Denizens of Seattle, please, enjoy your Seahawks and their run to the Super Bowl.  Please, focus all of your attention on MVP Shaun Alexander and nice guy Matt Hasselbeck. When you awake from your post-XL Super Bowl stupor, you’ll find in your city the newest member of college basketball’s annually great programs: the Washington Huskies.

You read that right, the University of Washington is the newest inductee into college basketball’s most hallowed unofficial fraternity: the “perennial power” teams.  These are the teams you can count on being competitive every year, and are almost always in the top 25 with rare exception.  Washington made their mark last year by earning their first ever number 1 seed in an NCAA tournament bracket, going 29-6 with a Sweet 16 appearance.  This year is a practical déjà vu, the repeat nobody thought was possible after losing 5’8” lightning-in-a-bottle Nate Robinson and two key seniors, Tre Simmons and Will Conroy.  Last year’s team was thought of as perhaps the nation’s most athletic, certainly not a preseason label branded on this year’s squad.

Yet here they are at 16-2, ranked in the top 10, and scoring 86 points a game.  They have key wins at home against #7 Gonzaga, to whom they had lost seven consecutively, and at #12 UCLA’s Pauley Pavillion, where they've been beaten the past 19 visits.  Head coach Lorenzo Romar says that it’s one of the most mentally tough squads he’s ever had, which could come in handy come pressure-packed tourney time.

This team seems tailor-made to have a lengthy March run.  They are fast (some at ESPN call them the nation’s quickest team) and they can score at will.  Many college squads are unafraid to go with fast three-guard sets during the tourney in hopes of ringing up the scoreboard, and nobody can fill it up more than Romar’s squad.  Two years ago the Huskies grabbed some attention by averaging 82 ppg, then last year upped it to 86.  Version 3.0 of the Husky scoring machine has them averaging 88 per contest this year.

How are they doing it this year? Versatility.  The Huskies have ten guys that play over 10 minutes a night and sport four players that average double figures in scoring.  Their starting lineup lists two guards and three forwards, but in reality they should have down one point guard and four guard/forward hybrids.  Freshman point Justin Dentmon is surrounded by plenty of experience in seniors Brandon Roy (6’6”), Bobby Jones Jr. (6’7”) and Jamaal Williams (6”6) as well as freshman phenom Jon Brockman (6’7”) who chose U-dub over Duke.

That ‘tweener size that would have other coaches desperate for a big man has inspired Romar to use his players’ flexibility to their advantage.  Washington creates plenty of matchup problems for their opponents with four guys who can slash around you to the basket or post up on smaller guards to score at will.  They also have a dynamic sixth man who can stretch the defense in sophomore Ryan Appelby, who has 40 3-pointers already this season.

The Pac-10 doesn’t have many contenders to challenge for the title this year, with only Arizona and UCLA looming as potential losses on Washington’s schedule.  Several teams in front of them in the top 10 have much tougher conferences, which could hurt UW in the NCAA Committee’s best buddy, the RPI ratings, but could also work to their advantage slowly bumping them up into the top 5.  If they avoid any upsets, it’s conceivable the Huskies could grab another number 1 or 2 seed this year and put themselves in a position for a Final Four run.

However, perhaps the most impressive thing Romar has done to solidify his school’s place among the nation’s elite hasn’t even come on the court.  He has poached potential recruits from the country’s biggest schools, including Kentucky, North Carolina, UConn, and the aforementioned Duke.  Instead of flying coast-to-coast, Romar has focused on harvesting the Pacific Northwest’s surprisingly rich talent pool, something that the state’s other basketball name (Gonzaga) was never able to accomplish.

Washington got huge news with the commitment of Spencer Hawes, a 6’11” center from Seattle who was thinking ACC but surprised a lot of analysts by staying local.  He is rated among the top five players in his class, and as high as number 2 by some.  Romar is also looking to continue his pursuit of athletic wing players who can beat you in multiple ways with Phillip Nelson, a 6’8” lights out shooter from Oregon, and Quincy Pondexter, a skilled 6’7” wing from California and the 50th ranked player in the nation.  Don’t be surprised if Washington, even with its top three scorers graduating, is among the country’s best-scoring teams next year.

Romar knows he can’t afford to rest, saying recently “I’ve seen it many times:  a program gets hot, then grows complacent, and a few years later they’re gone.”  He is determined to keep Washington a national power with his team-first system.  The fans seem to have embodied that same love of the team:  when the Huskies beat Gonzaga at home early in the year, the fans didn’t rush the court but waited for every player to come out of the locker room later and chanted each of their names, then applauding the team together.

Romar called it one of the greatest moments of his career.  With the direction he has the Huskies headed, it looks like he’ll have plenty more.

Zeke Smith is a senior editor at ASM and a lead writer at CarolinaBlue.com covering North Carolina and the rest of the ACC.  You can reach him at zeke.smith@atomicsportsmedia.com