Schools looking to get into the Pac-10

Before the Pac-10 becomes the Pac-39, here are some schools there should look at.

WSU - they're not in the league right now are they? Oh they are? Oops.

School of Hard Knocks - Their mascot, the high school dropout, is pretty cool.

Some Canadian school - that would make the Pac-10 competitive in Hockey. We're not being stereotypical are we?

Duke University - That way they could smell their own farts with the academics at Cal and Stanford.

The School for the Blind - This is where you could get all the Pac-10 refs!

Tim Tebow University - Formerly known as the University of Florida.

Seattle Seahawks - Come on, coached by Pete Carroll, a roster of good college players, they might even go to a bowl game.

How to tell if your conference is a joke

After watching a lot of the Pac-10 Tournament, I have to say that the conference is a big joke. Ugly game after ugly game and even though it's cool that Washington won, I'm pretty sure they're gonna get a 16-seed in the NCAA Tourney. Here are some signs your conference sucks...

1. The conference basketball championship tournament is played in the Toyota Center in the Tri-Cities and you can't sell half the seats in the arena.

2. Instead of getting a bid to the NCAA Tournament, your team receives a check from the Publishers Clearing House for thirty dollars.

3. When your conference talks about expansion, it names schools like "The Community Colleges of California" and "East West North Montana State College for Canadian Citizens."

4. To boost attendance, your conference suggests dime beer night. On college campuses. For women's games.

5. The best player in the conference is Gary Coleman.

6. Your conference's baseball league consists of fat guys playing softball.

7. Your conference's top Bowl Game invite also doubles as a chance for your school's intramural football team to work on their flag grabbing skills.

8. The conference website is just a Craigslist Ad.

9. The best part about the conference? The refs are extremely overweight and easy to heckle.

10. Washington St. is dominating your conference in the football standings.

Gonzaga climbs in the polls, better than the entire Pac-10

Okay so they beat a Div. III school and a scrappy Davidson team with a bad record. Does that warrant a jump up to No. 15 in the country? Sure it does when a bunch of people ahead of you lose.

It was a tough week for teams that were ranked just in front of Gonzaga in the Dec. 7 polls. Texas A&M, Washington, UNLV, Cincinnati and Wisconsin dropped games. No. 24 Washington is the only Pac-10 team ranked.

The WCC might get more bids in the NCAA Tournament than the Pac-10 at this pace. What the heck is wrong with that conference? Did they all decide to invest more resources in their rugby programs or something?

East Coast Bias: They take their sports more seriously

We've long heard that when it comes to really any of the major sports - the East Coast views their sports whole lot more seriously than those of us on the West Coast. Which for the most part is true, because I really can't come up with an example of a Pac-10 rivalry being more heated than a SEC rivalry - nor can I point to a fan base that follows and criticizes their teams more religiously than East Coast fans.

And please, don't tell me any other ways, because Seahawks fans didn't get crazy till their team started making the playoffs in the early 2000s, Dodger fans don't show up to games until the playoffs and USC fans are about as friendly and passive as you can get. Many ESPN radio personalities have said on the air "things are a little more relaxed out West"

And that's not a knock. It's not that we care less, it's that we run a little more even keeled ship as fan.

Cities are spread out more on the west coast, and it's almost as if people take to their regional identity than the specific identity of their city. You won't see a person from Seattle refuse to date someone from Portland or Spokane, nor will you talk trash about those cities (well, maaaybe Spokane, just a little :D). Things happen at a slight slower pace on the West Coast - heck, we even talk slow - and therefore I don't think we see sports as so life and death.

When you're mired in the urban jungles of the East Coast such as Pittsburgh above, since theirs so many metro areas and populace centers, you really grab onto what identifies you. Therefore you're sports teams become a huge part of your life. You certainly don't want to lose to your cross-state rivals in Philadelphia, because that's part of YOU losing.

And also consider that in these urban environments with less and less space to escape from society from time to time (example, take a relaxing vacation, hike, bike ride ect. ect.), you're exposed to the myopic mini-society that your city has established.

In Spokane, there's a limited amount of media sources talking up the teams, in Seattle there's more media sources but they're also covering regions outside of the city limits and therefore their tunnel vision on sports is lost somewhat.

On the East, in a city like Pittsburgh, it's STEELERS! It's PIRATES (and their 100 losses!)! It's PENGUINS! And you'd be hard pressed to escape that media hype around sports because your in a city with thousands of people around you talking about topics that matter to your city and even if you get out of town - you're basically just in another city with thousands of people around you talking about topics that matter to their city. You can't escape it.

In the Northwest, well, you can just go fishing...

Washington Huskies Weekly Update

Pac-10 Champs!!!

56 years in the making the Washington Huskies are conference champions. Icing on the cake is that they clinched by beating their rival the Washington State Cougars to do it. The last time the Dawgs won an outright conference title was when the conference was known as the Pacific Coast Conference. In the game the Huskies won it how they have won all season by employing solid defense and getting scoring from multiple sources.

In this game the Huskies got 16 points from Quincy Pondexter, 7 points and 18 rebounds from Jon Brockman, 12 points from Justin Dentmon and most surprising of all 14 points and lock-down defense from Venoy Overton off of the bench. The 14 from Overton was especially surprising since he averaged only 5.9 points per game through the regular season.

Now the Huskies head into the Pac-10 tournament, which starts on Wednesday, March 11th, as the #1 seed. The Dawgs won't play their first game until Thursday the 12th against the winner of the Oregon State/Stanford game. To be successful in the Pac-10 tourney as well as the NCAA Tournament, Washington will need to continue with what got them to this point, namely the balanced scoring and solid defense.

Call me a homer but with this team I could definetely see them making an Elite 8 run or beyond.

Also of note the Huskies picked up a few honors today: Pac-10 Freshman of the Year for Isaiah Thomas, Pac-10 Most Improved Player for Justin Dentmon and Lorenzo Romar picked up his second Pac-10 Coach of the Year honor.

Pac-10 Domination

The Pac-10 has won many championships in many sports over the years. They have also been dominant in some sports at certain times in the past. You can look to the 6 baseball championships they won in the 60's (3 each by the USC Trojans and Arizona State Sun Devils), and then again in the 70's when USC won 5 straight from 1970 to 1974 (as well as another in 1978, also with the Arizona Wildcats winning back to back in 76-77). Of course there was Men's basketball in the 60's and 70's with the UCLA Bruins winning 10 championships from the 1963-64 season to the 1974-75 season.

None of those stretches of dominance can measure up to how dominate Softball has been in the Pac-10. The first Women's College World Series was held in 1982 and was won by UCLA over Fresno State. The Pac-10 has actually won 21 of the 27 Softball World Series that have been held, even winning 10 in a row from 1988 through 1997. Even in 1995 when UCLA won and the championship was vacated by the NCAA Committee on Infractions, Arizona was right there to pick up the title since they were the runner up. Actually of the 54 possible contestants in the 27 years of the Championship Series final, the Pac-10 has had 36 teams represent the conference. There has been only two years that the Pac-10 didn't have a team in the Championship Series and that was 1983 and 1986. Eleven times the Championship Series has featured both teams from the Pac-10!

Now if that isn't dominance then I don't know what is, and if you don't think Women's softball is tough feel free to step into the batters box and try to hit a pitch coming at you between 60-70 miles an hour from 43 feet away.

Oh yeah, lets hope that the Pac-10 can add a 22nd title this year by way of the Washington Huskies. Go Lady Dawgs!!

Washington Huskies Weekly Update

Go Beavers!!! No I'm not an Oregon State fan but this week I am, for if the Beavers can beat UCLA in Pauley Pavilion on Thursday then the Huskies will wrap up the Pac-10 regular season title. If not then the Huskies will have to wait until Saturday when they play the Washington State Cougars.

The Huskies are in control of their own destiny after handling things at home this past week. On Thursday the Dawgs beat Arizona State in a heart stopper 73-70 in overtime. Jon Brockman again came through big in this game scoring 21 points. Justin Dentmon came through big in overtime scoring 6 of the 16 points he scored on the night.

Saturday the Huskies beat the Arizona Wildcats 83-78 after being down by 10 in the second half. Brockman and Isaiah Thomas both scored 19 points in leading Washington to victory. Also aiding in the Huskies victory was solid free throw shooting down the stretch, the Dawgs converted 10 of 12 from the line. If not for the poor free throw shooting earlier in the game (9 for 23) the Huskies might have won even more convincingly.

This week the Huskies have their last two regular season games of the season, both at home, when they take on Seattle University on Tuesday and Washington State on Saturday.

In other UW news the softball team is now 17-0 and number 1 in the country after beating Portland State 8-2 on Sunday. The Washington Huskies were led again by Danielle Lawrie who is now 12-0 and is currently working on 66.1 consecutive scoreless innings pitched. Ashley Charters continued her stealing ways when swiped 3 more bases which leaves her 3 short of the career UW record for stolen bases in a career.

Go Dawgs!!!

Epic Photo: This is what Arizona State getting upset looks like

The Washington State Cougars are heating up at exactly the right time after they defeated No. 11 ranked Arizona State 51-49 in Pullman, Wash. today. This makes them a very, very dangerous team headed into the Pac-10 Tournament. What are the chances of them making the NCAA Tournament?

(Photo by Dean Hare/AP)

Washington Huskies Weekly Update

A little help from your enemies. That's what the Washington Huskies got this week when the Washington State Cougars beat the UCLA Bruins on Saturday. The Huskies now have a 1 1/2 game lead over the Bruins in the Pac-10. Arizona State is right behind the Huskies, only a 1/2 game back, they will have a chance to add to that lead when the Sun Devils visit B of A this Thursday. Should the Huskies prevail on Thursday that will give them at least a 1 1/2 game lead over the second place team in the Pac-10 with just 2 conference games remaining, both at home.

Unfortunately the Huskies were unable to beat UCLA last Thursday losing 85-76, but did manage to beat the USC Trojans on their home court on Saturday by the final of 60-51. The loss was only the second the Trojans have suffered all season. The heroes in this game against the Trojans were Quincy Pondexter who scored a season-high 22 points, and Venoy Overton who applied heavy pressure to USC's point guard Daniel Hackett. Overton entered the game with 6:20 remaining and helped shut down the Trojans, who led by 4 with 5:52 to play but scored only 1 point the rest of the way.

This week the Huskies entertain the Sun Devils on Thursday the 26th and the Arizona Wildcats Saturday the 28th, both at home.

Washington Huskies Weekly Update

No Sweet 16 for Stanford. The Huskies finally broke through and beat the Stanford Cardinal in Palo Alto for the first time since 1993 on Sunday. The Cardinal scored 12 straight points midway through the first half to go up 25-15, but the Huskies closed the first half strong and went into the break up 35-34. UW kept up the pressure in the second half and ended up defeating the Cardinal 75-68. Quincy Pondexter lead the Dawgs with 20 points, Isaiah Thomas added 17 for his 17th consecutive game in double figures and Jon Brockman added his 11th double-double of the season.

Unfortunately the Huskies lost the first game of this Californication on Thursday night when they were soundly beaten by the California Golden Bears. UW held a 43-34 lead early in the second half but imploded after that and went on to lose 86-71.

The Huskies currently ranked 22nd in the nation are now a half game back of the UCLA Bruins for 1st place in the Pac-10 at 8-3.

This week the Huskies head back home to battle the Oregon State Beavers on Thursday and the Oregon Ducks on Valentines Day. Fitting because the Huskies Ducks have a real love/hate relationship, mostly hate. The Huskies are 13-1 this season at home, and with the Oregon schools being two of the worst in the Pac-10 the Dawgs should prevail in both of these games.

By the way, isn't it a shame that Oregon State and South Carolina don't play every year?

UW Recruiting Recap

The Washington Huskies didn't make a huge splash on High School Football National Signing Day, but I didn't expect them to nor did most anybody else with Steve Sarkisian not being hired until December 7th, as well as the teams struggles last season. Most recruiting websites ranked the Huskies with the 9th or 10th rated class in the Pac-10. A great number of players the Huskies signed were from Junior Colleges .

The key player in this class was Wide Receiver James Johnson from Valley Center, California, according to coach Sarkisian. Sarkisian also stated that much of what UW did for this signing period was lay the groundwork for the 2010 class. To view Washington's entire class and read bios on each player click here.

It appears every recruit will have an immediate opportunity to play with how bad the Huskies were last year. I think that with an entire year of recruiting under his belt, a better crop of prospects from the state, and with Sarkisian's ties to the California and Utah areas, the Huskies will have a much better class next year. Go Dawgs!!

Washington Huskies Weekly Update: Tucson, Tempe Split

The Washington Huskies salvaged a split on the first half of there 4 game Pac-10 road trip. On Thursday night the Dawgs were in Tucson taking on the Arizona Wildcats and were ahead 38-37 at halftime. The second half turned out to be a free throw bonanza for the Wildcats as they went 34 of 40 from the charity stripe and beat the Huskies 106-97. With the loss Washington falls to 6-2 in the Pac-10 and back into a tie with the UCLA Bruins. The Huskies will surely be looking for revenge when they host the Wildcats on February 28th.

On Saturday the Huskies went into the home of the Arizona State Sun Devils and left with an 84-71 victory. They held the Pac-10's leading scorer James Harden to 15 points which is about 7 points below his average (22.2) and scored 41 in the first half which is the most points the Sun Devils had given up in the first half all season. With UCLA winning also, the Huskies remain in a tie with the Bruins for first in the Pac-10.

The biggest story of this game (other than locking down Harden) was the continued great scoring output by Justin Dentmon. Love him or hate him it is hard to argue his offensive production over the last 7 games. Dentmon has averaged 21.4 points per games over his last 7 games, up from the 12.5 points a game he averaged over the teams first 14 games.

Couple Dentmon with the solid play of Jon Brockman (15.6 points and 10.9 rebounds per game) and Isaiah Thomas (16.7 points per game) and the Huskies are looking like a tough tournament team. A welcome ray of sunshine in this gloomy and dark Seattle sports (and weather) world.

No time for the Dawgs to bask in glow of the victory on Saturday as they head to Berkeley for a date with the California Golden Bears on Thursday (2/5) and then to Palo Alto to tangle with the Stanford Cardinal on Sunday (2/8).

Additionally on the docket this week for the Huskies football team is National Signing Day, which is right up there with the opening Thursday and Friday games of the NCAA Tournament in March as my favorite days of the year. Look for a breakdown of UW's incoming recruiting class on Wednesday the 4th once the recruits start sending in there letters of intent.

WSU Weekly Update: Cougin' it

Washington State has made quiet a living in their past two games holding tight and then falling apart in the closing seconds, which leaves them at 3-4 in the conference and 11-8 overall.

On top of the conference? We'll it's those loathsome Huskies, but WSU has nobody to blame but themselves as they blew chances again both So-Cal teams and now they're facing an uphill battle for the rest of the season (or until the teams from Oregon come to play in Pullman).

One helpful tidbit is that the Huskies and Cougars are the only two teams in the Pac-10 that haven't lost of on the road this season. Which means their four losses came at home - ick - so much for that Friel Court advantage.

They'll be at No. 14 Arizona State this Thursday, who just so happens to be the highest ranked squad in the Pac-10, just ahead of the Huskies, who got the national nod at No. 25 and the No. 17 UCLA Bruins.

Then Wazzu will take on Arizona on Saturday which should be an easier game than the Sun Devils. The Wildcats have been pretty darn disappointing this season, 2-5 in Pac-10 play.

While the Cougars proved they can hang against ranked teams, they just haven't been able to finish. Any idea why?

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.

WSU Weekly Update: Oregon Massacre

Oregon basketball fans are wondering if they're going to be going through a season like Washington football fans just went through.

Oregon State (6-10 overall, 1-5 conference) - an improved, but still have a long way to go in a tough, tough conference.

Oregon (6-12 overall, 0-6 conference) - Well, disappointing would be an understatement.

And WSU beat them both, thanks largely to the play of Taylor Rochestie, who had 44 points during the road trip but that still did not warrant enough to get Player of the Week honors from the Pac-10. Vince Grippi from the Spokesman-Review is not happy.

Who's next? UCLA and USC. A little tougher than the second to last and last place teams in the Pac-10 but at least the games are in Pullman.

Pac-10 better than the AFC and NFC West

Everyone had the PAC-10 written off as having a down year with USC only being the only real true power in the West. And even though the Trojans were respected, they were somewhat looked down upon for playing bad competition in the conference.

Well, the PAC-10 pretty much showed all the pollsters, experts, coaches and ESPN analysts that they were dead wrong in determining the toughness of the conference after they went 5-0 in Bowl Games this year.

No other conference can say that, and if you're the Big Ten and your champion just got trounced by the Trojans, you've got to be a little embarrassed. You'd better be hoping that Ohio State doesn't pull their normal Bowl Game choke job against Texas.

The Big East and ACC Champions are currently facing off in the Orange Bowl to a half full stadium, and while I'm watching the game, I really can't say that I blame football fans for not being enthralled at the prospect of Virginia Tech and Cincinnati. Might as well just go to the Winter Classic instead -- which was an awesome spectacle, again.

I think this selling of the PAC-10 short always happens because (a) fans on the west coast aren't as crazy as the SEC and east coast fans, meaning that there's a perceived lack of interest... which is stupid, west coast fans just don't stab one another over football games but it leads to (b) the major media centers, which are located on the east coast, focusing their coverage on other teams.

Obviously USC and UCLA get their fair share of coverage because they're in LA, but the rest of the teams are really out on an island. Unless you're in the state of a respective team, your don't really follow them as closely.

Sure they'll get ranked, sure they'll still get on TV but people don't go as gaga over them as they would over an east coast team.

And with that said, I'm glad people are kind of ignoring Washington and Washington State.

Reasons why you're still single...

You stroll into the bar, see two gentlemen watching game 2 of the ALCS, and then decide to reach up to the television they are watching (even though there's roughly eight more televisions in the bar) and change the channel to the UCLA Bruins/Oregon blowout.

The sad part is, since this happened in Cheney, you probably didn't go to either respective school. You sir are a certified dick.

It's Gametime Baby!

It's finally here! I've been waiting since February for this moment. The day football finally begins again. We have to wait a little longer for the pros to hit the field, but college ball started tonight. And what a way to start!

I have a cousin that goes to the University of South Carolina, and he had been hyping this game between the Gamecocks and North Carolina State. He was pretty excited for the national spotlight for his school. And as the game wore on, he deserved to be. The Gamecocks won handily at 34-0.

Another big opening day match up came within the PAC-10. Oregon State (not wearing their sport bra uniforms much to Brandon's disappointment) got started on wrong foot. Loosing to...wait for it...wait for it...yes, the Beavers dropped this game to Stanford 36-28. Stanford of all schools! They're supposed to be the team PAC-10 teams get excited to play, cause they know it will be a win. Wait, that's now Washington State or Washington. Sad day.

The University of Miami won. But nobody cares.

Number 23 Wake Forest lived up to the hype that's been building around the Demon Deacons with a 41-13 crushing of Baylor. The team looked very good, but don't get too excited. Cause it was the Bears of Baylor and Baylor never wins. The only football team worse than them could be Duke. And Duke doesn't even know where the endzone is.

Georgia Tech beat Jacksonville State (which is lead by quarterback Ryan Perrilloux) HAHAHA. Sorry. Anyway, Tech won 41-14.

UConn beat Hofstra. Who the heck is Hofstra? Is this a made up place? Kinda like Oz? Allow me to visit the most trusted Wikipedia.

Hofstra University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational institution of higher learning located in Hempstead, Long Island, New York (USA) founded in 1935 on the basis of the estate of wealthy lumber magnate William S. Hofstra (1861-1932) and his (second) wife Kate Mason (1854-1933). The school began as a college of New York University and in 1937 became an independent school called Hofstra College,^[1] later changing its name to Hofstra University in 1963.

In other words, a bunch of rich, preppy kids. Way to go UConn. Really soak this one in.

And lastly, Vanderbilt beat the other Miami (the one in Ohio with out all the bikini clad women) 34-13. But their quarterback Chris Nickson looked great doing it. On the way to the win he rushed for 166 yards, two touchdowns and threw in another one. Not a bad first day.

Man I'm glad it's fall.

Alright, I'm off to join Shaggy and Scooby for another zaney adventure in the Mystery Machine. No seriously though. I'm off on an adventure. I'll keep you posted.

What to do in case of an Alien Invasion

Let's face it, we're the party pad of the universe.

Where else are you going to see someone finish off a keg and then shave their armpit hair for good measure? And don't say WAZZU, because despite the best wishes of Husky fans and the entire Pac-10, the Palouse is actually part of the Planet Earth and not the moon.

However, someone is bound to crash the party. That's right, Alien invasion.
There are way too many lame humanoids out there that don't know how to have a good time, I mean how many times have you seen a good bar on Neptune? It's a large ball of gas, the only thing that would survive on that planet is Rosanne Barr.

So if you want to avoid being vaporized or having a creature burst from your chest, here's a couple things you can do to survive an alien invasion:

1. If there's a wise-cracking, former rapper with a cigar walking around, we suggest you follow him.

2. If you're in the military, try to stay out of the first wave of soldiers in the counter-attack. As Hollywood has shown us, counter-attacks to alien invasions usually lead to a complete butt-whopping of the U.S. military and there's usually something terrible that happens to them (They all get their brains sucked out or are forced to watch the TV series "Joey").

However, if there is a "last chance to save the world" opportunity that is risky, unorthodox and involves an IBM programmer, we suggest you participate in it because it's probably going to work.

3. If it looks cute, its probably going to eat your flesh.

4. The aliens will have shields, they always have shields.

5. Your relatives or friends will somehow survive the initial attack, and despite the city their in being completely wiped out, they'll be fine. You'll need to save them in some sort of heroic fashion though, but they won’t be tough to spot since their the only four people alive in a 500 mile radius.

6. Always sneak in the alien ship and fly it away. Despite the technology being from a different planet, the controls will still resemble that of a Playstation 3.

7. The mothership is the size of Texas but blowing it up in orbit will not cause any debris falling from space, because the explosion was just so cool.

8. Listen to the dorky scientist aid that slept with the president's aid, he knows more that 3,000 scientists working for NASA, the NSA and the FBI.

9. The Aliens are filled with goo, but its great tasting.

10. Everytime you kill an alien you have to make some reference to an Elton John song.