Roundup: Arizona State battling the hype
With great success comes great attention, and now Arizona State is battling the hype with the need to prepare as it gets ready for a huge one against Arizona in a game that will determine where the Pac-12 Football Championship Game is played. Also, shouts go out to the Sun Devil men’s hoops team and BLOCK-CHYNSKI for holding off No. 25 Marquette 79-77 at home last night.
Mike Montgomery’s boys are enjoying themselves at the Maui Invitational so far. After David Kravish led Cal past Arkansas in the tourney opener with his 19 points and 15 boards, the Golden Bears now get a shot at No. 8 Syracuse in the semifinals.
While Cal is taking in some sun on the Hawaiian islands, Stanford is doing some hardwood work in Brooklyn, where the Cardinal pulled away in the second half to beat Houston in the semifinals of the Progressive Legends Classic. Now it’s on to Pitt for the pre-conference tourney championship.
As one would expect for putting up more than 200 yards on the ground to go along with four scores against Oregon, Ka’Deem Carey was ESPN’s Pac-12 Player of the Week as well as the conference’s Pac-12 Player of the Week (Chris Young of ASU and Ishmael Adams of UCLA are your defensive and special teams players of the week, respectively).
While #TeamKaDeem is gaining steam, the Pac-12 has another candidate for best back in the nation because Bishop Sankey was named a Doak Walker Award finalist alongside Carey. Also, congrats to Austin Seferian-Jenkins for being listed as a finalist for the John Mackey Award.
There was a scary moment for the Ducks when Marcus Mariota appeared to get his head dinged up after a tackle in the fourth quarter of the Arizona game, but Mariota said he passed concussion tests and will start for Oregon in the Civil War on Friday.
Did you send an e-mail to Bill Moos last year calling for Mike Leach’s head? Well the joke’s on you now, because the Washington State AD is saying there will be no bowl game tickets for Leach haters.
These guys might not have made it to a bowl game in their time in Boulder, but the Buffs have class acts in their senior class.
Four straight defeats for the Beavers, and now the OSU coaches are searching for answers after the loss to Washington. And here’s a little bit about Mike Riley and his love of rivalries from Lindsay Schnell.
No disrespect to the Trojans, the Bruins say, but UCLA players look at the USC game differently than before. Not so much of a year-round rivalry for the Bru Cru under Mora like it was under Neuheisel.
Great story here from Gary Klein about how USC linebacker Hayes Pullard has grown up in his time on the field, from having to deal with the death of his father and adjust to a major coaching change in Troy.
The Utes will throw a new starting quarterback out there, and you would think they would want him to be a game manager, right? Nope, the Utes want Adam Schulz to make plays. In hardwood news, yesterday the Utes kicked off fundraising for a new hoops facility that is expected to cost $24 million and will be known as the Jon M. and Karen Huntsman Basketball Center. Also, $12 million are planned for renovations to the Huntsman Center.