Pac Ten Alley

The regular basketball season comes to a close this weekend as the Huskies invade Pullman. The Huskies then will try to go 3-0 in the Pac Ten tournament the following weekend. Not an easy thing to do, but one thing the Dawgs have shown in the second half of the season is they can compete with anyone in the conference on a given night. Let's see if Joe Wolfinger can stay hot, he really adds a completely different dimension to the team. A 7 footer shooting three's, you don't see that every day.

Pac Ten Alley

Let's take a walk down the coast to see what the neighbors are up to.

The word coming out of Oregon is that Ernie Kent is going to need a miracle to be retained as coach next year. Bad decision by the Ducks unless they can coerce Mark Few to leave Gonzaga to come to Eugene. The Ducks are still on the bubble as far as the NCAA tourney is concerned with two games left against the Arizona schools

Marty Leunen (pictured) had a career-high 32 points and Oregon ended the game on a 12-3 run as the Ducks beat Oregon State 80-68 on Sunday. Leunen scored 23 points and hit six of his seven 3-pointers in the second half for Oregon (16-12, 7-9 Pacific-10 Conference) in the 329th meeting between the schools, the most in college basketball.

Stanford is headed to the NCAA tournament, by Jon Wilner speculates as many as seven teams could be invited.

Despite the eat-your-own nature of the Pac-10, it could send seven teams to the NCAAs without a major surprise in the conference tournament. It could also send just four. Seven is more likely, although not all that likely; the best bet is five or six.

Arizona is getting a look from a stud TE. Ty should contact the kid since we have two McClymonds HS kids on the current roster, and we have a need at TE.

Arizona might be in the running for NaDerris Ward, who was rated the No. 2 tight end in the nation coming out of high school in 2005. At least that is what the Athens Banner-Herald is reporting. The former Rivals No. 2 rated tight end from McClymonds High in Oakland is transferring from Georgia and is apparently considering Arizona and Oregon.

Nate Longshore is no longer a fan favorite at Cal.

The quarterback situation in Berkeley officially became delicious when backup Kevin Riley rallied the Bears from behind in the Armed Forces Bowl, running for a score and going 16-of-19 for 269 yards and three touchdowns through the air.

It is baseball season at Oregon State.

The Beavers won the Pape Grand Slam title Sunday afternoon with a 5-4 come from behind victory over the Georgia Bulldogs in front of 11,166 fans on a beautiful day at PGE Park. Down 4-1 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning, the Beavers scored four unanswered runs-- one in the sixth, two in the seventh, and one in the eighth-- to seal the victory. OSU closer Kevin Rhoderick came into the game to pitch in the top of the ninth, and sat Georgia's three batters that came to the plate down in order. Rhoderick, who signed a letter of intent to Georgia before asking for a release and coming to Oregon State, recorded his second save of the season.

The Reggie Bush deal at USC is always interesting, what is even more interesting is the NCAA is going to ignore it.

An eight-month Yahoo! Sports investigation has revealed that Heisman Trophy-winning running back Reggie Bush and his family appear to have accepted financial benefits worth more than $100,000 from marketing agents while Bush was playing at the University of Southern California.

More trash talk directed at Arizona from Arizona State.

In light of getting swept by the Sun Devils in their beloved cash cow men's basketball, one would think this would be a good week for the University of Arizona to lie low and wait it out until softball season starts, but leave it to our good friend Jeff Metcalfe to pile it on when some piling needs doing. Metcalfe, the ASU beat writer for the Arizona Republic, has been the only Republic journalist that has treated ASU like a hometown team as long as I've been reading it (about a decade) and today may be his finest hour. We'll get to Jeff in a moment.

A little John Wooden talk at UCLA. I am a sucker for anything John Wooden, and I hope he lives forever.

But, it's not the buildings or even the banners that make a trip to a UCLA game like attending the ultimate history class. It's not the timeless uniforms, which look exactly as they did when Abdul-Jabbar was known as Alcindor, either. When you attend a Bruin game, you often do so in the company of Wooden, who sits in the risers behind the Bruin bench. When Wooden is on hand, his presence seems to make time stand still. Wooden hasn't coached the Bruins in 33 years, but you get the sense he's still guiding them.

WSU fantasizes about Big Shot Bob.

But I digress Coug fans. Let's spin it back our way a moment. Who, exactly, is our "Big Shot Bob"? Who is the guy, at crunch time, that you want taking that season-altering shot?