Huskies get their respect; now they have to back it up

Will Conroy called Tre Simmons with a premonition early yesterday.

"Are you watching TV?" Conroy asked. "They're saying we have a chance at a No. 1 seed. I think we're going to get it."

A few hours later it was official, and as Washington's name came up on the big screen inside Hec Ed, the crowd of students and fans and players sitting up front exploded in celebration.

You would have thought Nate Robinson had dunked over Sean May to put Washington ahead of North Carolina at the Final Four in St. Louis.

"I can't keep always foreseeing the future now," senior point guard Conroy joked as the reality of his team's place in the pantheon of college programs began to settle. "This is such a great recruiting tool for (the program) to be able to go out nationally and get players. It's real big for this program."

One seed? Two seed? Three seed? Four seed?

By this time next week, it won't matter. The brackets will be scrambled, and the usual number of seeds will have imploded.

But for this team, which is the best Seattle sports story since the Mariners won 116 games in 2001, it represents a respect nationally it couldn't have thought possible a mere 14 months ago.

Washington isn't Cinderella anymore.

It is a hoop Horatio Alger story. On Jan. 16, 2004, it was 0-5 in the Pac-10 and again going nowhere. Since then, it is 41-9.

"Now we're the hunted," junior guard Robinson said.

Let the rest of the country argue whether Wake Forest or Kentucky got robbed of the No. 1 seed Washington got. Let TV's talking heads worry whether the NCAA tournament committee gave too much significance to the conference tournament and too little to the conference seasons.

Yesterday was a day for celebration at Montlake. It was a day for the veterans who have survived the lean times and have risen together to rebuild the program.

It was a day Conroy and Robinson, Brandon Roy and Simmons, Bobby Jones and Mike Jensen should cherish. They were part of that 0-5 start when Washington basketball had all the buzz of a power outage.

Today is the day for concern. Today is the day to soberly reflect on the dangerous.

"The blowouts are done," Conroy prophesized.

The Huskies are good enough to up-tempo themselves all the way to St. Louis. Already they've beaten Arizona twice, Utah, Oklahoma, Alabama and North Carolina State.

But the field is strong enough that they could be eliminated by the weekend. This is the deepest, most talented pool of teams in the game's history, an indication of the dramatic resurrection of college basketball.

Washington can ride its seed all the way to the Final Four. Or it could lose to Pittsburgh on Saturday. Think of Pitt, which should beat first-round opponent Pacific, as Stanford with more talent.

"It (No. 1 seed) means a lot for the program, but I wish they could just throw the numbers away," Conroy said. "It doesn't really mean anything after the ball gets thrown in the air. It's just an asterisk or a number. It doesn't really matter to me. I just want to get going and do whatever I have to do to keep moving on."

If Washington survives past this weekend, a dreamy track meet looms in Albuquerque with fourth seed Louisville, the team dealt the worst hand by the committee.

And, daring to think past that, either a rematch with Gonzaga or, more likely, a show-me game with the ACC's Wake Forest looms. When Washington's players watch other teams play, the schools they most want a piece of play in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

"You don't want to speak on that right now," Conroy said. "But there are a few teams over there in the ACC, I will say, that we feel like we would like to meet."

The Albuquerque Region is tricked up with so many good teams — Wake, Gonzaga, Louisville, West Virginia, Georgia Tech, Texas Tech — the survivor will feel like a national champion before it even gets to St. Louis.

But this field is so good. Look out for LSU and Florida, Villanova and Wisconsin, Nevada and Charlotte. These are teams that can have your brackets looking as unkempt as an Enron fiscal statement.

"I'm not really worried about the bracket," Conroy said. "All the things you're hearing about all these other teams? They're hearing the same things about us. They tie their shoes the same way we tie ours. Pull their Spandex up the same way we pull ours up. Tie their draw strings.

"Let's go. Throw it up. We'll see what happens after it's over. If these teams do all the things people say they're capable of doing to us, then we'll give them the respect that they were a better team than us. But until then, it's a toss-up."

Let's get it started.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists