It’s tough watching games on TV
COUGARS
With a Thursday night not spent in Beasley or one of the other Pac-10 facilities, thought I would spend two hours watching a conference game like a fan. My one conclusion? I don't know how you folks do it. Read on for some basketball thoughts, a quick summary of what Ken Bone had to say at his weekly press conference and a couple other Washington State items.
••••••••••
• Watching Arizona's win over UCLA in Tucson, I was taken by how often I stopped and rewound a play. It's been so long since I was able to do that. And you know what? I can't believe how often, watching the rewound play, I said "what?" to myself. A ball knocked out of bounds off one team's player is given to the wrong team. A player coming to a bunny-hop stop, pivoting on each foot and then passing. Hanging on the rim after a dunk with no one really in the area and nothing called. Things that just make me say "what?" ... OK, enough with a fan-like rant. So what did Bone have to say? As I'm doing a story for Sunday on the one area WSU needs to excel in to be successful, and as Bone has already said this week the Cougars needed to rebound, much of the first few minutes were spent on my questions about said fundamental. I'll summarize in one sentence here and go into more depth later. WSU has to keep the Huskies off the offensive glass. ... Otherwise, Bone talked a bit about how UW and WSU have been able to move into the upper echelon of the Pac-10, an area dominated for years by the two teams playing in Tucson tonight. A win in Sunday's game would allow the Cougars to be in the top 3 in the conference and that's where they want to be. ... As an aside, did you know WSU's record (14-6) right now is the same one it had after 20 games last season? ... And the only other subject he touched on was Faisal Aden's sore knee. Bone said he's OK right now, the knee has been acting up off and on – I can attest to that as I've seen a lot of WSU's practice time – and he probably won't be 100 percent until he gets some rest after the season. ... On another subject, we wrote a while back about Bill Moos and the athletic department's plans for Martin Stadium. Well, Moos and company made a presentation today at the regent's meeting in Tri-Cities. The group will vote on the $70 million plan for south side renovations, including premium seating, and a football facility in the west end zone area, sometime tomorrow. We'll let you know how that goes. ... Other than that, Arizona won the battle for second place 85-74 over UCLA and USC barely held off ASU 63-61 up the highway in Tempe.
•••
• That's it for tonight. We'll be back in the morning. Until then ...
