Roundup: Ari-zone-a gets back on track
Every team has at least one loss in conference in men’s basketball now, as Arizona blew out Washington 99-67 in Tucson Thursday night. Bruce Pascoe talks about how mixing in some zone defense helped Arizona pull away from Washington; it was just a three-point game at the half before the 'Cats played some zone in the second.
Kodi Justice and Tra Holder led Arizona State to its first Pac-12 win, an 84-73 triumph over Wazzu in Tempe. The two combined for 36 points against the Cougs (Doug Haller with the story).
Utah got blasted at home by Oregon, a 77-59 loss at the hands of the Ducks. Afterwards, Kurt Kragthorpe wrote that the depth of the conference has caught up to Utah, which fell to 1-3 in Pac-12 play after Thursday night’s decision.
Jon Wilner has the recap of Stanford’s 77-71 win over Cal Thursday night, as the Cardinal were buoyed by Marcus Allen’s parade to the charity stripe in the second half. Stanford is a pleasant surprise at 3-2 in league right now.
Connor Letourneau writes that Cal struggled to stay in front of Stanford defensively Thursday night, as apparent by Cal’s 27 fouls that resulted in 38 Stanford free throw attempts.
Well wouldn’t this have been something? Reports indicate that Lane Kiffin had an offer to be UCLA’s offensive coordinator, but the Alabama play-caller turned down the offer in the days leading up to the national championship game.
Be sure to stay away from the movie theater for this one, Oregon fans – Andrew Greif reports that Disney is pursuing the rights to a story about TCU quarterback Bram Kohlhausen leading TCU to a comeback win in the Alamo Bowl.
CBS Sports ranks Oregon State guard Gary Payton II as the eighth-best player in college basketball this year. Jakob Poeltl of Utah is one spot ahead of him at No. 7.
Zach Helfand of the Los Angeles Times features USC basketball freshman Chimezie Metu, who had 21 points and 8 rebounds to lead USC to an 89-75 win over UCLA, a school he fell “in love” with on his first recruiting visit. Then-UCLA head coach Ben Howland offered him a scholarship, but a switch in staffs led to a change of course.
Pat Rooney pens a piece on how Colorado men’s basketball is having success in transition offense and how that helped the Buffs to a win over Oregon State Wednesday night.
Jacob Thorpe features new Washington State outside receivers coach Dave Nichol. His ties with Mike Leach trace back to Texas Tech, and he’s done just about anything and everything for him since.
Kevin Gemmell reflects on the performance of Washington running back Myles Gaskin in the Heart of Dallas Bowl, a game in which he rushed for 181 yards and four touchdowns.