First spring practice in the books for WSU

COUGARS

FROM SALT LAKE CITY — Sounds like it was quite the weather experience on the Palouse yesterday. Wasn’t there, but Josh Wright was kind enough to fill in and file a story from WSU’s first football practice of the spring. That and more after the jump.

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Josh was part of the throng standing outside in the rain, snow and sleet, and he wrote this story taking a look at how things went on Day 1, Season 2. You can watch Mike Leach’s post-practice interview — along with Deone Bucannon’s and Connor Halliday’s — above if you’re curious what he had to say about what he saw. … A great story here from Adam Lewis of the Murrow News Service about a WSU student who arranged for the last wish of his best friend to be fulfilled by an NBA superstar.

Around the Pac-12 … Hard to remember a better day for Pac-12 basketball. Each conference team with a game yesterday emerged victorious. The most resounding of those wins might have been little ol’ underdog 12th-seeded Oregon, which pounded 5th-seeded Oklahoma State 68-55 in San Jose yesterday . (As an aside, how, erm, annoyed would you be if you were an Oklahoma State fan? Two 8-loss teams from power conferences meeting in the first round? You kidding me?) … California’s victory might have been the most unexpected, though surely it was a popular upset pick due to the location of the game. The Bears defended their neutral-home-court , beating 5th-seeded UNLV 64-61 to move on to a second-round game against Syracuse. (As an aside, how, erm, annoyed would you be if you were a UNLV fan? You have a heck of a year in a strong conference and wind up matched against a lower-seeded team you already beat once, but this time just miles from their campus? You kidding me?) … The most unsurprising victory of the Pac-12’s day was Arizona’s 81-64 romp over No. 11-seed Belmont. The Wildcats felt they had something to prove . (As an aside … ah, forget it.) … Colorado will try to continue the Pac-12’s winning trend with a first-round game against Illinois this afternoon (1:40 p.m., TNT). … There’s a little more pressure on UCLA to win today against Minnesota (6:57 p.m., truTV). … Arizona State is preparing for a second-round NIT game against Baylor.

All for now.

Christian Caple can be reached at christianc@spokesman.com . Twitter: @ChristianCaple