Interesting column in today’s Los Angeles Times, talking to former UW/current UCLA football coach Rick Neuheisel about the ongoing NCAA basketball tournament.

The College Basketball Invitational now has its inaugural Final Four, and Valparaiso isn’t among them. The team that ended UW’s season last week got bumped last night by the Houston Cougars.

I’ve gotta admit, no one has asked for it, but here’s your CBI update.

The UW medical staff confirms that center Artem Wallace suffered a torn ACL and lateral bone contusions last Wednesday in the CBI game against Valparaiso.

He is expected to undergo surgery on April 8. The UW trainer says the normal recovery time after the surgery is between six and nine months. That means that he may — or may not — be ready when the Huskies return for preseason camp in October.

In the just-completed season, Wallace played in 31 games, including 25 starts. He averaged 3.2 points and 2.7 rebounds in an average of 14.2 minutes

Read more »

For the second consecutive season, the UW football team didn’t go bowling and the basketball team didn’t get invited to the Big Dance.

With basketball just over and spring football about to begin, that raises an interesting question: Which team is more likely to break through next season?

That will be my column topic for later in the week, but before I start writing, I thought it might be useful to hear from you: So, if you’d like to be heard, please hop into the “Comments” section with your thoughts on which team is more likely to make

Read more »

The Huskies’ spring football roster has been updated and is now available on the UW athletic Web site, GoHuskies.com.

There are a few interesting things on there to ponder in the final 10 days or so until the Huskies begin spring drills.

For one, note again that the roster lists academic classes, therefore, for example, Jake Locker is listed as a junior even though he has three seasons of eligibility remaining. Etc.

Also, Quintin Richardson is listed as a cornerback. Despite some earlier speculation, Johnie Kirton remains listed as a tight end. And incoming freshman

Read more »

There have been some good comments on the UW basketball season in the threads below. I’ll try to answer some of the questions and react to some of the comments later today and likely over the next few days.

For now, however, here’s my column from today’s paper, which tries to make the point that while, yes, these Huskies were hurt by free-throw shooting, they were also hurt by not being good enough to overcome poor free-throw shooting. In other words, it wasn’t one thing, and it’s almost never one thing.

This season, the Huskies weren’t quite

Read more »

Here’s my story on the game that ends what most will consider a disappointing UW basketball season.

And it ended in a way that fit the entire season. Close, but not quite. And specifically, with Jon Brockman missing two free throws in the final seconds that could have won the game, or at least sent it to overtime.

For the game, Washington was 11 of 24 at the free throw line: 45.8 percent.

Naturally, the Huskies were disappointed with the loss. But they said they were glad they had accepted the CBI bid and got to

Read more »

The Crusaders had been playing with the lead most of the stretch run, and at times seemed on the verge of pulling away.

However, Joel Smith just put the Huskies ahead with a 3-pointer.

Somebody’s season is ticking down to its end.