Pac Ten Alley

It is that time of the week again when we take a stroll down Pac Ten Alley to see what is going on with the other Pac Ten school's. This is a time of the year when the focus has shifted almost completely to basketball unless you are a Cal fan, then the focus is on Native American burial grounds.

The Pac-10 beginning to respond to USC's dominance according to Ivan Maisel.

Get ready for a guffaw, you self-righteous defenders of the Big Ten Conference. Time to reposition that chip on your shoulder, you myopic denizens of the SEC. If there's a conference that is the answer to what's next, it is the Pac-10.

The proposed site of California's new athletic complex is now being called an ancient Native American burial ground by the protesters.

Tree-sitting protesters who oppose a massive, $125 million development project in the area of the University of California, Berkeley football stadium said Tuesday that the area is a burial ground for indigenous tribes.

On the Oregon State blog they are sizing up the seed's in the Pac Ten Tournament.

Oregon State would draw Cal, which sits well with me. Out of Washington and Cal, (who are in a tie for seventh place right now, we had to use tiebreakers) I would feel much more comfortable playing Cal, a team we have played tough in both games. Cal is relatively small, compared to Washington, who is quite large.

At Oregon, the Duck Basketball team is in a late season free fall. Can you say Mark Few? If the Duck's don't get to the dance I doubt Ernie Kent sticks around.

Oregon (20-7, 8-7) has lost six of eight games overall and will try to recover with three home games to end the season.

At UCLA the Bruins are focussing on becoming the West's #1 seed.

Anyways thanks to Coach Howland I do believe in taking one game at a time, and working to get the number 1 seed out West. That is really all I want for now: the number 1 seed out west. Once we get that we will put ourselves in a decent spot to make a run. NCAA tournament is a crapshoot as you all know. But getting the number 1 seed will help our cause and it will also mean that we had a pretty good regular season.

The Cougars are still in the hunt for the conference championship.

Paint Thursday's game at Oregon as the first of maybe only two remaining "must wins" for the Cougs until the NCAA tournament. Here are a few quick rambles for "the nation" to consider...

Arizona's Marcus Williams by way of Seattle's Roosevelt HS may enter the draft as a sophomore since he is projected to be a first rounder.

“I don’t think about that right now,’’ Williams said. “Hopefully, we have 14 games left – five Pac-10 games, three in the conference tournament and six in the NCAA Tournament. That’s the thing that helps me not think about it at all.’’

Stanford has been able to overcome the loss so far of Anthony Goods.

Stanford’s Anthony Goods has been out two games with a sprained ankle.

Herb Sendek has been making some progress at ASU.

The concensus has been that ASU is better than their record and opponents have been leaving Tempe with respect for the Devils. The scores have been close, but I have been wondering how close they are to being a good team.