COLLEGE ROUNDUP<\/p>\n
Preseason conference polls for each of the Idaho and Washington State men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball teams project the Vandals and the Cougars in the top half of their respective leagues.<\/p>\n
The Lewis-Clark State men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball squads tip off their respective seasons today.<\/p>\n
The No. 7 LC State women host Dickinson State (N.D.) at 5:30 p.m. The Warrior men, receiving votes in the national poll, play at No. 2 Arizona Christian at 6 p.m. today.<\/p>\n
Vandal men predicted to finish fourth by preseason polls<\/strong><\/p>\n The Big Sky Conference coaches and media members picked Idaho to finish fourth in the league this season. It\u2019s the first time in eight years that the Vandal men have been picked to finish within the top half of the conference.<\/p>\n Both polls picks Montana to win the league, Portland State as runner-up and Northern Colorado third.<\/p>\n Idaho got three first-place votes \u2014 two from the media and another from the coaches poll. Coaches are not permitted to vote their own squads No. 1, so the vote of confidence came from another Big Sky coach.<\/p>\n The Vandals return their top three scorers from the previous season, including Kristian Gonzalez, Kolton Mitchell and Jack Payne.<\/p>\n Meridian natives Brody Rowbury and Jackson Rasmussen, both over 6-foot-7, join the Vandals. Rowbury brings 82 D-I starts with him from Southeastern Louisiana, while Rasmussen was the Gem State\u2019s top high school recruit this past season.<\/p>\n Vandal women picked third in preseason poll<\/strong><\/p>\n Big Sky Conference coaches and media members each picked Idaho to finish third in the league standings in their respective preseason polls.<\/p>\n Both polls picked Montana State to win the league and Montana as a runner-up.<\/p>\n The Vandals were bounced from the first round of last season\u2019s Big Sky Conference Tournament.<\/p>\n Idaho coach Arthur Moreira returns seven players from last year\u2019s 18-win team, including junior guard Hope Hassmann. Sophomore guards Ana Beatriz Passos Alves da Silva and Ana Pinheiro return to Moscow having played with their respective national teams of Brazil and Portugal over the summer.<\/p>\n Idaho\u2019s transfer class includes a pair of former San Francisco Dons. Forward Debora Dos Santos was a five-star transfer and a first team all-conference player at USF and 6-foot-5 forward Lorena Barbosa hails from Itatiba, Brazil, and spent the past four years in the Bay.<\/p>\n Former Washington State guard Kyra Gardner and true freshman Reese de Groot, a former Lewiston Bengal and Clarkston Bantam, are also new to the Vandals this year.<\/p>\n WSU women picked third in WCC Preseason Coaches Poll<\/strong><\/p>\n The West Coast Conference\u2019s coaches picked Washington State women\u2019s basketball to finish third in the league.<\/p>\n The preseason WCC Coaches Poll has three current\/future Pac-12 schools leading the league, with Oregon State picked to finish first and Gonzaga in second place.<\/p>\n The Cougars made it to the semifinals of the WCC tournament last season in Las Vegas and earned a Women\u2019s National Inivitaion Tournament berth.<\/p>\n WSU returns six players from last year\u2019s roster, including all-conference guard Eleonora Villa, 6-foot-6 junior center Alex Covill and sophomore guard Charlotte Abraham.<\/p>\n Transfers Mackenzie Chatfield from Western Kentucky and senior Lauren Glazier from Pacific and three freshmen round out the roster. Glazier returns after spending her freshman year at WSU.<\/p>\n WSU men predicted to finish sixth in WCC preseason polls<\/strong><\/p>\n The West Coast Conference men\u2019s basketball preseason coaches poll put Washington State at sixth \u2014 exactly in the middle of the WCC. <\/p>\n Gonzaga was picked first, Saint Mary\u2019s was picked second and San Francisco was picked third. <\/p>\n WSU lost in Round 2 of last year\u2019s conference tournament and earned a berth to the College Basketball Crown.<\/p>\n The Cougars return five players from last year\u2019s roster, including 6-foot-7 forward Rihards Vavers and 6-10 forward ND Okafor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLLEGE ROUNDUP Preseason conference polls for each of the Idaho and Washington State men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball teams…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":328614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-328613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115428093315739950","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}