Pac Ten Alley

It is Sweet Sixteen time, and the Pac Ten has three teams still alive which is pretty respectable. Should have been four if WSU could have pulled it out in double overtime. Cheer's to the Coug's for a great season, and an incredible program rebuild.

Oregon takes on UNLV, USC has North Carolina, and UCLA takes on Pittsburgh. Realistically I am looking for the Ducks and Bruins to advance. USC is playing some great ball, andy yes, they can beat North Carolina, but history, and experience is on the Tarheel's side.

Over at UW Todd Turner hasn't fired anyone else this week. Dick Rockne of the PI has a nice article on the women's basketball search. Todd Turner is going "subterranean" even though I think he has a pretty good idea who the next coach is going to be.
What do you think, will he hire a man or a woman?

Once Turner has information from both groups he said he will "go subterranean" in conducting a personal search for candidates in secrecy. "Out of experience ... if this is too public and there is too much speculation the candidate pool can be diminished," Turner said. "If you're talking to people in highly visible positions, they want protection or they'll step away."Turner said he developed his selection system through 30 years in athletic administration and coach searches. He used the same approach to hire football coach Tyrone Willingham.

Jerry Brewer of the Times talks about Spencer Hawes and his immediate future. I think Spencer stays till he is a junior and leaves with Brockman, just my gut feeling.

Let's talk about selfishness. It runs two ways in sports. We always refer to athletes' greedy ways, but we like to take, take, take, too. And in the quest to get our way, we can be downright indignant sometimes. Like with these potential one-and-done college freshmen. In the next five weeks, they all have big decisions to make. Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, even our own Spencer Hawes.

The USC basketball team has crashed the Sweet Sixteen, and LA is excited about having two teams left in the tournament.

Now I mean absolutely no disrespect to UCLA, but you have to just love USC crashing the party. The Trojans in the SweetSixteen are a wonderful, unexpected and almost charming story. Come on, they shouldn't be here, or weren't supposed to be. Not this season. USC's advent as a college basketball power was supposed to coincide with the arrival of phenom O.J. Mayo next season.

Cal starts it's second week of Spring practice addressing some needs in the defensive backfield.

As the Cal football team began its second week of spring practice Monday, many key positions—quarterback, tailback, wide receiver, linebacker, defensive line—appeared to be set. One of the most glaring uncertainties that has emerged thus far is the hole at cornerback after the departure of All-American and Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year Daymeion Hughes.

The Beavers are off to a hot start again this year in baseball. If you have ever been to Corvallis check out the baseball stadium, they did a nice job with it.

On the diamond, the No. 5 Beavers swept their three game series against San Fransisco. OSU opened on Friday with a 11-4 win behind the hot bats of Hopkins, Lissman, Canham, and others. On Saturday, the Beavers won by a large margin again, 9-2. Seven of those nine runs came in the first inning. Sunday, the Beavers capped off the sweep with a narrow 3-2 victory. Oregon State snuck in two runs with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. This stretches the Beavers overall win streak to nine games, and gives them an 20-3 overall record.

The Duck's are one of three Pac Ten teams in the Sweet Sixteen. I think they head to the next level. UNLV has been impressive, nice to see them back.

The Winthrop Eagles were no match for the high flying Ducks today as Oregon advances to the Sweet Sixteen. Final score Oregon 75 - Winthrop 61.

UCLA squares off against Pittsburgh. I saw Pitt play against Washington and I am pretty sure UCLA will beat these guys.

Make sure to reach the whole preview which goes over individual defensive matchups. Yesterday I wrote that AA may be guarding up senior Antonio Graves. BBR thinks AA will probably matchup against Mike Cook, who is the “most athletic Panther on the floor.” I think the later assertion is probably right.

WSU goes out against Vandy, poor Coug's.

Well, following yesterday's let down, the one thing that comes to mind is THANK GOD we'll have a distraction from next year's football season!

Arizona starts Spring practice. This is a team that has gone nowhere offensively since FDR was president.

There is usually little drama coming out of spring football practice, but there should be plenty of storylines for the University of Arizona football team.

Stanford's Brook Lopez is forgoing the NBA draft, and the Mercury has come out with the All Bay Area college allstar team.

Well, it didn’t take long for Stanford big man Brook Lopez to make a decision about his future — to decide between another year in school and the NBA Draft. Considered a top-10 pick if he were to leave Stanford this spring, Lopez issued a statement though the school Monday.

The ASU blog took the week off to travel to Savannah, Georgia to celebrate St Patrick's Day. This is pretty hilarious, and a must read. There are plenty of people with Irish heritage in the South, and Savannah rocks during the celebration.

A bagpipe and drum corps played "God Bless America" very late Saturday night as several hundred onlookers sang the lyrics, arm in drunken arm. Of the four of us, I was somehow the only one who found this sight to be absolutely f#*king amazing. I was so blown away I started crying and called my girlfriend. That could have been the booze talking, though.