Gonzaga No. 2 in the AP Polls

At 27-2 overall and 14-0 in the West Coast Conference, the Gonzaga Bulldogs are having one of their best, if not the best, seasons in school history. They just got another cherry on the top as the new NCAA rankings have come out and Gonzaga is ranked at No. 2 behind Indiana. Spokane must be exploding at the seams right now.

Gonzaga becomes the first team outside the major six conferences to be ranked in the top two since Memphis was No. 2 in the final poll of 2007-08, a span of 92 AP polls.

"It establishes us as a national program, which I believe we have been for the last 10 years," Few said. "This group has done a great job of competing at that level, winning games at the highest level."

Now usually I'd go into an age-old rant of how Gonzaga plays in a weak conference and blah, blah, blah. But they're actually a really good team this year and I wouldn't be suprised to see them move up to No. 1. So there you have it, the Bulldogs might actually get a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Shocking.

(To hop on the Gonzaga bandwagon, go here.)

Chip Kelly Staying at Oregon

A few moments ago my Twitter exploded with reports that Chip Kelly has turned down the NFL to stay at the University of Oregon.

Now there are a number of sources tied to this report and various reasons have been stated. But I know the real reason. He heard this song by Mat Kearney and decided to stay.

(For those who don't know Mat Kearney was born in Eugene, Oregon. You can buy his album Young Love here) 

USC stripped of 2004 National Championship

Today the BCS stripped the University of Southern California of their 2004 National Championship.

And to that I say, "SOOOOOOO dumb."

The BCS ruling vacated the results of the 2005 Orange Bowl -- the national title game for 2004 -- as well as the Trojans participation in the 2006 Rose Bowl, in which USC lost to Texas in the championship game.

As a result of the BCS's Presidential Oversight Committee ruling, there will be no BCS national champion in the record book for the 2004-05 season.

The BCS ruling comes on the heels of the NCAA ruling about Reggie Bush playing "inelligably" because he accepted extra benefits from a would-be sports marketer.

Now here's my question for the NCAA and the BCS, "how long until you strip Auburn of their most recent championship?"

So there will be no BCS champion for the 2004-2005 season. Yet I'm just supposed to forget that the USC Trojans really won it? That makes perfect sense. Add in the fact that pretty much every major power college out there has some form of infraction yet the NCAA only punishes as it sees fit.

How the heck were all the suspended Ohio State Buckeyes allowed to play in the 2010 Sugar Bowl? Oh that's right. That's because they are suspended the first five games of this season. Gee that makes sense.

So the team got a bowl victory with players who had violated NCAA rules yet are still allowed to keep that win?

This seems like a case of punish when we feel like it and look the other way if we'll make a profit. USC's run is over and the NCAA has made their money off the team. Now it's time to let Auburn win a few more games. But once their time ends, look for sanctions and lost titles coming fast.

BCS you get dumber every year.

Ranking the 16 teams left in the NCAA Tournament (based on mascot)

I'm sure you've seen plenty of sites ranking the 16 teams that remain in the NCAA Tournament. And we're gonna do the same.

Only instead of basing it on boring facts such as player comparisons, strength of team, etc, etc. I'm basing it on mascots.

And who has the most awesome mascot.

16. Butler Bulldogs - An overused mascot. The only way this mascot is cool is when their is a real bulldog at the game.

15 and 14. Arizona Wildcats and Kentucky Wildcats - If there is another school with your same mascot with only 16 teams left, then your mascot is lame. Plus, not very creative. Wildcat? How about Lamecat.

13. Virginia Commonwealth University Rams - Now if VCU's mascot had been the Mountain Goats that would be awesome. I once saw Brandon chased down a trail by a mountain goat, but not a ram.

12. and 11. BYU Cougars and Connecticut Huskies - The Cougars and Huskies are also the mascots of Washington State and Washington. So I hear about these all the time. Next.

10. Kansas Jayhawks - The name of this mascot is alright. But have you ever seen the picture of this thing?!? It surely gives children nightmares!

9. Marquette Golden Eagles - Now the Eagle is probably the most overused mascot, right up there with Bulldog and Wildcat. But the reason Marquette made it to number nine is the fact they aren't just the Eagles. Oh no, they are the Golden Eagles.

8. Florida Gators - A creative mascot, but it also is used for purses and boots. Sorry Florida.

7. North Carolina Tar Heels - I always hear Tar Heels and can't help but think of people with dirty feet. Seriously, wash those feet before you come inside!

6. Ohio State Buckeyes - Your mascot is a nut. Enough said.

5. Duke Blue Devils - Is this a Devil that is really cold? Perhaps hell froze over. Which is what will happen if Duke wins the title again.

4. Wisconsin Badgers - I wouldn't want to fight a badger. I'd rather try my luck against a Buckeye.

3. Florida State Seminoles - A great way to connect to the heritage of the state. Oh, and the guy who dresses up at the games is awesome and he even has a horse.

2. San Diego State Aztecs - Another example of a unique mascot. People say the Aztecs and you think of San Diego State.

1. Richmond Spiders - Seriously the best mascot in the tournament. You never hear of other schools called the Spiders.

St. John's University in top 25

In the world of college basketball there are the perinial powerhouses and then there are the other schools.

Today found one of those powerhouses back at the number one seed. That's right, Duke is back to number one after spending about a month out of that position.

But the big news is that St. John's University is in the top 25 for the first time since November 2000. Now many might not know much about St. John's. For those who don't know St. John's is a private university located in New York City. And the truth is that they used to have a very historic basketball program. They actually used to be really good. Like up there with Duke good.

St. John's Red Storm men's basketball has the 7th-most NCAA tournament appearances (27), two Wooden National Player of the Year Award Winners, 11 consensus All-Americans, 6 members of the College Basketball Hall of Fame, and has sent 59 players to the NBA. However, of the top 5 teams, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, Duke, and St. John's, St. John's is the only team not to win an NCAA championship for basketball, and currently holds the NCAA Division I record for most NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship appearances without a championship.

And I sure hope that they make the tournament this year. I love rooting for those strange and not often heard about teams. The big question is, who's going to be this year's Butler?

Ah Duke, thanks for reminding us that we hate you

Look at that mess covering an entire page of Sports Illustrated. Ugh. Puke. Blah.

Not only did we have to suffer through another Duke Blue Devils championship but now we have to see things like that. The real sticker though is that this ad cost somewhere between $200,000 to $300,000 (according to the SI ratesheet).


And this ladies and gentlemen, is why we hate Duke.


Found this on Deadspin.

William and Mary picks a weird mascot

On the radio show today we talked about William and Mary changing their mascot to a griffin. Now anyone who plays World of Warcraft will immediately know what the heck this college is talking about, however everyone else is subsequently freaked out by this monster.

I mean what the hell is this thing?

The school president said it "speaks to our deep roots in American history," which makes complete sense since our country was founded by numerous half-eagle, half lion men. I think I saw one at Walmart the other night.

This of course follows a long line of universities that have changed their mascots including Eastern Washington University which was originally called the "Savages" (Obviously not the most sensitive mascot ever) but decided to go with the "Eagles" in the seventies, which is kind of like a Griffin, but without all the weirdness.

The Pac-10 is down?

WASHINGTON 82, NEW MEXICO 64

Um, I don't think so. Guess who's in the Sweet Sixteen?

At the NCAAs...

Sorry about the lack of posts yesterday but I spent the day courtside for all four games of the NCAA Tournament in Spokane, being a production assistant for Westwood One radio with Dave Sims and PJ Carlesimo. Here are some things I noticed...

1. NCAA Tournament College Basketball is much more impressive in person than on TV, considering you have the best teams in the country on the floor. While CBS does a great job of covering all the games, you obviously lose a lot in translation. And I have to say that the teams are actually quite evenly matched athletically and competitively. A ten-point win seems like a lot if you're sitting at home, but if you're sitting next to the action, you know there's a possibility that had the other team gotten two-or-three bounces, it's a completely different game. This sounds somewhat cliched but seriously, if you're up close to these guys, it's good basketball. And I thought I'd never say that about college basketball.

2. New Mexico State got completely screwed in their loss to Michigan State.  The head ref had arguably been calling ticky tack fouls and really asserting himself all game. Let the kids play. He also called two technicals that he had no business calling. Just a shame, hopefully he doesn't do another NCAA Tournament. Nobody on Press Row was happy about his calls and they were visible upset by it, like some drunk assistant coach had stumbled on the court and yelling at players (a la Hoosiers). Actually that would have been pretty entertaining. The best part of this screw job? A NMS fan walking over within earshot of the CBS TV crew and yelling "Why don't you talk about how the NCAA SCREWS mid-majors!!!!!" ... I half expected four Arena Ushers to drag him away while he's going "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! You cant do this to me! I'm A BOOOSTER!!!!"

3. Best part of the day, the Arena PA screwing up the Gonzaga-FSU score and making it sound like the Zags were down by a huge margin. The entire crowd of 11,000 gasped with disappointment (I think one lady behind us may have went into labor), and then went dead silent like somebody had just thrown an infant from the upper deck onto the court. Then the PA guy was like "Whoah, hold on, flip that score" and then the entire crowd cheered. Pure theater. Love it. I think PA guys should have more fun with this and screw with home crowds more often.

4. Best mascot of the night. First, Michigan State's mascot is so iconic it's cool to have him rolling around although it would have been cool just to have some ripped guy dressed like a "300" guy yelling "THIS IS SPARTA!!!" to everyone in the crowd. However, the best mascot of the night was Maryland's Testudo. When you first see him you're like "Holy Crap is that a turtle?!" and then you have flashbacks for your childhood of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Seriously, if they could have had Shredder and Splinter show up to the Arena, it would have brought the place down. And whoever played Testudo was great, telling to opposing fans to "call him" and generally being overly pumped about the game. Loved it. Anytime you can have a turtle roaming around the court, you just got to do it.

5. My favorite players of the night was Greivis Vasquez, and I'm going to be rooting for him to do big things in the NBA. For Maryland, he's a 6'6" point guard that can shoot, drive to the hoop, excellent passing skills (his court vision is very impressive), play good defense and rebound. All in one player that just so happens to be the guy running your offense. Holy Cow, so dynamic and even though he didn't light up the scoreboard last night, the way he impacted the game by doing other things bodes very well for him down the road. Having just read Bill Simmons "Book of Basketball", where he talks about guys that know "The Secret" on being a great basketball player, I'd have to say that Vasquez just exudes the talent/will-to-win/selfless/royal badass criteria that is required. He was the most impressive player of the night and he wasn't even the top scorer on his team. That's how good he is.


And with that said, GO MARYLAND!

Montana sucks, NCAA Tournament shows

Hey Montana, a mid-major school beat you in the opening round of the tournament. Does that make you a mini-major?

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- After all of Darington Hobson's big talk about a deep NCAA tournament run for New Mexico, Montana nearly shut up the Lobos right away.

Roman Martinez had 19 points, six rebounds and four assists and third-seeded New Mexico overcame a shaky start to beat 14th-seeded Montana 62-57 in the NCAA tournament's East Regional on Thursday night.

Hobson added 11 points, 11 rebounds and six assists while playing with a sprained left wrist for the Lobos, who used a 17-0 run after halftime to briefly break open the game after trailing by a point at the break.

But now they'll probably raise a banner in their basketball arena.

NCAA Practice photos from Spokane

The NCAA Tournament will tip-off tomorrow, but today I got to take a trip down to the Spokane Arena for some of the team practices. Here are some of the images I got from the Michigan St. and Maryland session.

By the way, the MSU Superfan? Not me. I promise.

More proof that college basketball stinks

This is somewhat draw-dropping unless you really think about it. EA Sports will discontinue their NCAA Basketball video game franchise, meaning the sport will be without a video game for the first time in 12 years.

NCAA Basketball was left out of Electronic Arts' list of key releases in a financial filing on Monday. Today, in a statement to Game Informer, EA Sports' David Tinson confirmed that the publisher has ceased work on the series.

"We do not have an NCAA Basketball game in development at this time, and we're currently reviewing the future of our NCAA Basketball business," Tinson said to Game Informer. "This was a difficult decision, but we remain a committed partner to the NCAA and its member institutions."

In early 2008, 2K Sports pulled out of the college basketball market, leaving just EA Sports. It is highly unlikely that anyone else will jump back in, given the poor sales history, the inevitable competition with two other NBA basketball titles, and the cost of the license.

Dirty little secret (that ESPN will not tell you because they show quite a bit of college basketball) about CBB, ratings are dropping and have been dropping for some time now. Overall interest on a grand scale is down (except for Spokane, which orbits around Gonzaga) and you can definitely blame that on the players that leave after one year.

Why would you want to get a name that just has the players numbers, and these players are virtual unknowns anyways. Now 20 years ago? Players were around for 3-4 years and you knew who was on each team. Now? Admit it, you might be able to name 10 players in all of college basketball outside of the Gonzaga and Eastern Washington team.

Hey NCAA? You paying attention?

Epic Photo: He's Back!

WSU head coach Paul Wulff is back on the sidelines for practice after not being allowed near the team for three days due to NCAA violations back when he coached at EWU. Surely a blow that will bring down Cougar football as we know it.

In other news, EWU is still hamstrung with it's no-postseason sanction by the NCAA. Even though Wulff is no longer there and the only actual people that get hurt by this are the student-athletes.

Hooray NCAA! Way to continue to be the worst sports organization since the XFL went out of business!

Whitworth Weekly Update

Here's something you probably didn't know was possible: the Whitworth Pirates lead the Northwest Conference in scoring defense (64.5 points allowed), field goal percentage (49.7), field goal percentage defense (38.8), three-point percentage (39.2), three-point percentage defense (29.8), free throw percentage (70.7), and rebound margin (+7.8), yet only have two players leading the NWC in any category individually.

Weird.

While the Pirates lost last Friday to Lewis & Clark 74-62, bumping them down to third place in the conference standings, they're still sporting a 13-4 overall record and 5-3 conference mark. In that loss Calvin Jurich had his third double-double of the season with 20 points and 15 rebounds.

They'll face George Fox this Friday on the road at 8 p.m. and then Pacific on Saturday at 6 p.m.

And traveling with them will be the Whitworth women's team, who has won five of their last six to pull into a three-way tie for second with Whitman and Puget Sound. They'll play the same opponents as the men, just two hours earlier. Got to love how they do this Div. III basketball stuff, seems way better than the Div. I brand.

And good news for those people getting giddy about baseball. Whitworth Sports Information Director Steve Flegel has release the season outlooks for Whitworth Baseball and Softball. Now the only question becomes, when do pitchers and catchers report in Spokane?

Roy Oh Roy!

Last night the Washington Huskies retired the second number ever in the teams 107 year history and just the 30th number retired in the Pac-10. That was the number 3 worn by Brandon Roy who now joins Bob Houbregs in the rafters.

Roy's journey to this point didn't start out all sunshine and farts though. When Roy first enrolled at UW his SAT scores weren't high enough to get past the dreaded NCAA clearinghouse (not to be confused with the Publishers). After taking the test again and passing, then having the clearinghouse reject him because of how much better his score was, he had to take it.....again. The results were lost, then found and he was finally on his way to an amazing career at UW. In his senior year Roy averaged 20.2 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists a game and was an All-American and named Pac-10 Player of the Year.

Now Roy is tearing it up for our neighbors down south the Portland Trail Blazers. Roy has been in the City of Roses now for about 2 1/2 seasons and has already posted a 50 point game (52 against the Phoenix Suns), been an All-Star and won Rookie of the Year honors.

It is great to see a local product who went to Garfield High, enroll at our local University of Washington and go on to become a great NBA player and a great person.

Oh yeah, and the Huskies beat the USC Trojans 78-73!! Great night.

UConn is pretty good

So No. 2 UConn put the hurt on No. 8 Gonzaga today 88-83 in overtime, Eastern Washington lost by 30 points to Washington and WSU plays Idaho tomorrow.

Can't hardly wait.

The Zags had a full crowd at Key Arena behind them but it wasn't enough as the Huskies turned up the defense in the waning seconds of regulation and overtime. Pargo couldn't seem to be able to hold onto the ball either. All Gonzaga's three point shooters fouled out when they really needed them.

All in all, it wasn't the greatest outings for the Zags and they only lost by five points to second-best team in the country. You can't be too discouraged, this is a talented team, they're just going to need to play better under pressure.

With the game on the line, they fell apart. Does that sound familiar? Anyone remember Adam Morrison crying at center court, because I do. However, I think this team is considerably better than that Sweet Sixteen Squad.

Once they get rolling in the WCC schedule, they'll get into the perfect attitude for the NCAA Tournament.

... and I really don't want to talk about the Eagles right now.

Remember how bad football season was?

Well the hoops season has started oh so much better. Washington State is receiving votes in the Top 25 poll instead of providing less competition to USC than their practice squad, the Gonzaga Bulldogs are ranked No. 5 in the nation and the Eastern Washington Eagles are playing some pretty good ball and kickoff their Big Sky Conference schedule this Saturday against Montana State at Reese Court.

While everyone expected the Cougs and Zags to be doing pretty good at this point, the Eagles are a bit of a surprise at 5-2. Namely because of this guy...

No not Bobby Knight, he's moonlighting as an ESPN analyst at the moment, the guy on the right is Benny Valentine, perhaps the best athlete EWU has seen walk through its doors since Rodney Stuckey. Don't believe me, here's the stat line for every game so far for Valentine.

vs. Illinois - 14 points
vs. UC Irvine - 17 points
vs. Texas Arlington - 28 points
vs. Minnesota - 29 points
vs. UC Irvine - 21 points

That's every game he's led the Eagles in scoring this season. If this were a player for Gonzaga, we'd probably be hearing about how he should be named Player of the Year.

And speaking of the Zags, they showed what they made of at the Old Spice Classic and they seem to be doing just fine without this guy...

I'm glad that Spokane will be remembered for producing the athlete that looks like the hero who wears a mask in V for Vendetta. Way to improve this city's image!

But hey, if Pargo does his thang, I think we'll be forgetting about Morrison a whole lot quicker since he seems to not be making very many waves in the NBA.

And as far as WSU goes, we'll I'm fully convinced they'll win 20 games this season and only cross the fifty-point barrier in conference play about three times. Who's ready for a 35-20 NCAA Tournament first round win?

Label this one under ass-whooping

Brock Lesnar of WWE fame has sucessfuly crossed over from a preforming athlete to a real athlete after he won the UFC heavyweight title by beating Randy Couture in the second round of their fight on Saturday Night.

Lesnar sent him to the canvas in the second round with a glancing blow that landed behind the ear and wasted no time in landing numerous hammer fists. Couture was never able to recover and the fight was stopped moments later.

Now, my former roommate Cary Rosenbaum could tell you how much I watched professional wrestling and UFC, almost as much as he watched episodes of One Tree Hill and The OC.

(Anyone who knows Cary will get the joke. All he did was spend time in his room watching Might Ducks 2, playing NCAA Football 2008 - leading Navy, Army, Temple, Idaho, and Canada State to national championships, playing Guitar Hero and entertaining hot girls while my other roommate Jake and I played Scattegories in the living room)

But the fact that this guy is absolutely HUGE, and he basically just out-muscles his opponents is pretty impressive. A former NCAA wrestling champion, he may have found his niche in actual sports. The only problem now is the perception that the WWE is now a legit farm league for UFC.

Rushing the field...

I mean it's a terrible football conference in general, since there are not part of the BCS, but it appears that their administrators are equally as incompetant as their football teams. C-USA has fined the upstart East Carolina University because fans rushed the field...

The State Bureau of Investigation is looking into reports that some police used excessive force on football fans during East Carolina's dramatic win last weekend against West Virginia.

Officials said Friday that the SBI will consider video that shows fans being knocked down and punched by officers as fans rushed the field after the Pirates' 24-3 upset win over the then-No. 8 Mountaineers.

East Carolina is being fined $10,000 by Conference USA after football fans charged the field.

The conference said Friday the school violated a policy that prohibits public access to competition areas until the visiting team and officials are in the locker rooms.

Isn't rushing the field or court a common part of college athletics? I remember when Eagle fans did it when EWU made it to their first NCAA Tournament ever in basketball. Trust me, there's no stopping thousands of students and fans jumping onto the field. Unless of course you want to have a crowd control staff equal to the size or bigger than the amount of fans in the stadium. That's just stupid, C-USA, why would you punish a school that's making your conference actually revelant?

And ironically the state investigating the university for using excessive force trying to stop people from rushing the field?

I don't know how they do it in Carolina, but isn't it normal for a fan that rushed to field to get a load of smackdown for their stupidity. This who situation seems to contradict itself.

And does anyone remember what a field-rushing is like at Ohio State? The cops surrounded the field goal posts and had fire hoses that shot out mace into the home crowd.

Look up at the picture above this post. The Pac-10 is cool with it. You know, a real college football conference.