Fast break

College football

Bruce makes cut for Lombardi

Washington State defensive end Mkristo Bruce has been selected as one of 12 semifinalists for the Lombardi Award.

He leads all Division I players with 10 sacks and has also made 42 tackles, third on the team. Bruce, with 28.5 career sacks, is nine short of Dewayne Patterson’s school record.

The award is given annually to the nation’s top lineman on either offense or defense. Linebackers are also eligible. Four finalists will be announced on Nov. 7.

The award will be presented on Dec. 6.

arena football

af2 continues to inflate

Arenafootball2 continues to expand, adding five more teams for the 2007 season – four in Texas and one in Cincinnati. The league previously announced two other new teams, the Boise Burn and the Mahoning Valley Thunder.

The new Texas teams will be formed in Corpus Christi, Katy, Laredo and Lubbock. Two of the four teams have names: the Texas Copperheads (for the Katy team) and Laredo Lobos.

The af2’s current membership is 28 teams and it may not be done yet. Two more candidates are under consideration.

SportsLink

Questions from blogland

1 Is Adam Morrison a guard or a forward? The Charlotte Bobcats have stopped listing the 6-foot-8 Gonzaga product as a shooting guard and are listing him as a forward.

2 Is USC the No. 2 team in the nation? We give our top five, along with yours – if you want to list them.

See SportsLink at spokesmanreview.com/ blogs/sportslink/.

Men’s basketball

WCC coaches tab GU to win title

The Gonzaga Bulldogs have been tabbed to capture their seventh straight West Coast Conference regular-season title and their ninth in the last 10 years in a preseason vote of the conference coaches.

Gonzaga, which went 14-0 last season for its second perfect season in the last three years, tallied 62 points and received six first-place votes.

Gonzaga is followed in the poll by 2006 WCC tournament runner-up Loyola Marymount (51), which received one first-place vote, San Francisco (50), and Saint Mary’s (40), which also received a first-place nod.

The rest of the poll is as follows: San Diego (33) fifth,; Santa Clara (27) sixth; Pepperdine (16) seventh; and Portland (nine) eighth.