Roundup: Season ends in semis for Oregon State and Washington

Apr 4, 2016

The road ended in the Final Four for both the Huskies and Beavers Sunday night, with Oregon State falling to UConn and Washington losing to Syracuse. Gina Mizell writes that gratitude and pride overshadowed heartbreak in the Oregon State locker room after the 80-51 loss to UConn. Helluva turnaround in Corvallis – the Beavers are here to stay.

Meanwhile, Matt Calkins of the Seattle Times opines that Washington’s run to the Final Four needs to be savored. The Dawgs dropped an 80-59 decision to Syracuse despite Talia Walton making her first eight three-point attempts and scoring 29 points in the game.

Arizona has hired Adia Barnes as its new women’s basketball coach, AD Greg Byrne announced Monday. Barnes, the leading scorer in UA women’s hoops history, has been an assistant at Washington the last five years.

Cal women’s basketball forward Kristine Anigwe is the only freshman on the WBCA All-America team that was announced Saturday. Anigwe averaged 20.5 points and 9.3 rebounds in her collegiate rookie campaign.

Stanford women’s gymnastics finished tied for first in the NCAA Ann Arbor Regional with Auburn, thus making it one of four Pac-12 teams to earn bids to the NCAA Championships (Utah, Cal and UCLA the others). To Fort Worth they go.

Paola Boivin of The Arizona Republic believes that Villanova’s success can be a blueprint for Arizona State men’s basketball. Villanova plays North Carolina in the national championship game Monday night.

Colorado men’s basketball player George King wants to build upon his 2015-16 season that earned him Most Improved Player honors in the conference by the league’s coaches, notes Pat Rooney.

USC linebacker Scott Felix lost an appeal of his penalty for taking a banned substance, thereby ending his collegiate career (he lost his final year of eligibility as a result of the punishment).

Kevin Gemmell profiles new Utah punter Mitch Wishnowsky, who comes from the same organization (Prokick Australia) that has placed a ton of Australian punters in college football, including former Ute Tom Hackett (Wishnowsky lives with him now).

Ted Miller tells us that Oregon is still trying to figure out how to best use Charles Nelson. As of now, the multi-faceted Nelson will work only with the receivers this spring.

Jacob Thorpe features new Washington State inside receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard. Good line from Thorpe to describe Shephard – “Many football coaches coach with passion. Shephard coaches with urgency.”