WSU news on a Friday morning
COUGARS
There are a few things to cover this morning related to Washington State and Pac-10 athletics, so let's get right to them. Read on.
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• The Cougar baseball team begins NCAA tournament play this evening against Kansas State. We had our story in today's S-R, though you'll have to go to last night's blog post to get the quick look at the regional. ... In other WSU news, John Blanchette's track notebook covers Cougar Anna Layman's run to nationals. ... Back to baseball, freelancer Howie Stalwick has a couple advances, including this one on Cougfan and another piece in the News Tribune. ... If you want to watch the WSU game tonight (or any game from the regional), it is scheduled to be streamed at www.arkansasrazorbacks.com. ... ESPN.com's Ted Miller looks at the Pac-10's irreplaceable players. His choice for WSU? Defensive end Travis Long. What do you think? Is it Long of Jeff Tuel or Brandon Rankin or Reid Forrest or someone else? ... The expansion rumors from yesterday are still going strong, with this from ESPN on what it might mean to the Big Ten, which got all this crap started in the first place, and a story in the Seattle Times. One aspect of this that's interesting: My understanding is Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott deals directly with the school presidents, and has on this issue, so the athletic directors might be left to deal with a decision they had less input with than they would like. ... Finally, on expansion: It's going to happen. Sometime. Whether the Pac-10 becomes the Pac-12, Pac-14, Pac-16 or Pac-whatever, it's going to happen. The good news, for Cougar fans at least, is the conference is being proactive in this process, going out and trying to swallow other schools, not letting other conferences try to swallow its schools. In that scenario, the Cougars would probably be one of the last Pac-10 schools anyone would want, being more inclined to pick off the USCs, UCLAs, Stanfords, UWs and ASUs of the world first. But with the conference looking to add to its numbers, schools like WSU and Oregon State are in a much better position. ... This whole expansion drama will be fun to watch.
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• That's it for now. We'll be back if the news warrants it. Until then ...
