These days, everything that's new and cool and compact has a similar brand name -- iPod, iPhone, iTouch -- and that includes the Washington men's basketball team's latest product line.

The Huskies, who hold their first practice Friday behind closed doors at Saint Martin's University in Lacey, will pull the wraps off "I.T.," as in Isaiah Thomas, someone counted on to fill up the basket and the seats, if not restore the buzz that's been missing around Lorenzo Romar's team the past two seasons.

For entertainment purposes, Thomas is Nate Robinson without biceps.

He's a slender, 5-foot-8 freshman guard from Tacoma by way of a Connecticut prep school with a thing for strawberry Pop-Tarts.

He has big plans for the Huskies, and even bigger plans for himself.

"I can't wait until the season starts to show people who I am," Thomas said. "People know me around here. I want to be a national name."

Until inadequate grades sent him on a two-year detour to prep school, Thomas was on track to surpass former O'Dea guard Clint Richardson as the highest-scoring high school player in state history. Thomas averaged 26.2 per game as a Curtis High School sophomore and 31.2 as a junior, and then 40-plus in the 2006 state tournament.

Thomas' offensive responsibility at Washington will be more restrained, with Romar envisioning him filling the dual role of imaginative playmaker and instant scorer.

"I think he's more of a point guard than people think," Romar said. "(But) I think there will be times when he takes games over. He has that ability and mentality."

Either way, the presence of the 5-8 dynamo (unlike Robinson, he doesn't fudge on his height) has created newfound interest in a program that had grown stale the past two seasons, falling out of the Pac-10 upper division and failing to reach the NCAA Tournament.

While the attention overwhelmed him at times at Curtis, Thomas embraces the high expectations heaped on him now. He has an unbeatable support system regularly counseling him, headed up by Brandon Roy, the former UW All-American and now an elite pro with the Portland Trail Blazers, and Jamal Crawford, a former Rainier Beach High School star who plays for the New York Knicks. These guys communicate almost daily.

Asked if he hasn't been unfairly characterized as a Huskies savior before playing in his first game, Thomas pulled out his cell phone, punched up a screen and shared a recent text message sent to him by Roy that offered the following wisdom:

"The only pressure you have in life is the pressure you hold over your own head. Pressure shouldn't be used in your head at any time. There is no pressure."

Pressure actually is having your father, James Thomas, christen you at birth after one of the game's greatest point guards, former Indiana and NBA star Isiah Thomas. Dad said he lost a bet while watching the other Thomas and the Detroit Pistons beat the Los Angeles Lakers, his favorite team, in the 1989 NBA Finals, and it influenced the naming of his son.

"A friend of mine laid down a little money, my team lost and Isiah was the show," said James Thomas, a Boeing final-assembly inspector. "It was either that or repeat my name, and his mom didn't want that."

Tina Baldrip, who is divorced from Thomas' father, suggested that religious rather than basketball reasons were behind her son's name, hence the slightly different spelling.

"I named him because of Isaiah in the Bible; I didn't really know about the other Isiah Thomas," said Baldrip, a retirement home employee. "In the Bible, Isaiah waited on God to show him everything. That's why it's Isaiah. Whatever God has for him, it will come."

Early on, the kid nicknamed I.T. was a football player, a breakaway running back. He picked up a basketball for the first time as a fourth-grader at Spanaway's Naches Trail Elementary School and discovered he had natural talent. He played both sports through Curtis Junior High before choosing to concentrate on one, and do so in a bold manner. As a ninth-grader, he petitioned the school district to let him play basketball for the Curtis High varsity and was denied, solely because of age restrictions.

Once allowed to wear a Curtis uniform, Thomas became an overnight sensation. He scored at will, 57 points in one outing. He was super competitive, fiery on the floor, something that not everyone readily understood or admired, especially after he was ejected from a couple of games.

"I feel when I step on the court, no one can stop me," he said. "My swagger, my mentality that I bring to the court, is my strongest asset.

"People have got their opinions on that. They say negative things, that I have an attitude. But that's how I play. I've always brought a chip on my shoulder to the court. That's just me."

Indiana, figuring it couldn't go wrong with another guard named Thomas, was the first to offer a scholarship. Isaiah Thomas was a junior and wanted to commit right away. His parents said no. It made sense later when Hoosiers coach Mike Davis was fired at the end of the season and resurfaced at Alabama-Birmingham, where he continued to recruit Thomas without success.

Thomas committed to Washington, but his grades nosedived. To become college eligible, his only alternative was a lengthy prep school stay. He enrolled at South Kent School in Connecticut, attending for two years, replacing what would have been his senior year at Curtis and freshman season with the Huskies.

"It was hard to focus being me, being known as a high school celebrity," he said of his academic woes.

South Kent was isolated. The school gave him structure. It was classes and basketball without distractions. He averaged 31.6 points per game last season and earned a qualifying ACT score, his ticket to return to the Northwest.

"There were so many people back home who said I couldn't do it and didn't want to do it, that I just wanted to shut them up," he said. "Now I've grown up and it's a good thing. I know I need school."

Thomas was a recruiting free agent and tempted by overtures from Connecticut, Louisville and Kentucky but stayed true to the Huskies.

"People want to leave, but I've already been gone for two years, so I know how that feels," he said. "Why would I want to go somewhere else when I can do it right at home, and have my family and friends watch?"

Said Romar, who in recent months lost homegrown recruits to Arizona, Louisville and Texas: "What you're hearing is someone who is proud of where he's from."

Said Thomas' mother: "I don't think he could handle being somewhere really far away from me."

Huskies guards have been so one-dimensional in recent seasons that opponents were able to overplay 3-point shooter Ryan Appleby or stack defenders inside against Justin Dentmon and fellow penetrators, greatly disrupting the offense. Thomas, with his offensive versatility, should be the solution to that problem. He is as adept at driving to the basket with a variety of determined moves as he is at pulling up and launching soft left-handed jumpers or throwing a no-look pass.

While Oregon fans likely will pull out those Gary Coleman cutouts and insults they waved and shouted at the equally diminutive though more muscular Robinson, Thomas carries himself differently than his predecessor. Thomas is more of a finesse player and even-keeled in temperament, but no less effective in bouncing up and down the floor and dictating a frenzied pace.

"People should be excited," Huskies senior forward Jon Brockman said. "He's a special player who can do special things. He's going to be fun for the fans to watch and fun for us to play with. He's going to be good for Washington as long as he's here."

"I'm looking to stay four years," Thomas said, though reserving his right to reconsider should he become a potential NBA draft lottery pick.

He should stick around long enough for UW fans to learn that the kid with the biblical name prays before every game, eats strawberry Pop-Tarts nonstop and scores at a breakneck pace.

If this I.T. is the latest in college basketball technology, only the Huskies have one.