Roundup: Deandre Ayton buys 300 tickets for Phoenix Mercury playoff game
Former Arizona men’s basketball star and current Phoenix Sun Deandre Ayton bought 300 tickets for the Phoenix Mercury’s home playoff game against the Dallas Wings Tuesday night. WNBA postseason begins tonight, y’all. How about the finals rematch in the first round between Los Angeles and Minnesota?
Former Oregon golfer Wyndham Clark earned his PGA Tour Card for the 2018-19 season by finishing 16th on the money list for the Web.com Tour regular season. Clark was the 2017 Pac-12 Individual Champion.
Washington safety Taylor Rapp was named a first-team preseason All-American by ESPN, it was announced Tuesday. Stanford RB Bryce Love and Utah P Mitch Wishnowsky also get first-team nods by the Worldwide Leader.
UCLA men’s soccer midfielder Matt Hundley and goalkeeper Justin Garces were named to Top Drawer Soccer’s Preseason Freshman Best XI, it was announced Monday (Washington defender Ethan Bartlow is also on the team). The Bruins open the 2018 campaign at Coastal Carolina on Friday (the Chanticleers are a very good team, having reached the Sweet 16 last year).
Washington State nose tackle Jonathan “Pono” Lolohea has left the team for unspecified reasons, Jacob Thorpe reported Sunday evening. Mike Leach said after practice Sunday night that he assumes Lolohea is going to transfer.
J. Brady McCollough of the Los Angeles Times pens this feature on Trojan linebacker Clayton Bradley and the loving relationship he has with his family. Bradley, born Clayton Johnston, recently changed his last name to honor his stepfather, Kevin Bradley.
Rusty Simmons looks back at Jim Knowlton’s first three months on the job as Cal AD. A couple of highlights, as pointed out by Simmons – meeting with around 600-700 alumni and 75-minute meetings with leadership of all 30 varsity teams on campus.
Peep a snippet of the “The Drive” 2018 season preview featuring Colorado football. As mentioned yesterday, the full season preview show airs on Pac-12 Network Monday night at 7 p.m. PT/8 p.m. MT.
Doug Haller gives us an inside look on what Arizona State football practices look like under Herm Edwards. Pretty detailed stuff and good insight on how NFL and college practices differ.
Nick Daschel of The Oregonian/OregonLive notes that Oregon State football has 11 fifth-year seniors who have played for four head coaches in Corvallis – Mike Riley, Gary Andersen, Cory Hall and Jonathan Smith. As the “Law & Order” saying goes, these are their stories.
Kurt Kraghtorpe features Utah football associate head coach/defensive line coach Gary Andersen, noting how it’s “an adjustment” for Andersen to go from being a head coach (Utah State, Wisconsin and Oregon State) back to an assistant.
Tom FitzGerald whips up this Stanford women’s soccer season preview. It’s from Thursday, so it doesn’t have info on the Cardinal’s 5-0 season-opening win at UC Davis, but it’s pretty evergreen otherwise. The main takeaway? The defending champs could be even better this year.