Hot Cougar Action: WSU Basketball lands a prized recruit

Well, not officially, but it’s still good news!

Good morning! Sunday is a big day for the Washington State Cougars athletic department, for reasons we will address further on. But the Cougar basketball team made the biggest headlines on Saturday, securing a verbal commitment from highly-touted prospect Adam Njie.

Njie (prounounced EN-jeye), who has prepped in both Arizona and New York, gave coach Kyle Smith his pledge after fielding offers from several other power conference schools, including Arizona State, Georgia Tech, Illinois, TCU and Miami. 247 lists Njie as a combo guard, and ranks him in the Top 150 nationally (144 to be exact), so needless to say, this is one of the better high school recruits that WSU has tentatively brought into the fold.

I write “tentatively” because Njie has not signed yet, and will not be on campus until the 2024-25 academic year. As the Spokesman Review notes, WSU tried to get Njie to reclassify into 2023-24, but to no avail.

WSU hoped Njie would reclassify and join the team this year.

“Me and my family felt it was best to stay in 2024,” Njie told 247Sports. “For next season, (WSU coaches) explained that I would come in as a freshman, play lots of minutes and potentially start.”

Heck, given WSU’s point guard situation last season, he might have started then! Kidding. Maybe. Njie is WSU’s first commit for the 2024 class, and according to 247’s all-time rankings, is WSU’s 9th-best commit…ever. That gives Kyle Smith six of the top 10 all-time. Stunningly, ace recruiter Ernie Kent didn’t get any! Hopefully we see young Adam on the Palouse sooner than later.

Baseball

I mentioned that Sunday is a big day for WSU Athletics, and that’s because the Boeing Apple Cup series title is on the lines when the Cougs and Huskies face off on the diamond. Well, I think it’s on the line? According to the series website, Washington leads WSU 190-185. However, that total does not include this weekend’s baseball series. After a WSU win Friday and a Washington win Saturday, and per the scoring system that awards 20 points to the winner and 10 to the loser, Washington ostensibly leads 220-215.

So if the WSU baseball team can take the rubber match on Sunday, it may just sew up WSU’s third consecutive series title by the slimmest of margins. Then again, I have no idea if the rest of the series results are reflected in the total yet, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see! Either way, I think everyone reading this would greatly prefer to see a WSU a series win.

First pitch is scheduled for 2 p.m. PDT, and you can watch on Pac-12 Networks. Go Cougs!

This Week in Parenting

It was an up and down week for the teenager. First, he slept in on Sunday until like 10, which is highly out of character. Then on Monday Mrs. Kendall informed me that he woke up feeling less than 100%. But he decided to tough it out and went to school anyway, because his class load is such that missing time puts him behind. That was probably a mistake, as he barely made it through, missing football practice and his Scouts meeting. I asked him when his sore throat showed up, and he said Sunday.

“Why didn’t you tell us about it then?” I asked.
“Because I thought it was caused by sleeping with my mouth open.”
“Your throat isn’t sore for an entire day because of that!”
“Oh.”

Facepalm.

Earlier in the week, it was time to pick a movie for us to watch. I again defaulted to the 80s, this time opting for the greatest Cold War red meat flick ever, Red Dawn. Mrs. Kendall lasted five minutes before retreating to our room to watch the world’s worst show in the history of ever, Outer Banks. I think the kiddos enjoyed Red Dawn, I mean, who wouldn’t get a kick out of watching a ragtag group of high school kids kill scores of Soviet commies? I hadn’t seen the movie in probably 25-30 years, and hoo boy, the absurdity level seems a lot higher now!

On the 11 year-old front, after a season that has seen losses big and small, the Rockies broke through on Thursday in dramatic fashion. Trailing 5-2 with the time limit up, it was now or never. They tied the game on a wild pitch, and I was prepared to happily accept a tie. With two outs, we had runners on 2nd and 3rd, and the batter lined a ball into the outfield, pushing across run number six. The Rockies have won! The Rockies have won! This shall not be a winless season!

I won’t take all the credit for the win, but clearly the Rockies’ luck changed on our ride home from practice on Wednesday. I played some Gordon Lightfoot for the 11 year-old, Sundown – such perfectly simple lyrics “Sometimes I think it’s a sin when I feel like I’m winning when I’m losing again” – and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald to be specific, and enlightened him on some classic and great music. “Is this what the kids in your class listen to?” I asked. “No. Not even close.” Their loss.

Non-Sports

America’s sickening gun fetish, perfectly summed up:

Why Is LED Light So Bad? | The Strategist
After the ban on incandescent bulbs, LEDs will be the only kind you can buy. But they’re cold, they distort colors, and they fail in strange ways.