wow, there's all these other things.
"It's funny. At times, we're overexposed by ESPN and nationally."
Backed by a new TV contract, Gonzaga is thus on an unspoken mission: Get Seattle to join the rest of the nation.
