Duck Sports Authority - The Wednesday Inside Scoop

March 19, 2008

Don Lambert
Duck Sports Authority Senior Writer

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OTHER TOPICS: THE BLEACHERS (Open) - Debate with fans from other programs.

Oregon & MSU

Humble Bulldog Varnado leads nation in blocked shots
clarionledger.com
STARKVILLE ? To know just how grounded Mississippi State center Jarvis Varnado is, go back to the morning of March 11.That day, in Brownsville, Tenn., Winston Varnado opened his Internet browser and soon learned that his son had been named the Southeastern Conference's defensive player of the year by the league's coaches.

So he got on the phone to Starkville, where Jarvis answered.

"He didn't know," Winston Varnado said.

"He was like 'Oh, I did?' "

As Mississippi State (22-10) prepares for its NCAA Tournament first-round game against Oregon (18-13) Friday in North Little Rock, Ark., it does so with a triumvirate of stars: Demonstrative forward Charles Rhodes, showman guard Jamont Gordon and shot-blocking sensation Varnado.

But before the season, that trio was a duo.

Varnado, a skinny, long-armed 6-foot-9 sophomore, had plenty of upside. But he didn't get to play much his freshman year, and nary a soul thought his sophomore splash would be as big as it has been - 4.6 blocks a game, countless shots altered and opposing big men frustrated.

"No one predicted that he was going to lead the country in blocked shots," MSU coach Rick Stansbury said.

But amidst all the awards, the SportsCenter highlights and the now well-known nickname of "Swat," there's another area in which the son has made his dad proud: Humility.

MSU gets new opportunity
cdispatch.com
STARKVILLE -- A loss to Georgia in the Southeastern Conference Tournament this past Saturday left a bad taste in the mouth of the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

Looking to bounce back from the loss to Georgia in this week's South Regional of the NCAA Tournament in Little Rock, Ark., Mississippi State wants to take advantage of a new opportunity.

On Monday, it was back to work on the practice floor for the Bulldogs.

"We've got to get our focus back and get ready to play," said Mississippi State junior point guard Jamont Gordon. "I don't think we've got anything to prove. We've just got to play basketball."

When the Bulldogs play the Oregon Ducks at 6:25 p.m. Friday at Alltel Arena, it will be their first opportunity to play a game since losing to Georgia 64-60.

Gordon said the loss to Georgia should serve as a wakeup call and he hopes the team will use it as motivation.

"It showed that we can't just go into a game and think we can win," Gordon said. "We've got to play."

Mississippi State was outrebounded 46-33 by Georgia and only pulled down seven offensive rebounds.

"We can't get out-toughed like we did (against Georgia)," Gordon said. "We gave up too many offensive and defensive rebounds and we did not play solid defense."

Return to sender
Register-Guard
There have been no extra drills on pump fakes in Oregon's practices. Not even an attempt at a reverse spin off the double-spin move of Joevan Catron.

What's this? Haven't the Ducks heard of Jarvis Varnado, the nation's top shot blocker?

Oh, yes, they most certainly are aware of Mississippi State's 6-foot-9 sophomore as preparations continue for Oregon's game Friday in North Little Rock, Ark., against the Bulldogs in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

"We haven't really seen anything like this," marveled Oregon's Maarty Leunen.

Varnado averages 4.6 blocked shots per game. That's more than Stanford's Lopez twins average ... combined.

Despite injuries, Colvin believes he's an NFL guy

EUGENE -- Cameron Colvin stood in Oregon's Moshofsky Center last Thursday wearing a white T-shirt, gray sweatpants and a green and gold Oakland A's cap, watching his former Ducks teammates work out for NFL scouts.

The wide receiver did not participate, giving the right ankle he fractured last October more time to heal. But he took mental notes.

The ankle injury was the last of many setbacks in the college career of one of Oregon's most celebrated recruits.

Latest Duck distance star pushes the pace
Register-Guard
On the back of his Nike racing spikes, where athletes can personalize their shoes, 18-year-old Luke Puskedra of Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City has two words inscribed that best describe his running style.

"Blue collar."

For Puskedra, one of eight prep athletes to sign letters of intent with the Oregon track and field program this spring, it's all about running an honest race, just like a blue-collar worker puts in an honest day's work.

"I don't like to sit and kick," said Puskedra, who clocked an eye-opening time of 8 minutes, 49.58 seconds on a 200-meter non-banked track to win the 2-mile at the Nike Indoor Nationals in Maryland last weekend.

"I'd rather run a fast time and get last than get first with a bad time. That's just the way I like to do things."

UO, OSU wrestlers prep for NCAAs
Register-Guard
Oregon's Ryan Dunn and Charlie Alexander, along with Oregon State's Travis Gardner, Kyle Larson and Kyle Bressler, will be competing for national titles at the NCAA wrestling championships in St. Louis starting on Thursday.

Dunn, a 133-pounder from Estacada, is 22-7 and finished second at the Pac-10 championships. Alexander, from Central Point, was 23-10 and fourth in the heavyweight class as one of the top freshmen at the Pac-10 meet.

Gardner, at 197, is the only wrestler among the five with NCAA championship experience.

Joining Gardner as a Pac-10 champion this year was Bressler at heavweight, and Larson finished third.

UO notebook Bulldogs' new AD
Oregonian
On July 1, Greg Byrne will take over officially as athletic director at Mississippi State. He's the son of former Oregon athletic director Bill Byrne. His wife is from Junction City, his in-laws live in Eugene. Why, he's even been in costume as the Duck mascot.

"I've got a little bit of history with the green and the yellow," Byrne said Tuesday. "And some developing history here at Mississippi State."

But Byrne, an associate athletic director at MSU for the past two years, insists he's not at all conflicted about Friday's game between Oregon and Mississippi State at Alltel Arena in Little Rock, Ark. He will be rooting for the Bulldogs, who are making their first NCAA Tournament appearance in three years and will meet the Ducks for the first time.

Pryor chooses Ohio State
The Columbus Dispatch
JEANNETTE, Pa. -- Terrelle Pryor is now an Ohio State Buckeye.

Pryor, considered the No. 1 football prospect in the country, made his choice today just before noon at a press conference at his high school.

"It's what I want, and this is what I decided," Pryor said, referring to his decision to attend Ohio State.

Pryor said it was tough to pick OSU over Michigan.

"It makes me feel bad that they had their hopes on me."

The media had gathered here once before to meet with Pryor. That was on Feb.6, otherwise known as national letter of intent signing day. Except Pryor announced that day he wasn't ready to sign with anyone.

Though he later told rivals.com he had decided to go with OSU, a meeting with his father Craig Pryor the night before convinced him to put off the decision (the deadline to sign was April 1) until he had a chance to give Penn State and possibly Oregon a fair chance. He had made official visits only to OSU and Michigan by that point, and vowed he would make similar journeys to PSU and Oregon before deciding, but he never did.

Oh, he was at Penn State last weekend, but that was to key the Jeannette basketball team's victory over Strawberry Mansion in the Class AA state championship game. He said afterward he had narrowed his recruiting list to two schools, but did not name them until today.

Tripping The Pac 10

Expecting face-book defense, Bayless to look for 'my' space

If Jerryd Bayless takes off for the NBA this spring after only one year of college, he will have to continue part of his on-court education elsewhere.
He will have no choice.
Already, in just four months of college basketball, Bayless has become a team leader. He's learned to combine handling the ball, being the team's leading scorer and pacing himself for 40 minutes a game.
But there's one aspect that is still an ongoing project: how to deal with the constant, increasing defensive pressure he faces.
With the Arizona Wildcats having just three key scorers, defenses have loaded up on Bayless, even with the March 6 return of Nic Wise from knee surgery.

Lunardi: UCLA Bruins will win it all
ESPN
My favorite way to wrap up another season of Bracketology is counting down the NCAA field from the first loser to the last winner. Now, for the fourth year in a row at ESPN.com, we forecast every game in every round (with every score!) of the best sporting event ever invented.

If these picks work out, thank me. If they don't, blame ESPN.com for running them. But, during my six prior March visits to Bristol, I have projected 15 of a possible 24 Final Four teams. So here goes:

Men's Basketball | Committee rewards Cougars' consistency with solid seeding
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
So, you ask, what's up with the NCAA basketball committee and Washington State? Does somebody at WSU have pictures of the good men and women on the committee?

Last year, it was a No. 3 seed, maybe a level better than forecast. This year, a No. 4, when most projections had the Cougars figured for a 5 or 6.

The answer can be found in the numbers, and beyond the numbers, in the style, and in the Cougars' very modus operandi. And therein, you can find a hint of what to expect when WSU meets Winthrop (and Notre Dame or George Mason?) this weekend in Denver.

All you need to know about the Cougars
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
PULLMAN, Wash. -- An alphabetical guide to the Cougars' 2007-08 season, as No. 21 Washington State readies to play Winthrop in Thursday's first round of the NCAA tournament in Denver:

A: Aussie Aron Baynes, WSU's only inside force, who must pick up his slumping game if the Cougars expect to advance in the tournament.

B: Bennetts, coach Tony and his predecessor and father Dick, who came to WSU five years ago and revived the program. Tony is the defending AP coach of the year, and his 50-16 record in two seasons is unprecedented at WSU.

C: Consecutive NCAA tournament appearances, for the first time in the history of the Washington State (24-8) program.

Huskies ante up for a dose of pity
Oregonian
We begin this morning with a math question.

If the winner of the NCAA Tournament is No. 1, and the winner of the National Invitation Tournament is No. 66, and the winner of the College Basketball Invitational is No. 98, how much does it cost to get into the CBI? (Extra credit if you know of the CBI.) Please show your work.

I'll wait.

WSU's 1980 NCAA visit short and not so sweet
thenewstribune.com
Well-documented by now are the trials and tribulations of Derrick Low, Kyle Weaver and Robbie Cowgill as Washington State Cougars.

Losing was routine before they arrived. Last season, when they led the Cougars to their first berth in the NCAA men's basketball championships since 1994, it broke a string of 10 losing seasons.

As seniors, they have gotten WSU back to the NCAA tournament, where they'll open against Winthrop in a first-round East Regional game Thursday at the Pepsi Center in Denver.

Rarely have recruits had such an impact on the program in Pullman. However, in 1980, three seniors ? three of the same kind of athletes as Low, Weaver and Cowgill ? led a charge to the NCAA tournament under coach George Raveling.

Fullback Pitre's request for sixth year of eligibility at UCLA denied
dailynews.com
UCLA's fullback depth took a big, and unforeseen, hit when Michael Pitre's request for a sixth year of eligibility was denied by the NCAA.

Pitre and UCLA both believed he would get the sixth year. He did not play as a freshman because of a neck injury, then was limited to a handful of plays in one game last season because of a left knee injury.

"To be honest with you, I don't even know what the reason was (for the denial)," said Pitre, who already graduated with a history degree. "Even talking to (UCLA's) compliance people, they didn't understand it."

When healthy, Pitre was one of the top fullbacks in the West. He already hired an agent, and will begin preparing for the NFL draft.

"I'm thinking it's going to work out best because I was already done with school," Pitre said. "I was looking at the NFL draft before the season, and I was one of the top fullbacks before I got hurt.

"But it probably takes me from being a drafted player to a free agent, but in some situations that may be best. You get to pick where you go."

With Pitre not returning, walk-on Trevor Theriot has a chance to win the starting job. Sources said tailback Chane Moline might also move to fullback.

In expected news, receiver Marcus Everett and Gavin Ketchum had their redshirt years approved.

Everett will be a fifth-year senior, and Ketchum a fourth-year junior.

NIT Opener Poised To Be a Shootout
Daily Californian
National postseason tournaments give teams the opportunity to play against opponents from all over the country, pitting name-brand schools against small-town schools, highlight-reel favorites against unsung heroes.

Not surprisingly, the unknowns can easily outweigh the scouting report on strengths, styles and go-to scorers.

But even though the Cal men's basketball team didn't face New Mexico this season, it feels it learned quite a bit about its upcoming opponent in two conference games against an eerily similar team-Oregon.

When the fourth-seeded Bears take the court at Haas Pavilion tonight at 8 p.m. in the opening round of the National Invitation Tournament, they will meet a fifth-seeded Lobos team that plays-and shoots-like the Ducks.

New Mexico leads the country in three-point shooting percentage at just over 42 percent, spearheaded by 6-foot-7 junior Chad Toppert's career mark of 43.8 percent from beyond the arc.

Still Tripping

USC coach Floyd's unconventional game plans work

OMAHA, Neb. - Here's the secret: Tim Floyd locks himself in a basement. You can only picture it by thinking of one of those evil-genius scientists, cackling at every minute discovery.

Not only does the USC coach have an armload of film, but three bunsen burners, a complex set of tubes, gyroscopes, centrifuges, the works.

But Floyd is no more genius in cooking up a game plan than any other conscientious coach would be, at least to hear him tell it.

His insistence is that instead of possessing some Frankenstein gene, he's more like The Man With Two Brains.

That's how Floyd reacted when it was proposed to him that with his success in coming up with a game plan, he was respected as some kind of laboratory whiz with his trusty sidekick, assistant coach Phil Johnson.

"No, no, no, no. Not at all," Floyd protested immediately. "Phil does all that. I just listen to him and do what he wants to do."

So it's Johnson who's the intellect behind the plans?

"Phil will tell you no," Floyd said. "But he's our planning guy. He does a great job.

"We watch films together and sleep on it, and get up and talk the next day. What we like, don't like. He comes up with a lot of suggestions, I do a lot of listening."

2 armed robberies at USC are being investigated
Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles police are investigating two armed robberies that took place in classrooms on the campus of the University of Southern California in recent days, authorities said Tuesday.

The incidents -- one late Friday and the other Sunday afternoon -- occurred after many USC students had left campus for the start of spring break. In each case, a student reported being robbed at gunpoint while alone in a classroom studying.

Top Running Back Leaving Cal
SF Chronicle
"Cal was never my first choice," he told RealDawg. "I didn't feel (Cal) was a (football) school that had a lot of tradition. They were ranked sixth in the country and yet couldn't sell out that week's game."

Love practices for UCLA, but Mbah a Moute doesn't
ESPN
UCLA Coach Ben Howland had a seven-minute conference call Tuesday afternoon, just enough time to report that freshman center Kevin Love participated fully in practice and seemed to be "in pretty good spirits," and that junior forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute did not practice because of a school exam.

Love suffered a pulled back muscle early in the Bruins' 67-64 Pacific 10 Conference tournament win over Stanford on Saturday. Mbah a Moute sat out that game because of a sprained left ankle.

USC's Floyd has eyes on another Wildcat
Los Angeles Times
Michael Beasley can have his points.

The Kansas State freshman forward has scored at least 30 points in 13 games and at least 20 points in 23 games this season, so it's almost a given that he will come up big Thursday in Omaha when the 11th-seeded Wildcats play sixth-seeded USC in an NCAA tournament first-round game.The Kansas State player USC Coach Tim Floyd on Tuesday said he was most intent on containing was freshman forward Bill Walker, who averages 15.8 points and has scored as many as 31 in a game.

"He's the guy that is our biggest concern going into this game," Floyd said. "We know who Beasley is, but Walker is a guy with dominant talent who is capable of having a 35-point game."

Beasley, who set a single-season school record for points while averaging 26.5 a game, has been Kansas State's leading scorer in 25 of 31 games and reached at least 40 points in three games.

"Beasley's going to have a great night. Nobody's been able to hold him down," Floyd said. "We'll try to do our best, but Walker appears to be a real key to their team when you look at his stats and numbers. When he elevates and plays big, then they become unbeatable."

Sun Devils swat Hornets in opener
Register-Guard
TEMPE, Ariz. ? For most of the first half, Arizona State looked as if it deserved to be in the NCAA Tournament.

The rest of the night was ugly, but the Sun Devils still beat Alabama State 64-53 in a first-round NIT matchup Tuesday.

James Harden, who had 25 points and a season-best 13 rebounds for the Sun Devils, credited the quick start to the NCAA snub.

"The first half we came out with a little chip on our shoulder. We want to prove people wrong," he said. "The second half we got too comfortable."

Harden's fellow freshman Ty Abbott added 15 points on five first-half three-pointers.

The Sun Devils (20-12) reached the 20-win mark for just the fourth time in 27 years. They will play at home against Southern Illinois in a second-round matchup Thursday night.

Looking East

Big 12: Texas, Kansas among nation's elite
Athlon Sports
Kansas and Texas combined to produce a Big 12 Tournament final worthy of a national championship game.

Heading into the final two minutes at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, a single point separated the two teams that shared the regular-season conference title. Both sides had shot better than 58 percent in the first half Sunday afternoon before locking down on the defensive end in the second. Texas committed all of four turnovers in the game. Kansas had an unheard-of 25 assists on its 26 made baskets. And the Jayhawks finally put the Longhorns away by sinking 9 of 10 free throws in the last minute and a half.

"It is pretty corny, but I told the team at halftime in front of (assistant coach) Danny (Manning), I said, 'That is probably as good a half of basketball played in Kansas City since the '88 championship basketball game,'" victorious Kansas coach Bill Self said afterward.

Manning, of course, was the star of the Kansas team that cut down the nets at Kemper Arena that spring after beating another modern-day Big 12 school, Oklahoma, to claim the school's second national title.

Big red machine
# The Boston Globe
ITHACA, N.Y. - It can be a lonely bus ride down Interstate 81 from Syracuse in the dead of a winter's night - and it was every bit that and more for Steve Donahue this past December. The coach of the Cornell men's basketball team had had high hopes for the 2007-08 season; indeed, the Big Red were preseason favorites to win the league title.
more stories like this

But things were not going as planned. An 80-64 loss to Syracuse had been Cornell's third straight, dropping the Big Red to 4-4, and there was a Christmas break coming with no games for a week. The Ivy League season would start in a month.

Three days before the Syracuse loss, the team had been beaten badly by a so-so Bucknell team on the road and Donahue had made a decision: There was going to be change. Practices would be more intense. Defense would be stressed. Accountability would be demanded. The first test was Syracuse and it did not go well.

"I was still thinking after that Syracuse game that maybe I was wrong after all," Donahue said. "Maybe we were still a year away. We were so young."

Skiles to Indiana? Just a rumor so far
chicagotribune.com
Reports are circulating that Indiana is interested in talking to former Bulls coach Scott Skiles about taking over its chaotic program. Skiles, who grew up in Plymouth, Ind., played at Michigan State and lives near Bloomington, has never coached on the collegiate level.

Spokesmen for the Indiana athletic department, when asked about the reports, said they had no knowledge of them. Skiles in the past has evinced no interest in coaching in college, but sources close to him indicated more recently that he might be open-minded about the right college opportunity.

The situation in Bloomington is far from perfect. The Hoosiers' best player, Big Ten Player of the Year D.J. White, is set to graduate, and highly touted freshman guard Eric Gordon is expected to depart for the NBA. Two others in the Hoosiers' rotation, forwards Lance Stemler and Mike White, also will be graduating.

West Virginia Adjusts to New Coaching Style
nytimes.com
The basketball coaching change at West Virginia last year signified a switch from one philosophical extreme to another.John Beilein, who left the Mountaineers for Michigan, and Bob Huggins, who was lured to West Virginia from Kansas State, are regarded as two of the best coaches in the sport. Each has more than 550 career victories.

But they have built their reputations in starkly different manners. Beilein's teams play an intricate offensive style, predicated on set plays and a 1-3-1 zone defense. Huggins's teams have always been constructed around a rugged man-to-man defense, and they spend a majority of their practice time on it.

For Bands, Songs Remain the Same
The New York Times Company
Step inside an arena where N.C.A.A. tournament games are being played. Close the eyes during timeouts. Listen to the pep bands play their jaunty tunes. And remember what year it is.Pep bands may provide the N.C.A.A. tournament's greatest culture clash ? giving a time-warped soundtrack to games that decide this year's champion.

At last weekend's Pacific-10 Conference tournament in Los Angeles, Staples Center was periodically filled with horn-tooting variations of songs by Bon Jovi ("Livin' on a Prayer"), Boston ("More Than a Feeling"), Ozzy Osbourne ("Crazy Train"), the Police ("Message in a Bottle") and KC and the Sunshine Band ("Get Down Tonight").

Across the country, during the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden, the well-worn strains of Michael Jackson ("Thriller"), Kansas ("Carry On Wayward Son"), Guns N' Roses ("Paradise City") and the Doobie Brothers ("Long Train Runnin' ") helped fill the downtime when the court was empty.

Pearl served his time in Div. II before thriving in Div. I again
ESPN
He rode the bus for nine years.

Two hundred sixty miles to Rensselaer, Ind. Three hundred miles to Quincy, Ill. Three hundred eighty-five miles to Kenosha, Wis. And that was one way. The trips home were just as long when the games were over. Cornfields, flat land and gray winter skies, forever.

This was Bruce Pearl's purgatory: nearly a decade coaching at the University of Southern Indiana, a Division II outfit in Evansville. A guy who had been a rising star in his 20s -- named by Basketball Weekly as one of the top assistant coaches in college basketball -- had taken a series of endless bus rides into semi-obscurity.

The basketball was good, by Division II standards. The life wasn't glamorous, by Division I standards.

This That & The Other Thing

Big 12 Roundup: Bearing down, Buffalo stampede and more

Baylor quarterback Blake Szymanski broke virtually every single-season passing record for the Bears during the 2007 season.And what has it earned the junior heading into the 2008 season? The chance to earn the starting job again in a spirited three-man competition in new coach Art Briles' first spring with the Bears.

Szymanski, former Miami transfer Kirby Freeman and heralded early arrival Robert Griffin are involved in a tight battle to master Briles' high-powered attack. The new coach is hopeful that two of the quarterbacks will separate themselves by the end of spring practice, although he is careful to say the competition is close after the first weeks of spring practice.

Moody could upgrade Fla.'s 'inadequate' running back position
msnbc.com
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) -Every time Florida coach Urban Meyer sees Emmanuel Moody, he tells the running back the same thing.

"I don't say hello to him,'' Meyer said. "I just walk by and say, 'Boy, I hope you're really good.' I don't know what else to say. ... I hope he's really, really, really good. I don't know if he is.''

Meyer and the Gators hope to find out soon.

C. Florida player collapses, dies after practice
msnbc.com
ORLANDO, Fla. - A Central Florida wide receiver died Tuesday after voluntary strength and conditioning drills, the day before spring practice was set to begin.

Police said there was no foul play or obvious cause for redshirt freshman Ereck Plancher's late morning collapse. UCF athletic director Keith Tribble said the players had been lifting weights, then ran for about 10 minutes.

After the workout, the team huddled for a quick chat. As everyone was leaving, Plancher, a 19-year-old from Naples, took a knee in obvious distress, Tribble said. UCF trainers on site immediately provided CPR and the redshirt freshman was taken by ambulance to the hospital. He was pronounced dead just before noon.

25 recruits to watch for in 2009
Athlon Sports
The 2008 class is in the books, at least for the most part, and coaching staffs everywhere have already turned their attention to their 2009 classes. Some schools already have strong starts on the recruiting trails.

USC already has ten committed prospects for the '09 class ? eight of which are top-100 type players. Quarterback Matt Barkley (Santa Ana, Calif.) is considered by many as the top signal-caller in this class, and he is already committed to the Trojans. He is also the early favorite for the No. 1 spot on the 2009 Athlon Consensus 100.

Pryor's decision expected today
The Detroit News
Michigan or Ohio State?

The world finally will know the answer at noon today when Terrelle Pryor, the Jeannette (Pa.) High quarterback rated the No. 1 high school player by Rivals.com, announces his college decision.

Pryor's announcement has been long-awaited since he stunned the recruiting world on National Signing Day, Feb. 6, when he said during a nationally televised news conference he was not ready to make a decision.

Has Serious Academic Reform
wsj.com
Nathan Tublitz is like the IRS. People hate to see him show up on their doorstep.When Dr. Tublitz isn't teaching neurobiology at the University of Oregon, he's co-chairman of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, a group of 56 Division 1 faculty senates whose primary mission is to remind college presidents, athletic directors and coaches that the kids at center court during March Madness are supposed to be students first and athletes second.

Attendance declines at state tournaments
Oregonian
After the promising heights of 2007, interest in Oregon high school basketball tournaments came back to earth in 2008. But the Oregon School Activities Association -- whose budget greatly depends on revenue from state basketball and football tournaments -- does not feel cause for alarm.

"We won't know our net income for a while," said Cindy Simmons, an assistant executive director with the OSAA. "We aren't anywhere close to having the final numbers finalized. Regardless, we need another year of regular tournaments before we can make a stab at it. This year was probably closer to the norm. Last year was an exceptional year when all the stars aligned."

Former Husky recruit leaving Cal
seattletimes.nwsource.com
Cal running back James Montgomery, a familiar name to UW fans who follow recruiting closely, is transferring and reportedly says he has the Huskies on his short list of potential next destinations.

Montgomery, a native of Rancho Cordova, Calif., committed to UW in July of 2005 and remained a Husky commit until the following January, when he decided to stay closer to home and attend Cal. (Here's a story from 2006 detailing his recruiting process with UW).

But after two years at Cal, Montgomery has decided he might have a better chance to play somewhere else.

"James Montgomery asked for his release and I granted it,'' Cal coach Jeff Tedford said in a release today. "He felt like there would be a better situation for him somewhere else. Fortunately for us, running back is a position with a lot of depth. We feel great about our talent at that position with Jahvid Best, Shave Vereen, Tracy Slocum and Covaughn DeBoskie.''

Montgomery told RealDawg.com that "I will be looking at Washington, maybe Florida and Fresno. Oregon.''