Two territorial battles take place on the women’s scene tonight, starting with Arizona State traveling to Tucson to take on Niya Butts’ Wildcats. Now in her senior season, Davellyn Whyte gets two tries to end Arizona’s futility against Arizona State this week (they also play Sunday). The ‘Cats are 1-6 against the Forks since Whyte has been on campus. This game goes down at 6:00 p.m. PT on the Pac-12 Networks.
Immediately following Arizona State-Arizona, No. 17 UCLA plays at USC with an 8:00 PT start on your favorite network for all things Pac-12. The Bruins are looking for win No. 20 on the season, while USC is looking to climb closer to Washington State for a top-half spot in the standings. Thanks to these rivalry games and last night’s Washington-Oregon State contest, there will be at least one Pac-12 basketball game (men’s or women’s) for 12 straight days (Feb. 13-24).
Curious as to what happened in the Monday night special? Washington overcame a cold shooting night to topple Oregon State, 49-44. How cold was UW? It shot just 23 percent from the floor, but used a stifling zone that frustrated the Beaver attack. Kristi Kingma didn’t have the best of games last night, but she did have the best of games Friday night, which is exactly why Kristi Kingma was named Pac-12 Player of the Week for hitting a Pac-12 single-game record 11 3-pointers against Oregon and finishing with a career-high 35 points.
The Pac-12 Player of the Week on the men’s side was Allen Crabbe. What was somewhat lost in the shoving incident involving him and head coach Mike Montgomery was that he averaged 19.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, four steals and three assists per game over the weekend against UCLA and USC. He was also College Basketball Talk’s Player of the Week for those numbers (and dropping 14 in the final 8:30 against USC). To follow up on Sunday night’s happenings, the Pac-12 has reprimanded Montgomery for shoving Allen Crabbe, and here’s a link to Mike Montgomery discussing the shoving incident.
You know what we missed yesterday when discussing Oregon’s win at Washington State? E.J. Singler is now the winningest player in Oregon men’s basketball history, as he has played in 82 victories in his career.
It goes both ways, followers of the Feared Fork. I made you relive a heartbreaking loss to Stanford last weekend, so now I’ll let you revel in Doug Haller’s look back at Arizona State’s big win in Boulder. Some other good news in Tempe is that Arizona State softball is now 12-0 after beating Minnesota 8-0 in a five-inning mercy rule contest. How about this? Arizona State softball plays its first 22 games in Tempe. Oh, the joys of being a warm-weather team…
One final basketball note for today’s roundup is that the Colorado women’s basketball team has moved up to No. 20 in the AP poll. Linda Lappe’s team just keeps on a-winnin’ – have you seen the Lappe Hour t-shirts they have for sale? Gotta love playing on phrases with coaches’ last names, like Roll Tad.
Oregon State usually has a great wrestling team, and this year is no exception with the Beavs being ranked eighth in one poll, ninth in another and 11th in yet another. What has helped their cause is that Mike Mangrum has matured over the years to lead the Beavers. The 141-pounder also posted two wins against ranked programs this weekend, getting a major decision against No. 19/29 Michigan and a decision against No. 7/10 Virginia Tech.
The Pac-12 doesn’t have skiing, but the RMISA does, and the two newest Pac-12 schools both have top-notch skiing programs. Utah skiing is preparing for the upcoming RMISA Championships, which take place Friday-Sunday in Bozeman, Mont. In addition to Utah and Colorado, the RMISA is home to Alaska Anchorage, Colby-Sawyer College, Colorado Mountain College, Denver, Montana State, New Mexico, Westminster and Wyoming.
Matt Barkley won’t throw at this week’s scouting combine, but he will be in Indianapolis for the combine. Scouts will have to wait until USC’s Pro Day (March 27) to watch the former Trojan signal caller air it out.
CougCenter is doing an interesting series on the Air Raid playbook leading up to the Crimson and Gray game in a couple of months, and part one of the Air Raid Playbook series is about reading the defense. Very good read.
Speaking of spring football, the Cardinal is set to begin its spring practices Feb. 25. One guy who will hitting the gridiron hard in a week is Usua Amanam, the energy resources major who is high energy on and off the field.