Some of the editors at SB Nation collect some of the better links from around the network and then send them out to us via e-mail. There were some good ones today that I wanted to pass along to you guys, since I won't really have the chance to write for another day or two:

• California Golden Blogs (endorsed by CougCenter as one of the best blogs around) had a nice writeup on the state of Pac-10 basketball, both in terms of its disastrous nonconference performance and in terms of what can be done the rest of the year. (I don't want to spoil the surprise, but ain't pretty.)
• Roll Bama Roll looks at Mark Ingram, three-star recruit. Yup, that's right -- the guy who just won the Heisman was the No. 58 rated RB by Scout.com just two years ago.
• Tomahawk Nation examines whether it's a good idea for a head coach to be the playcaller. Answer? Yes -- if he's already a good playcaller. (Go ahead and make jokes about Paul Wulff calling plays ... now!)
  
  By the way, I had no idea Football Outsiders had advanced team statistics for college football. How did I not know this? I have no idea. But I'm going to take a look at them and see what they say about the Cougs. My guess is that they'll still say we suck. But it'll be a new way of evaluating our suckiness, so that might be interesting.
  

Faithful CougCenter readers, I'm asking for your help. Actually, someone else is asking for your help, but I'm asking on behalf of him.

Toby Hopp, a grad student at San Diego State -- incidentally, he must be floating on cloud nine after that smackdown of Arizona! -- is working on an ambitious research project looking at user-generated content on websites. He's asked for our help (as well as the help of a number of other SB Nation sites) in gathering data for his project.

Go ahead and read his introduction below, and if you feel compelled to help someone in their academic pursuits (and I hope you do), visit the survey site and take the survey. It doesn't take that long, but if you don't have time now, don't worry -- we'll be reminding you each day that the survey is open, from now until Friday.

We'd love to see a good turnout from CougCenter. One of the reasons he came to us is because the mainstream media showed no interest in his project. Being at the cutting edge of new media, we're most definitely interested. And since we have what I think is one of the most vibrant user communities at SBN, I think he'll be especially interested in your thoughts.

Oh, and we get to see the results, too. That should be cool.

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College Football Research Project

My name is Toby Hopp and I'm a longtime college sports blogger/blog reader. I'm also a graduate communications student at San Diego State University who is interested in studying how and why Internet users generate content online. What precisely, you may be asking, is "user-generated content?" Well, "user-generated content" includes comment sections at the end of news/blog articles, messageboards, diaries, polls, and the like.

To me, one of the great parts of the blogosphere is the interaction it enables between readers. As a community, we're able to provide feedback and discuss issues in real time. However, the concept of "user-generated content" and its subsequent social applications has not, at this point, been thoroughly studied by communications researchers and is, in my estimation, completely misunderstood by the mass media.

So, if you have 10-15 minutes to spare and support empirical media research (and the social sciences in general), please click the survey link below. Even if you NEVER create/read content on blog or newspaper websites, PLEASE consider taking the survey as your answers are as important to me as the answers supplied by individuals who DO regularly create content.  Rest assured that all answers and provided information will be strictly anonymous and kept totally confidential.

Survey Link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WSQGPZ2

For those of you interested in statistics, all collected information will be scientifically analyzed and utilized to create an inherently unique structural equation model. To that end, I'll send a report out to each participating blog which details general trends and reader utilization issues of note.

Again, please consider taking this survey (Survey Link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WSQGPZ2) whether or not you ever create or read "user -generated content" on blogs or newspaper sites. The survey itself will take 10 - 15 minutes and, I promise, will be quite painless. As stated above, research on the topic of "user-generated content" is incredibly sparse and your participation will go a long way in understanding the environmental factors that encourage meaningful intra-community participation.  And, of course, you'll be doing me a great and immeasurable favor.

The survey will be active from Monday, December 14 through Friday, December 18. Please feel free to e-mail me at thopp@mail.sdsu.edu if you have any questions relating to the survey or my over-arching methodology/conceptual framework (obviously, there's a lot more to the study that can be reasonably described here).

Thank you for your time and please know that your participation really does mean a great deal to me on both a professional and personal level.

Survey Link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WSQGPZ2

More photos » by Dean Hare - AP

When Klay Thompson is doing this instead of giving the ball to the other team, he gives his teammates their best chance to help him out.

Browse more photos »

I know I said I wasn't going to be around much, but I really wanted to carve out a few minutes to highlight something for you.

Up until this point, the Cougs' offensive efficiency (what's that?) has been tied almost exclusively to how well they've shot the ball, which is really just an extension of whether Klay Thompson's is scoring efficiently. And, the reality is, if you shoot the ball well, you can survive turnovers -- something the Cougs proved against Mississippi Valley State, Nicholls State and (especially) San Diego.

Note: Average offensive efficiency is around 100; average eFG% (right now) is 48.7; average TO% (right now) is 21.1.

But when you combine a lot of turnovers with a poor shooting night -- again, on this team, mostly due to whether Klay is up or down because he's by far the team's most prolific shooter -- you get what we got against Gonzaga and Kansas State:

This really makes a lot of common sense -- if you turn the ball over, there really is only one outcome to the possession: You don't even get to shoot and the team heads back the other way. It's a negative outcome every single time.

However, by simply taking a shot, you have a number of potential positive outcomes: make, miss with an offensive rebound (something this team has proven it's prolific at) or a foul (another thing this team has proven prolific at). Taking care of the basketball isn't just one of those antiquated, trite coachisms; it really does help your offense out. (See Maryland, 2008-09.) Even if your team isn't particularly good at offensive rebounding or foul shooting, you can sometimes pick up points thanks to simple dumb luck where a rebound falls into your hands.

Which brings me to last night. Despite posting only a pedestrian 48.3 eFG% (due largely to 33 percent 3-point shooting), the Cougs were able to achieve a 112.7 offensive efficiency rating. That's not spectacular, but it's certainly good, and it all started with WSU only turning the ball over on 13.3 percent of its possessions. In fact, after turning the ball over six times in the first 13 minutes, the Cougs turned it over just four more times the rest of the game.

Here was the effect last night. The Cougs' offensive rebounding percentage -- the number of available offensive rebounds the Cougs came up with -- was 38.7. That's in the same ballpark as the Gonzaga and Kansas State games (39.5 and 35.3, respectively). The difference, of course, is that there were many more offensive rebound opportunities last night. Against KSU, they only came up with eight offensive rebounds. Last night, it was 16 -- the Cougs were able to extend eight more possessions by simply taking care of the ball. They converted all of those opportunities into eight second chance points, and while that might not seem like much, this was a 12-point game in the end. Those eight points mattered.

Klay didn't have his greatest night of the season against Idaho. And for once, it didn't destroy our offense. That is huge, and is going to be a key for this team going forward. They don't possess a lot of good shooters to drive the offense (something that probably drives Ken Bone batty, but that's a conversation for another day), so they've got to play to their strengths on offense -- getting offensive rebounds and getting to the free throw line -- which can only be done if they take care of the ball and get the ball on the rim as they did last night.

You know, I thought this whole "figure out why we're losing" thing would be limited to the football podcasts. Guess not.

Click play below to listen to Craig, Grady and I break down the Gonzaga and Kansas State losses, as well as discuss what can be done to get Klay Thompson back on track, how the defense can get right, and why you all should be legitimately concerned about Idaho tonight.

As usual you can listen to the audio via the player below, or visit our podcast page for myriad subscription options. You can also find us in the iTunes directory under keyword "CougCenter." The advantage of subscribing? Besides having the audio directly delivered to your player of choice, I often upload the audio to the podcast site before posting it here.