Last Night's Pac-10 Basketball Round-Up

- UCLA beat Stanford in overtime 77-67 to win the regular season conference title. Of course, there wouldn't have been an overtime if Darren Collison hadn't have been...touched?...lightly grazed?...
by Stanford's Lawrence Hill while driving to the basket down by two at the end of regulation:



Which, yeah, it's a terrible call. But keep in mind that a) Stanford blew a big lead in the game and b) how do you not have some sort of way to stop Collison from getting that much penetration at the end of the game to begin with?

- Meanwhile, cross-town, USC was doing their best to blow a game they needed, choking away a 10-point lead in the final two minutes and change before coming back in overtime to beat Cal, 93-89. Yes, the win basically locks up USC's NCAA tournament bid, but as a fan I'm concerned. This isn't the first time USC has failed to hold onto a big lead late and had to go to OT to get the win, and I don't like seeing the defense get torched like that. Actually, "seeing it" was impossible, since it wasn't on TV here in LA. Thanks, Fox Sports!

- Remember how excited Arizona St. fans were getting about beating USC, and how they were already trying to decide on their viewing plans for the Sun Devils' opening round game? Well, I guess they forgot that they had two more games to play on the road, starting with last night against Oregon. Unfocused team + desperate opponent + difficult venue = a 67-61 loss and a return squarely to the edge of the NCAA tournament bubble. (ESPN's Joe Lunardi has them as one of the last four teams in so you would think it would behoove them to win at least one game in the Pac-10 tournament, and for God's sake don't lose to Oregon St.)

Meanwhile, Oregon fans are cute and delusional and still think they have a chance to get into the tournament as an at-large.

- Arizona crushed Oregon St. 81-45, and more importantly perhaps, got starter Nic Wise back from a knee injury that has sidelined him for much of the season. On a related note, I don't think you can overstate how awful Oregon St. is until you see them firsthand. It's rare that you see a team that is physically outclassed that also manages to be less prepared, disciplined or focused than their opponents game after game. It's an impressive display of suckage.

So the bottom line is, how many berths will the NCAA give the Pac-10? I still think five - it will be hard to sell sending two teams with .500 regular season conference records (which Arizona, Arizona St. and Oregon will all have at best).

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 1:47 PM 1 comments  

Quick Hits

- In stunning news, the always-excellent Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News reports that the 2008 Lingerie Bowl has been canceled (for the second consecutive year) because of bungling from the promoters. Sounds like these guys are about as with it as the marketing team behind the NHL All-Star Game (that was this weekend, in case you didn't know. Which you didn't.)
- Following up our story yesterday on Kevin Love being heckled mercilessly by Oregon fans, here's a fan sign that is creative, well-done and isn't too personal. Well done, kid. The Duke abides.
- The Seattle Times on-going investigation of the 2000 Washington Huskies shows a level of malfeasance, corruption and lack of morals that, even for a cynical sports fan like me, is pretty shocking. As Deadspin pointed out, everyone associated with the team seem like horrible people. You'll want to bathe after reading the stories, just to get the filth off. And the head coach of that 2000 Huskies' team? Rick Neuheisel. Should be some...interesting times...at Westwood the next few seasons.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 12:11 PM 3 comments  

Quick Hits

• Former USC, Arizona and Missouri head coach Larry Smith died today in Tucson after a lengthy illness. He was 68. At least he lived long enough to see someone come along who would ensure that he wasn't remembered as the worst coach in modern USC history.
• Speaking of USC, I don't know if you got a chance to watch the game against Oregon on Saturday, but it was a doozy. USC "blew" a 14-point lead against the Ducks (and I put "blew" in quotes just because USC didn't play that mad down the stretch - Oregon was just unconscious from beyond the arc in the final three minutes), but still got off the deck to win in overtime. OJ Mayo scored 25 while dealing with persistent leg cramps (and having briefly been declared ineligible by the NCAA and then made eligible again after the whole free ticket mess), while Daniel Hackett and Dwight Lewis each had career-highs with 26 and 24 points each.
• Speaking of Oregon...coach Ernie Kent had to go out before the USC game and implore the student section to behave in an appropriate manner. This was on the heels of the game against UCLA on Thursday, which was the homecoming for Kevin Love. Needless to say, when Ben Howland uses the terms "vile," "inappropriate" and "disgusting" to describe the fans, it's pretty bad:

"One fan brandished a homemade placard alluding to the cocaine use of Love's cousin, Brian Wilson, of the Beach Boys. Others waved signs displaying the digits of Love's cell phone number or questioning his sexual orientation. And at one point, the entire sea of yellow-shirted Oregon students showered Love with profane taunts and screams of delight when he left the game after being poked in the eye."

I'm sure a lot of it was inappropriate and borderline awful...but referencing a coked-to-the-tits Brian Wilson? That's just funny. And terrible. But funny.

• And by "the luck of the draw," Premiership leaders Manchester United and Arsenal will face each other in the Round 16 of the FA Cup. It seems about as "random" as Triple H and John Cena drawing the Nos. 29 and 30 pills at the Royal Rumble last night - who knew Mr. McMahon was a soccer fan, much less ran the English FA?
  

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 3:25 PM 0 comments