Throughout the season I will post a blog after each Gonzaga game with some of my thoughts and opinions about the game. I will try to use my experiences has an ex-player to provide insight into what I think the players and coaching staff may have been thinking or experiencing during the game, as well as what impact the game could have on upcoming games.

I will also post a blog early in the week in which I respond to a few questions about past or upcoming Gonzaga games, so feel free to post questions and comments for me.

The 2006-2007 season should be a very exciting, with the Zags playing an incredibly difficult non-conference schedule and facing stronger West Coast Conference competition. The team is fairly young and inexperienced at this point in the season, not to mention being without talented transfer Micah Downs until mid-December, but this group also has a great deal of promise due to their athleticism and talent. As the season progresses I see this team coming together, players finding their roles, and improving to a point where they maintain Gonzaga's status as one of the premier teams in the country.

Friday night's opening game against Eastern Washington, and All-American candidate Rodney Stuckey, will be a good early test for this Zags squad. The Bulldogs will immediately be forced to establish a defensive presence to slow the high scoring Stuckey and the rest of the Eagles team which returns many key contributors from last year and will challenge for an NCAA tournament bid out of the Big Sky Conference. The Zags will also need to show they can score the ball after the departure of the team's prolific leading scorers from a year ago. The talent is there for the Zags to defend and score well, it is just a matter of the talent stepping up and performing when they are called upon in a prominent role in game situations.

I look forward to Friday night's match-up between Gonzaga and Eastern Washington, and I will post my thoughts on the Zags' opening night performance immediately following game.