Men's hoops no longer under the radar

The Washington Huskies can throw the "no respect" card out the window.

That's not one they can play any longer.

Not after a week in which they were rated in the top 10 by at least one poll the earliest in any season since 1985, praised by Dick Vitale in USA Today as "legit," and given a No. 2 seed in ESPN.com's weekly prediction of how the NCAA tournament will unfold.

The bigger question now — as the Huskies take on Eastern Washington at 7 tonight at Edmundson Pavilion — is whether they are really deserving of all this praise. After all, their 8-0 record has been built against a schedule slotted 318th out of 334 Division I-A teams in this week's Sagarin Ratings.

That's a ranking that doesn't figure to improve much until the Huskies hit the road for the first time in mid-January. Until then, UW will play its next six at home beginning tonight and continuing with Lehigh, Arizona State, Arizona, Cornell and Washington State. The Huskies figure to be favored to win them all, meaning they could be 14-0 before they hit the road Jan. 12 at USC.

Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said a schedule like Washington has played could give a team "maybe an unrealistic feel for where you are, exactly. Someone asked me, 'Are you surprised you're 8-0?' Well, we've played seven home games and we've got a 29-game home winning streak so I'd be more surprised if we weren't able to win those games because we've done fairly well at home. But I don't say that to say, 'Romar says Huskies may not be that good.' "

No, the Huskies believe they proved themselves in their past two games — a home win over Gonzaga and a victory over New Mexico in the Wooden Classic on Saturday.

Not that Romar thinks the Huskies will continue to score 96.4 points per game, or beat opponents by an average of 26.5, numbers that lead the nation.

"I don't think those are realistic numbers," Romar said. "But it's a good start that way. I think what those show is that there are some other teams that are really good that could have the same schedule we've had and still not score 96 points a game and win by that wide a margin."

In fact, UW is No. 1 in seven of the Pac-10's 19 statistical categories this week — scoring offense, scoring margin, field-goal percentage (52 percent), rebounds (39.1), rebounding margin (8), assists (21.4) and assist-to-turnover ratio (1.31).

"We believed at the beginning of the season," he said. "That's why we were all so insulted that we weren't ranked. Don't get me wrong — those [other ranked] teams are good, but we feel like we are right there with them. Yeah, we lost some key guys. But so did a lot of other teams, and we had a lot of guys coming back. We feel we are deserving of a top-10 ranking. The important thing is that we keep going out there and prove it."

That shouldn't be a real problem tonight, though Eastern has enough talent to keep this one more interesting than past blowouts over Idaho and Loyola-Marymount. Eastern freshman guard Rodney Stuckey of Kentwood High is a Pac-10-caliber talent. Coach Mike Burns has just one senior on his roster as he attempts to turn around a team that went 8-20 a year ago.

Eastern has won three in a row after a 1-3 start, and while Burns knows his team is a big underdog tonight, he sees a way it can be done.

"It starts with taking care of the ball and limiting their transition opportunities," he said. "Those are the two keys with them. The other is that they are really beating people up on the glass. But if you limit transition and take away those easy baskets, then you've got a better chance to find a way to corral some of those shooters. But they really have a lot of weapons. It really looks like coach Romar's got this thing ready to last for a long time."

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com