WSU headed to warmer climes
COUGARS
Sitting here looking out the window at what appears to be an inch of snow per minute makes me wonder how the flight schedules might be disrupted the next couple days. And long for summer. With that in mind, we have our morning post, so read on.
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• Washington State: Our theme today is warmth. We're thinking warm thoughts, so we'll see if we can send out enough cosmic energy to melt all the snow. ... We learned some Washington State baseball news yesterday and forgot to pass it along, so we'll do that now. The Cougars have lost three players who were expected to contribute in the spring, including two pitchers. Junior David Stilley was dismissed from the team for "multiple violations of team rules," according to WSU's spokesman, and sophomore Travis Cook (1-3, 6.33 ERA) has left the program along with senior outfielder Garry Kuykendall (.284, 13 stolen bases). Stilley was arrested in November on marijuana charges, which seem to be the last straw. Another pitcher, Paris Shewey, was also arrested at the same time, but the charges were recently dropped. ... We put up this post last night about possible changes on the WSU football staff and we'll spend our time today trying to run the news down. ... And that's it from Pullman.
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• Around the Pac-10: The heat is on the Huskies' basketball program as one of its players is being investigated for an alleged sexual attack. Coach Lorenzo Romar – who Steve Kelley has justifiable faith in – called the charges serious and seems worried in multiple ways. ... The Huskies also have a way of turning up the burner on their opponents, as Oregon State found out last week. ... Ben Howland raps Josh Smith's knuckles after Smith's postgame actions at USC. ... Things are so chilly in Tempe, the Sun Devils have turned to a walk-on at point guard. ... Looking around the Pac-10 basketball scene. ... The Ducks open the Matthew Knight Arena on Thursday and the floor, festooned with the slogan "lost in the woods" and fir trees, is getting a lot of attention. The facility might have paid its first dividend this week with Minnesota transfer Devoe Joseph enrolling in school. ... Craig Robinson believes the Beavers may not be burning up the Pac-10 now, but they are on their way up. ... On to football. ... What did we learn from the bowl season? I would add one thing to Ted Miller's post on ESPN.com. The Oregon offense is great for the week-to-week grind of a football season, but give an athletic team a few weeks to turn up the heat on the offense and the trickeration, as a former president might say, doesn't work as well. ... That might be part of the reason George Schroeder thinks they need to get bigger up front. ... And where is Stanford headed? The Cardinal could have a new head coach this week or the tough decision could take a while longer. ... Finally, there was some news out of Seattle yesterday that warms the hearts of Husky fans. Chris Polk will come back for his junior year.
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• That's all for this morning. As we said, we'll be back with football news when we can run it down. Until then ...
