About WSU HOOPS

WSU HOOPS is a blog dedicated to covering all things WSU basketball (although we’ll throw in some national stuff as well). This won’t be your typical fan site, flush with rip jobs; rather, we aim to bring — and encourage — the kind of smart, thoughtful analysis about Cougar basketball you won’t find anywhere else.

Questions, comments, or suggestions? Reach the author here.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Jeff Nusser — Nuss is a freelance journalist who has lived his entire life in the state of Washington following its respective sports teams, but his most passionate love is the Washington State University Cougars, given the bachelor of arts degree he earned there in 1999. He worked for The Daily Evergreen for two and half years and was editor in chief in fall of 1997 — which just so happened to coincide with the Cougars’ first Pac-10 football championship and Rose Bowl appearance in 67 years.

That means he also was there the last time WSU basketball was any good, watching Mark Hendrickson, Donminic Ellison, Shammond Antrum, Isaac Fontaine and Tavaras Mack advance to the NIT. He’s been following the team ever since, even against all odds as bad coaches and inadequate players ran the program into the ground.

He previously has worked for The (Tacoma) News Tribune and CBS Sportsline.com, and his freelance sports work has appeared in many places, including Lindy’s sports annuals and Horizon Air Magazine. He has been a high school journalism and English teacher for the past four years in the Puyallup, Wash., area and is now in a similar role in Wenatchee, Wash.

He now spends the bulk of his time hanging out with his beautiful wife and raising the next great Cougar basketball player, Joshua.

Jo~Jo Roberts — Jo~Jo spent seven years in Pullman pursuing his degree in Sport Management, five of them while working in the athletic department. During that time he traveled across the country with the women’s soccer team as team manager and coaching assistant. This perspective from within the underbelly of Cougar athletics not only fueled his passion as a Coug, but gave him a clear understanding of how NCAA Division I Athletics operates.

Jo~Jo started his college career as a communications major. As a Journalist, he spent one year as a sports writer, under WSU HOOPS author Jeff Nusser, at the Daily Evergreen. Prior to that, he worked as the Managing News/Sports Editor of Mountlake Terrace High School’s award winning student news paper, The Hawkeye, where he was recognized nationally as well as internationally for his work.

Basketball has always been one of Jo~Jo’s greatest passions. He has worked as a play-by-play basketball announcer at the high school level, a high-school beat writer, and served as the Sports Information Director and Coaching Assistant on the 2004 Athletes in Action men’s fall basketball tour that culminated with the experience of working the sideline with a clip board against then-top 10 University of Alabama.

Jo~Jo currently resides in Boise, Idaho (not his top choice), working in the fitness industry in youth athletic development. He spends most of his time in the weight room, training clients as well as himself. He plays corner back for the semi-pro Boise Speed of the Rocky Mountain Football league. He also serves as the best 2nd grade girls basketball coach in the Treasure Valley where he is attempting to mold the next (or first) great Cougar point guard — his stepdaughter, Faith. His wife, Kathi, played college basketball local in Nampa Idaho for Northwest Nazarene University.