Most Cougs actually like Gonzaga?

[Observer11]

Observer,

You seem really plugged in to the Greater Spokane community.

What do you make of Mark Few?

He seems like such a lightning rod for those Cougs who don't like GU.

Is it just envy of Few's remarkable success or is there something else at work with all the personal vitriol?

You don't rile the Irish-Catholic mafia in Spokane. Not going there.

Few's the winningest active coach in the country (by percentage). Not sure any Coug has much room to throw stones other than he weaseled out of a long-standing series. But, in hindsight, that could have also been the fabulous salesmanship and negotiating skills of our former ungrateful AD at work again. Moos caved. He could have brought any program in the country into the Spokane Arena on a 2 for 1 or 3 for 1 deal.

 

[wazzubruce]

One of the problems with people/Coug fans not liking Coach Few is that GU used to be a small time product... they had difficulty scheduling decent teams, as no one wanted to play them..... then GU had some success and started winning and then all of a sudden Few turns into one of the high falooten teams whos increment doesn't stink and next thing you know, GU is the team who won't play the lesser teams of the world: WSU, Eastern, Idaho..... (all regional teams). I like GU basketball, but Few has an issue with talking out of both sides of this mouth. Always when it benefits him. Now he's the big dog, keeping the little guys down.

 

[Cougzz]

I am fairly certain it isn’t Mark Few that let down Cougar basketball.

 

[SaveFerris]

You may not like Gonzaga but you have to respect what they've done. They saw an opportunity to 'build a brand' and seized it by recruiting Northwest kids that WSU turned their nose up at.

The WSU powers that be decided to look westward instead and fumbled around with crap like the Seattle game and such. Hell, I'm not sure V. Lane even knew how to turn right off of 195. Father Spitzer ate WSU's lunch and formed really strong bonds with the community leaders in Spokane and made seeing and being seen at GU games a cool thing.

And aside from the Bennett years and Year 1 of Bone, WSU basketball has been stinky as moldy Cougar Gold. You can remember when it was good but not gonna take a bite from the hairy, nasty mess left in the can.

Not surprised at all there are Coug/Zag fans out there.

Accurate but FGU.

 

[YakiCoug]

One of the guys in my office, a recent WSU graduate, is a huge Cougar Football fan and GU Basketball fan — and says most of his folks he graduated with are the same way.

As a matter of fact, they would even go to Spokane a time or two each season to attend a Zags game.

This person and his friends see absolutely no problem with this "dual affection" since, he explained, the teams don't compete in football or basketball.

I'm long gone from my school days, so I had no idea that "CougZags" actually existed until I listened to this person talk about it with pride for 20 minutes!

Are any of the diehards here aware of this phenomenon?

And are any of you also fans of the Gonzaga basketball and Coach Mark Few?

This is just a rumor, but I've heard that 35 percent of Gonzaga Bulldog MBB season-ticket holders are WSU graduates.

 

[PeteTheChop]

I've heard that 35 percent of Gonzaga Bulldog MBB season-ticket holders are WSU graduates.

Wow.

Sounds like the new AD already has Job 1 in hand luring these serious basketball fans back to supporting their alma mater.

 

[dgibbons]

This is just a rumor, but I've heard that 35 percent of Gonzaga Bulldog MBB season-ticket holders are WSU graduates.

That’s a rumor.

 

[YakiCoug]

That’s a rumor.

Where are your seats at McCarthey Athletic Center, dgibbons?

 

[Coug90]

My dislike of Gonzaga goes back to long before they were relevant on the basketball court. I helped design the concrete canoe that we used to compete in the 1992 ASCE/Master Builder's concrete canoe competition. We had a good team of people and WSU had dominated the event in the Northwest since its inception in 1988 with first place finishes each year. In 1992, the regional competition was held in Olympia and there were about a dozen boats from different colleges in the area. Gonzaga brought an impressive looking boat that was well finished but looked more like a crew shell than a canoe. The problem with it's design is that while it was incredibly fast.....it couldn't turn. One of the most important parts of the competition was a race across a lake/river/body of water and around a set of buoys and then back to the start line. Because their boat wouldn't turn, their solution was to simply change the direction that that they were facing and paddle back. After the first race, they were told that the rules expressly called for the boats to turn around the buoys and that they had to do so. They went from first place to last place when following the rules. Needless to say, they were no longer a contender after that. For those that don't care, we won the region for the fifth straight time and due some great work by some of my team-mates on the presentation part of the national competition, our team finished 6th out of 24 teams that competed in Fort Collins that year.

For me, that established Gonzaga as the school that doesn't worry about following the rules when it comes to winning a competition. Before that race, I barely knew that Gonzaga was in Spokane and had never thought about them much. I was shocked when they started the competition talking tough and laying it on us like we were bitter rivals because frankly, I viewed them as a glorified community college at the time. It did set the tone for my long term dislike of them though.

Flat, I feel like you might be encouraging a couple of posters on here to take their best shot at building a concrete canoe and testing it out in some deep cold water.

 

[mister noon]

concrete floats - right?

 

[Coug90]

concrete floats - right?

Of course. Very small rocks float too

 

[fingerdisco]

Of course. Very small rocks float too

A duck?

 

[Coug95man2]

Because of work, I've been to countless Zag games over the years. I truly do believe it is more about envy than anything else. I've seen more Cougs in there than I can shake a stick at. The excuse is always, "WSU is so far away." Well, when it's a good enough product, a one hour drive isn't much. Hells Bells, if you live in Seattle and want to go to a EWE basketball game, good chance you'll be traveling longer than that! So honestly, Spokane Cougs don't want to travel to see a crappy product. I get that. So what are they going to do? Well, cripes of course they'll still want to watch some NCAA basketball! And who wouldn't want to see a team that matches up with any given TOP 10 team?

I think Observer has touched on a small thing that has produced big. Gonzaga has courted Spokane very, very well. The Catholic following is also something you can't ignore. Spokane's Catholic population is massive. But how does WSU basketball court Spokane? Gotta get that product going. And in the meantime, WSU better start courting the students, the town, the faculty, and surrounding areas. Then they'll fill the seats more and start impacting the games with the attendance. Win more, Spokane will come. Just like football... I'm a firm believer that the product must come, then attendance rises. You can't expect a bunch of people to show up to a crappy game.

Bottom line. Of course there are Cougs going to GU games. If they love basketball, what's their options? I won't slight them for going to a GU game. They start wearing Zag gear, start buying season tickets... I'll split that hair and say that's too much. But yeah, Few's an a$$, too.

 

[Loyal Coug]

Because of work, I've been to countless Zag games over the years. I truly do believe it is more about envy than anything else. I've seen more Cougs in there than I can shake a stick at. The excuse is always, "WSU is so far away." Well, when it's a good enough product, a one hour drive isn't much. Hells Bells, if you live in Seattle and want to go to a EWE basketball game, good chance you'll be traveling longer than that! So honestly, Spokane Cougs don't want to travel to see a crappy product. I get that. So what are they going to do? Well, cripes of course they'll still want to watch some NCAA basketball! And who wouldn't want to see a team that matches up with any given TOP 10 team?

I think Observer has touched on a small thing that has produced big. Gonzaga has courted Spokane very, very well. The Catholic following is also something you can't ignore. Spokane's Catholic population is massive. But how does WSU basketball court Spokane? Gotta get that product going. And in the meantime, WSU better start courting the students, the town, the faculty, and surrounding areas. Then they'll fill the seats more and start impacting the games with the attendance. Win more, Spokane will come. Just like football... I'm a firm believer that the product must come, then attendance rises. You can't expect a bunch of people to show up to a crappy game.

Bottom line. Of course there are Cougs going to GU games. If they love basketball, what's their options? I won't slight them for going to a GU game. They start wearing Zag gear, start buying season tickets... I'll split that hair and say that's too much. But yeah, Few's an a$$, too.

As we learned during the Raveling years and the Bennett years, win and they will come. And they even stayed for a while under Bone until we stopped winning as much and the product became sloppy.

 

[Suudy]

Then there is the school itself. Academically low to middle of the road at best, certainly not a National Doctoral research institution. Their entire identity is their basketball team. Their enrollment growth is solely due to their basketball team. Donations flow in primarily because of their basketball team. But they think they are something else. It was OK when they were a blue collar-ish underdog, with the Santangelo's and Calvary's. Now they are just a basketball team with a school around them. And think that makes them special. I hate them.

Their hire of Melissa Click cemented your position in my mind.

 

[Coug95man2]

As we learned during the Raveling years and the Bennett years, win and they will come. And they even stayed for a while under Bone until we stopped winning as much and the product became sloppy.

I'll never forget being in Beasley with Kelvin Sampson. Filled to the top and when he'd pull his tie off, the whole coliseum would cheer... He worked the crowd as much as any other entertainer.

 

[Observer11]

[

I'll never forget being in Beasley with Kelvin Sampson. Filled to the top and when he'd pull his tie off, the whole coliseum would cheer... He worked the crowd as much as any other entertainer.

You must be young. Kelvin was a poor man's Raveling.

The maestro.

 

[Loyal Coug]

[


You must be young. Kelvin was a poor man's Raveling.

The maestro.

I was at WSU during the Raveling glory years. Remember beating UCLA and someone (Pollard?) breaking the backboard. When George would stand up and raise his hands, the place would erupt. He was indeed the maestro.

While Raveling did have a few sketchy characters on his teams (Don Collins), he was such a class act. And STILL holds WSU near and dear to his heart.

 

[Coug95man2]

[


You must be young. Kelvin was a poor man's Raveling.

The maestro.

LOL. I was working them

 

[SaveFerris]

LOL. I was working them

I can distantly remember stacking those soda cups during games. A bit gross thinking about now. Ha!

 

[Coug95man2]

I can distantly remember stacking those soda cups during games. A bit gross thinking about now. Ha!

I'm an old dude, from the TV world. I wasn't stacking cups but dealing with a boatload of cable under those stands, with all the soda, popcorn, all over the cable. Intense games though.

 

[Observer11]

I can distantly remember stacking those soda cups during games. A bit gross thinking about now. Ha!

With a reasonable amount of ice left in them, those cups sailed extremely long distances when thrown. Allegedly.

Raveling's best was the time he grabbed the mic mid-game and said "I don't care how bad these refs are, quit throwing stuff".

Double-message sent.

Beasley was hostile as hell in those days.

 

[PeteTheChop]

Raveling's best was the time he grabbed the mic mid-game and said "I don't care how bad these refs are, quit throwing stuff"

Man, that's awesome.

Probably would cost him an ejection and 10k fine these days.

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

With a reasonable amount of ice left in them, those cups sailed extremely long distances when thrown. Allegedly.

Raveling's best was the time he grabbed the mic mid-game and said "I don't care how bad these refs are, quit throwing stuff".

Double-message sent.

Beasley was hostile as hell in those days.

As far as a Snapple bottle, though?

How about a Dasani bottle?

And for what its worth, I'm unapologetic as a Coug for both incidents. Poor form from some fan, but tell the stripes to stop fcking us over.

 

[avabob1]

Things have changed. Students even showed up to watch bad Raveling and Sampson teams

 

[SaveFerris]

With a reasonable amount of ice left in them, those cups sailed extremely long distances when thrown. Allegedly.

Raveling's best was the time he grabbed the mic mid-game and said "I don't care how bad these refs are, quit throwing stuff".

Double-message sent.

Beasley was hostile as hell in those days.

I was at that game. Court was just totally litter. Raveling was the best!

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

Things have changed. Students even showed up to watch bad Raveling and Sampson teams

That was before they had good video games they could play.

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

Wow.

Sounds like the new AD already has Job 1 in hand luring these serious basketball fans back to supporting their alma mater.

People like winners. I'm not surprised some Wazzu fans are also Zag fans.

 

[mister noon]

Things have changed. Students even showed up to watch bad Raveling and Sampson teams

the Raveling teams weren't as bad as the ridiculous tartan rubber floor dead ball bouncing sound

terrible invention thank gawd it went the way of the dinosaur

 

[YakiCoug]

With a reasonable amount of ice left in them, those cups sailed extremely long distances when thrown. Allegedly.

Raveling's best was the time he grabbed the mic mid-game and said "I don't care how bad these refs are, quit throwing stuff".

Double-message sent.

Beasley was hostile as hell in those days.

Bob Robertson was the first to throw something on the floor in that game v. Arizona, rumor has it.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

For me, I don't think that a true WSU fan should ever root for Gonzaga......unless they grew up in Spokane supporting them. That gets more complicated because I don't blame someone for being a fan of a team that was successful as they grew up. I don't know if I can buy into people that root for Gonzaga just because they are good and WSU is not. From where I sit, rooting for that reason smacks of front running and they might as well buy their KU, Kentucky, UNC and Duke shirts too. It is a free country of course and if someone wants to be a Bulldog fan, they are welcome to it. The Kansas equivalent to this are the fans that root for KU basketball and KSU football because they don't have a strong allegiance to either school. We call them cross dressers.

 

[cr8zyncalif]

I graduated from high school in Spokane County in '76. At that time, GU had a solid baseball program and a middling law school. The campus itself might be best described as "quaint". Not a lot of money had been spent there, but if you were in debate in high school you spent time at competitions held there (due mostly to the law school) and again, while WSU's baseball program was the dominant PNW program, GU was respectable. If you liked the Cougs, you would possibly attend a WSU/GU baseball game at GU because it was close. I don't remember if they played every year, but my dim memory is that they did so. GU hoops was nothing.

When Jankovich left, WSU started its 30-ish years of futility in AD hiring, and seldom had a really good president. Until the Elson/Moos combination, we were victims of our own administrative incompetence when it came to athletics. GU, by contrast, did a couple of things right and built something that had not previously existed. IMHO, if WSU had had competent leadership over that time, GU would probably not have done quite as well, because they would not have had their entire market gifted to them by the administrative ineptitude in Pullman.

Most people like seeing the underdog (dog...OK, that was an accident) do well. I think that for a period of time, a lot of WSU fans probably felt reasonably good about GU's hoops program success. The thing that can change that, however, is arrogance. And with success came arrogance. Arrogance is not pretty and it does not attract people from outside the tent. Within the tent, boosters can revel in their self-satisfaction. Many (not all, but many) programs that have had success over an extended period of time suffer from this; GU is not the first, and won't be the last. But the morphing into an entitled, arrogant brand has led to most Coug fans that I know becoming disenchanted with GU many years ago. And the discontinuation of the WSU/GU basketball game was the coup de grace.

The worm turns. The pendulum goes back and forth. There will come a time when GU is down, not up. And when that happens, a lot of GU boosters will probably wonder why so many WSU fans think poorly of them. There is more than one reason, but the chief among them is arrogance.

 

[LoveJeffersonFanClub]

I wouldn't say that I root for Gonzaga but I don't root against them either. In college I'd read the spokesman and follow the happenings of GU, EAU, UK, and WSU. I will follow GU in the tourney but during the season I don't clear my schedule to watch the GU Pepperdine clash on a Friday night. I rooted for them in the final last year but wasn't despondent or even sad they lost. WSU is my basketball school but have to admit I root more for WSU football than basketball. I think part of my neutrality or slightly rooting for GU stems from location. I live in the Puget Sound and deal with Husky fans. I actively root against them. I know GU fans and OU fans are arrogant but I don't live amongst them so they don't bother me as much. I don't root for Oregon except when they play UW. For me Gonzaga basketball has to do with geography.

 

[avabob1]

I never rooted for GU, but I respected them, and even followed them because they played good basketball. However the growing arrogance culminating in Few trashing us as he ended a long standing series has turned me against them. Also, before anyone else mentiones it, I remember when Sampson ended the series, and it embarrassed me then, because Sampson was ducking a school that he should have been striving to exceed.

 

[SaveFerris]

I never rooted for GU, but I respected them, and even followed them because they played good basketball. However the growing arrogance culminating in Few trashing us as he ended a long standing series has turned me against them. Also, before anyone else mentiones it, I remember when Sampson ended the series, and it embarrassed me then, because Sampson was ducking a school that he should have been striving to exceed.

Different era but Raveling played them for years with not a whole lot to gain from the game.

Is it fact or urban legend that Sampson wanted to end the Spokane Arena game and play home-and-home or did he just walk away all together?

 

[COUGinNCW]

Different era but Raveling played them for years with not a whole lot to gain from the game.

Is it fact or urban legend that Sampson wanted to end the Spokane Arena game and play home-and-home or did he just walk away all together?

I’ve heard both versions as well but logic would tell me gu would have been okay moving it to a home and home on campus if that had been offered.

 

[OrangeGravy]

Spokane is a sh!thole and Few is a douche. He's been a good caretaker of the program, but it had a ton of momentum when he took over. There is something about him that turns people off. I'm not convinced he's anything special as a coach. Their run was greatly aided for a few years by their crap conference. If they were in any other conference for some of those early few years, even another mid major conference, I don't think their streak would be intact and I'm not sure they would have steadily risen to the current legit status they have now. All in all I don't mind the team really. I'll root for or against them depending on who they're playing just like any other team not WSU or UW.

You can add that P-rick john stockton to the douche list as well. Couldn't stand watching that whining flopper with the Jazz even before I realized played at GU.

 

[Observer11]

Spokane is a sh!thole and Few is a douche. He's been a good caretaker of the program, but it had a ton of momentum when he took over. There is something about him that turns people off. I'm not convinced he's anything special as a coach. Their run was greatly aided for a few years by their crap conference. If they were in any other conference for some of those early few years, even another mid major conference, I don't think their streak would be intact and I'm not sure they would have steadily risen to the current legit status they have now. All in all I don't mind the team really. I'll root for or against them depending on who they're playing just like any other team not WSU or UW.

You can add that P-rick john stockton to the douche list as well. Couldn't stand watching that whining flopper with the Jazz even before I realized played at GU.

You're from the Tri-Cities and you're labeling Spokane?!?

Heal thyself, physician.

 

[avabob1]

I don't like Few, but the guy can coach. I thought they would drop off when they started going after the higher profile recruits, but it didn't happen. Not as good as their inflated record in a bad conference, but still pretty good.

 

[wazzucougs96]

One of the guys in my office, a recent WSU graduate, is a huge Cougar Football fan and GU Basketball fan — and says most of his folks he graduated with are the same way.

As a matter of fact, they would even go to Spokane a time or two each season to attend a Zags game.

This person and his friends see absolutely no problem with this "dual affection" since, he explained, the teams don't compete in football or basketball.

I'm long gone from my school days, so I had no idea that "CougZags" actually existed until I listened to this person talk about it with pride for 20 minutes!

Are any of the diehards here aware of this phenomenon?

And are any of you also fans of the Gonzaga basketball and Coach Mark Few?

These people suck at life. The idea that we don't compete with them in basketball is head in the sand BS.