News And Notes For the Weekend

Well, it happened: a whirlwind trip home and a bunch of work finally sidetracked the blog for a couple days. But never fear; you'll see the blog really hit it's stride this fall when school arrives and procrastination moves up on my priority list. So, without further ado, let's look back over the last few days in northwest sports.

M's:

Friday: Mariners 4, Blue Jays 2. Miguel Batista and JJ take control. I still agree with those pegging Adrian Beltre as a second half fantasy sleeper. I think he's starting to put it together.

Today: Blue Jays 1, Mariners 0. This sentence contains more action than this game did. A great start (CG 1-run performance) from Jeff Weaver is ruined.

NBA:

The ref scandal is heating up and David Stern now has bigger concerns than TV ratings. For those of you unaware, the FBI is investigating a veteran NBA official for betting on games he reffed as well as making calls to help determine the outcomes of those games. This is a black eye for the league, as it should be, but I'm actually somewhat excited about the future of NBA officiating. This is going to help put the clamps down on poor officiating as well as ensure such an event doesn't easily happen again. It's fun to imagine an NBA free of dramatics from Bennett Salvatore and Joey Crawford and (hopefully) more free of poor calls in general. Accountability is key in officiating; the NBA now has more leverage to take action when a ref makes a mistake. Or at least that's the hope.

Edit: Good read here on how referees can (unintentionally) affect the point spread.

Cougs:

I'm saving the most important subject for last. Aron Baynes and Thomas Abercrombie will represent their countries in the World University Games in August. It really is a great opportunity for both players, especially for Abercrombie who will benefit from the experience prior to the start of his first season taking the court for the Cougs. Baynes has been doing yoga this summer (yes, you read that correctly), and is making strides to become more flexible and become the big man we all want him to be (remember the USC game?).

I'd like to have some good coverage of the upcoming Pan Am games featuring D-Low and Kyle Weaver, but ESPN is stashing it over on ESPN Deportes. The Cougfan forums are trashing the lack of Deportes on most common TV packages for good reason. I hope we'll see more of Team USA than just box scores and game recaps in the near future.

The big news on the football front is a neutral site matchup scheduled for 2009 with the NBC...er, I mean Notre Dame Fighting Irish. The location is the Alamodome in sunny San Antonio, where folks know what salsa should taste like. All in all it's a great opportunity for the Cougs to get national exposure, recruiting buzz, and a chance to upset what should be a very good team under Charlie Weis. The only scenario better than this, in my opinion, would be a road trip to South Bend with a return game in Seattle. The Cougs need a marquee opponent in Seahawks Stadium (let's avoid calling it Qwest Field) one of these days, or the game on the west side may stop being a yearly event. That's another topic for another day.

More Optimistic, Pessimistic, Realistic is on the way this week, along with a new picture of the week on Monday. Don't act like you're not excited.

I've also decided on what to call my writing style: The poor man's Bill Simmons. Or maybe the homeless man's Bill Simmons. One of those two will have it covered. I am a huge Sports Guy fan, so my goal is to make my writing similar to his, only with a lot more Cougs and a lot less Red Sox. We'll see if it works out. There'll be less pop culture, too, especially in a culture where "Hey There Delilah" can be the #1 song on iTunes for 30 consecutive days. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Coug nation.