After the apple cup this year, I listened to Softy on KJR just to hear him eat sock after the Cougs beat his Dawgs. What he said surprised me. He said: I am so Psyched, because there is a new era in UW football, and this 0-12 crap is done! He went on about how the natural universe will be restored and UW will again be on top. I laughed, as a cougar fan about how he could not face the reality of another cougar apple cup win and the fact that UW football is as low as low gets.

Yesterday, the cougs were ousted from play, and the last of the players that heavily impacted our three strait postseason run played their last game. It was disappointing to say the least as they underperformed against a WCC squad. But a few hours after the game, reality set in. And boy is reality exciting.

We have a future. We have a great coach that truly wants to be here. We have two players on the all-freshman team. One is a sweet, sweet shooter when he’s on and the other is an athletic big man who has a future on all-conference teams. Another freshman we rely on as our top guard defender. Late in the season, he actually showed some offensive promise. We have more depth that will be underclassman next year. Late in the year, Harthun showed his freshman jitters had passed, and he was a capable ball handler and shooter. Lodwick will get some playing time next year and he will have plenty of playing time to find his shot. And as anyone who has watched him in pre-game warm-ups knows, he has a great shot. Charlie Enquist has came in a few times and showed he has the ability to play center next year. We have some unproven guys, who could emerge as contributors eventually. Wetherill, Boeke, and Watson could fill that mold.

We’ve got a great class coming in as well. Xavier Thames could be an impact point guard with range. Then there’s Anthony Brown. He is a shooter, but he can also get to the hoop and draw contact. The 6-5 Shaddle Park grad could be a starter as early as next year. We have David Chadwick who seems like he follows the mold of Cowgill and Forrest. There’s also the aussie Motum, who sounds like another capable PF.

We will have growing pains next year, but boy is the future exciting. I can’t even imagine Thompson, Casto, and Capers as seniors. They seem so much more polished then the young guys we have had lately. Koprivicia will still be there next year too, and he could be valuable. Tony will be there too. Maybe he won’t play who we want, maybe he doesn’t get everything right. But he was a National coach of the year, and he has the potential to do it again some day. Thank goodness he wants to do it as a cougar. I will miss this senior class. I will miss Harmeling’s good nights, I will miss Baynes’ consistency, I will miss Forrest’s mid-range shot, and boy, will I miss Rochestie’s scoring and leadership. But without them, we’ll be alright. I can’t wait for the future of cougar basketball. Now I know how Softy felt after the apple cup. It’s not about ignoring the past and present. It’s about the raw excitement of the future possibilities that propels sports. Forget what just happened. It may be bitter now, but man is the future sweet.

I’m Psyched.

Breaking news, straight from The Daily Evergreen this morning.

The 1,500 seats removed from the student section will be student seats again. ASWSU has also hade it more difficult for the athletic department to remove seats from the student section in the future.

No, it's not April 1st. This is the definition of an about face on the part of Jim Sterk and others involved in the negotiations. All I can say is ... wow.

An article on the SeattlePI.com details how UW violated a a rule when recruiting Desmond Trufant. They had him run onto the field with smoke and noise, which is explicitly against bylaw 13.6.7.9. Of course, he committed to UW after the visit. Ok, maybe its no big deal. The article even says it would be classified as a secondary violation, if that.

  But here is another violation that UW routinely does that I don't think people know about. A family friend of mine is the senator from my hometown. I won't use his name. When he was first elected recently, he, like many other representatives, was contacted by UW and WSU. Both schools offered him a trip to watch a football game from the president's luxury box. WSU said per NCAA rules you will have to pay for your ticket and parking. UW said they would pay for his ticket, parking and food, which is against NCAA rules. Is this a huge deal? No, but it shows how UW cuts corners and breaks the small rules when they can. Maybe they land Trufant because of it, maybe not. Maybe they get preferential treatment by state representatives, maybe not. But why should they get that opportunity?

I'm sure some of you saw the article on Cougfan.com, but for those who haven't, here is a summary:

-Jake Heaps from Skyline is rated as a top 10 prospect for 2010, and the number one QB. His Junior year he threw for 2910 yds, 38 TD, 4 INT. He is being recruited by every pac-10 team, plus LSU, Notre Dame, Tennessee, and more. Why might he choose WSU?

-Gino Simone, his favorite WR, is coming to WSU. Heaps said, “I would take Gino over any kid in the country for a wide receiver."

-Heaps' mom Kelly commented on how she perceives WSU. "I think they're developing a culture that is incredibly personable," she said, also noting that Jake gets hand-written notes each week from WSU coaches.

- Heaps hopes to narrow his list to 10 within a month or two, and make his decision before summer so he can fully focus on getting his 3rd state title in the fall.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not thinking we're for sure going to get Heaps. But I do think we have a 10-20% chance, based on this stuff. Getting Heaps would be huge, but what I pay attention to more is just the fact that a 5 star quarterback is even considering WSU. Add to that, we got the top in state recruit this year. WSU is 5th in the Pac-10 for 2009 recruiting. How rare is that? Only once since 2002 has WSU been above 8th in that category.

 While we did have a horrible season, Wulff did it with Doba's players who are not only bad, but also not right for his system. I think year two for Wulff will be improved as he gets more of his guys in, more people get experienced in the system, and hopefully, we are a little less injury-plagued. If he can continue to land solid classes like this one, I don't see any reason we can't be in bowl games real soon.

"Reason to worry: Washington State. The Cougars desperately need to beat LSU in Baton Rouge on Saturday for a nonconference win that will stand out in March. The Cougs had a difficult stretch, but losses to Pitt in New Jersey and Gonzaga and Baylor at home help the power rating, if not the image, of a possible NCAA team. Washington State did beat Mississippi State in New Jersey, but the Bulldogs aren't looking NCAA-ready now.

Who's going dancing?: UCLA and Arizona State should make it with some room to spare. Arizona is playing well enough to likely warrant a spot. USC is figuring out how to defend, freshman DeMar DeRozan is improving and the Trojans will likely be a tough out. OK, so that's four spots the Pac-10 likely can count on in March. Stanford and Cal have done enough to be in position to earn bids if they can challenge for a top-five finish in the league. Washington State and Washington have work to do. "

the rest of the article with more detail on the other teams is here:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=katz_andy&id=3790205

I don't like to think that we are tied with UW for 7th right now. But hopefully we can go 5-1 in our next 6 games (@LSU, UW, Stan, Cal, @OR St, @ OR). Then we would be 13-4 with a tough 6 game stretch upcoming. Either way it will be nice to play like competition, not top 5 teams and Montana States. After we play the next two, we will know quite a bit about where we stand.

We know we got Patrick Simon in the bag. He is listed as a 4 star. Supposedly shoots a sweet 3, something this team always needs.

I'm a little confused because Koprivicia is the only one graduating next year. But we still have an offer to 3 other players. But here is a look at the guys we have offers to:

Josh Smith- 5 star recruit from Kent, WA, 6-9, 280 number 2 Center in the nation. With offers from 6 other elite recruiting teams, it seems very unlikely he will land in Pullman.

Kyle Collinsworth- 3 star recruit from Utah. 6-6, 190, SF. Has a good feel for the game. His best offers are from Utah, BYU, and WSU.

Mike McCail- 2 star recruit from Chicago, 6-2, 175, SG. His only other offer from a major conference school is Texas A&M.

On one last note, there is a 4 star SG the cougs have been eying, but have not offered. Anthony Brown from California. Not to be confused with SG Anthony Brown from our 2009 class from Shadle Park, WA. They are the same height, at the same position, with the same name. That would be very confusing for everyone, including Glenn Johnson.

Since the end of the James era at Washington here are the cold hard numbers:

Record:

WSU:   93-84                                                 UW:   95-86-1

Bowl Record

WSU 3-2                                                        UW:    2-6

Rose Bowl appearances

WSU:    2                                                      UW:     1

You would be hard-pressed to argue either is the "superior" program. Its been very even over the last 16 years. This idea that UW people have that UW is innately better is based on one great coach.

In fact, let's look at the two programs' total records since 1925, omitting the James era of 1975-1992 for both schools.

WSU-     315-302-32                                 

UW-        346-281-29                                     

A whopping 31 victories more. Other than a great era led by a great coach, the series has been slightly edged by the huskies. They are not in the likeness of truly great football programs, no matter what they say on KJR. (AHH, Done.. this took about 2 hours to do....)

I want to catch the games this weekend, and I have HD NET here at home. The problem is I am going to visit my dad in Seattle so I need to find somwehere that has it as well. MY 4 possibilities there including Eastlake Bar and Grill all don't have it. Anybody know places that will have the games on this weekend. Anything North of downtown to Lynwood would be best. Hopefully we can win and get a shot at Pitt, that would be sweet.

If the cougs land a  7, 8, 9, or 10 seed they can play in Portland in rounds one and two, and Arizona in the regional finals. If they land a   4, 5, 12, or 13 seed they could play in Boise in the first rounds, followed by AZ or Indianapolis. That means, baring a 6/11 seed, we would be in great shape to have one or two regional games within driving distance. Now we just gotta make the tourney...

Alright so Im going to look into how many wins the cougs can get this year. Lets go through the schedule, not exactly in chronological order:

First 4 Games are against No-name St. (4-0)

Then we get the Legends Classic, I think we split in one way or another. (5-1)

I say between Baylor and LSU we split (6-2)

Then, for realist's sake, chalk Gonzaga up as a loss (6-3)

The remaining non-conf. games of Idaho, Id. St, and Mon. St are W's (9-3)

The non-conf. record looks pretty fixed because we have 7 easy wins and basically 5 coin flip games. best case 11-1 absolutely worst case 7-5.

It would be hard, and pointless to project the pac 10 games individually. We had 11  wins last year, and 13 the year before. The pac-10 is down this year (us even more so, arguably).  Best case scenario 12-6, worst case 7-11. Add on a win and a loss for the pac 10 tourney and lets add up the totals:

Best case: 24-8 (5 seed?)

Worst case: 15-17 (No CBI?)

Likely: I'll take the middle +1:     20-12 (10 seed?)

What do YOU think?