TWTWTW

Sark signs a “strong class”, UW men’s basketball team suddenly looks like a “one-and-done” outfit rather than Sweet Sixteen material, and Cortez Kennedy makes it a trifecta in Hall of Fame snubs. TWTWTW:

Jan. 31-Feb. 6, 2011

• Good Week — Nobody will know if UW football coach Steve Sarkisian actually had a good week last week for two, maybe three years — when his 2011 recruiting class, announced Wednesday, can be adequately judged. Sarkisian seemed giddy over his batch of new recruits. Then again, every coach is giddy on National Letter of Intent day.
• Bad Week — The UW men’s basketball team gets smoked three games running, falls out of first place in the Pac-10 race and out of the national rankings. It’s Washington’s first three-game losing streak since January of 2010.
• Sunday, Feb. 6 — Kasen Williams of Skyline High School is officially pronounced Parade’s National Player of the Year, and appears on the cover of the Sunday supplement magazine. Williams signed his LOI to attend Washington earlier in the week.
• Saturday, Feb. 5 — Former Seahawk defensive tackle Cortez Kennedy (1990-00) is snubbed for the third consecutive year by the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Kennedy made eight Pro Bowls during his career, was one of four defensive lineman on the NFL’s All-Decade Team of the 1990s, and was selected the 1992 NFL Defensive Player of the Year on a two-win team. Despite the trio of rejections, Kennedy remains a viable Hall candidate — much more of one, in fact, than, say, Edgar Martinez.
• Friday, Feb. 4 — The King County Prosecutor’s Office announces that a UW men’s basketball player accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl won’t be charged. Instead, the matter will be turned over to the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, which will determine whether a misdemeanor rap for providing alcohol to a minor is justified. UW won’t comment on the matter as the investigation is ongoing, nor will it say whether it is conducting its own probe.
• Thursday, Feb. 3 — Washington drops its second consecutive game (68-56 at Oregon State) and falls out of first place in the Pac-10 race. Hard to tell which UW team is going to show up anymore — the one that routinely scores 100 points, or the one that stands around and dithers.
• Wednesday, Feb. 2 —  University of Washington football coach Steve Sarkisian announces a class of 23 new recruits, headed by Parade All-American and Player of the Year Kasen Williams of Skyline. The experts say this is the best UW class since 2001, but the experts are usually wrong about this process.
• Tuesday, Feb. 1 — Pac-10 Player of the Year talk heats up with the consensus that, at the season’s midpoint, Washington’s Isaiah Thomas is a slight favorite over Washington State’s Klay Thompson, the Pac-10 scoring leader. Thomas gets the nod because he is the most important player on the league’s best team. But the second half will decide.
• Monday, Jan. 31 — Washington’s Kristi Kingma is named Pac-10 Player of the Week after scoring a game-high 29 points in a 64-52 win over Washington State. Thought this was a typo, but it’s not: The Huskies have beaten the Cougars 31 consecutive times. Cougars are 5-16. Poor June Daugherty.

“That Was The Week That Was (TW3)” is published every Monday as part of Sportspress Northwest’s package of home-page features collectively titled, “The Rotation.”

The Rotation’s weekly schedule:

• Monday: That Was The Week That Was (TW3) — A snarky, day-by-day review of the week just ended.
• Tuesday: Wayback Machine — Sports historian David Eskenazi’s deep dive into local sports history, replete with photo eye candy.
• Wednesday: Nobody Asks But Us — We ask, and answer, fun and quirky questions nobody else is asking.
• Thursday: Water Cooler Cool — Art Thiel takes on the weekend for the benefit of the more casual fan.
• Friday: Top 5 List — The alpha and omega of Northwest sports, at least as far as we’re concerned.