One more day in LA for WSU

COUGARS

With the first week of the Pac-10 schedule spread out all over the calendar and football still going on – How many of you had the Huskies in their bowl pool? You in the back, with the glasses, I have your pool sheet right here. Put your hand down. – there is a lot to get to this morning, so read on.

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• Washington State: Next up for the Traveling Cougburys is today’s battle with USC in the Galen Center. It starts at 3 p.m. and can be seen on FSN. If you are in LA, I’m sure there are plenty of tickets available. It is USC basketball, after all. … If you remember, the Cougars pulled out two close ones against USC last year. Under Kevin O’Neill, the Trojans play a physical brand of defense which bothered Klay Thompson – he was 0 for 12 in the Pullman win and 7 of 27 in the two games. But the WSU defense really stifled USC as well, holding the Trojans to 38 percent shooting in Pullman and 37.3 in LA (Nikola Vucevic did not make a shot in the first game down here). So it seems this one should be a defensive battle, as both teams have improved on that end. Knowing my track record, that means the final will be something like 84-80. … We had our advance in this morning’s paper. There is this preview from CougCenter and this blog post from Ryan Collingwood in Lewiston. … The LA Times has a preview box and an advance .

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• Around the Pac-10: We’re putting football front and center after UW’s 19-7 smashing of the disinterested Nebraska Cornhuskers. Is this the beginning of a golden age of Husky football? Well, Jake Locker won’t be there, so we’ll see. … Stanford’s players aren’t worried about Jim Harbaugh’s future. After all, they are part of the best team in Stanford history. … LaMicheal James says he’s coming back for another year. … On to basketball. … Here’s a quick summary of the activities around the conference. … The last couple games in Mac Court don’t seem to be drawing a lot of interest from the fans or the Oregon players as UO lost to Arizona 76-57. … Oregon State may have turned a corner at the end of the nonconference season, because the Beavers blasted Arizona State 80-58 last night. … UCLA rookie Josh Smith faces his local college team for the first time today. Another freshman, Terrence Jones, has come on for the Huskies.

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• That’s about it for this morning. We’ll be back before the game with more. Until then …