COUGARS

The Pac-10's first four games went pretty much as expected Friday night, with USC and UCLA winning easily in Oregon, Cal showing its nonconference record was for real and Stanford showing is wasn't. The first wave of conference games ends today with WSU hosting UW. Click the link for more.
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• Before we catch up with all the information on today's opener between the Dawgs and Cougars – and there is a lot – let's take a quick spin around the conference, with stories from the winning side. We have the UCLA gamer and the USC piece from the LA Times, the story of ASU's win from the Arizona Republic and coverage of Cal's home victory by the SF Chronicle.

• Now, let's move to WSU's game. We have our advance, of course. There's also a Bob Condotta advance in the Times (along with a look at the Cougars' winning streak), one from freelancer Howie Stalwick in the P-I and another from Don Ruiz in the New Tribune. That pretty well covers it. What I wonder is not who is going to win – this one's too close to call for me, especially not having seen UW play but once on TV, and, yes, the Pac-10's television package is screwy – but how many people will brave the conditions and show up today.

• There is another UW vs. WSU game today, that being on the women's side. June Daugherty's young Cougars are trying to break a 26-game losing streak against the team she coached to most of those. There are advances in the Times and P-I.

• That's it for this morning. I'll post before the game with news and notes. Till then ...

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