The dissolution of the Pac-12 served to disperse the Oregon State Beavers who didn’t want to play in the mid-major West Coast Conference.
It’s working out great for #1 UCLA, who got Talia Von Oelhoffen, and NCAA team of the week Oklahoma, who got Raegan Beers.
On the other hand, Lily Hansford, a most accurate 3-point shooter (45% as an OSU sophomore), looks out of place at Iowa State, who lost to #22 Utah Sunday. Hanford is shooting 3-for-27 3FG this season, 0-for-1 against Utah (I thought: “Aw no, she’s gonna choose *today* to get healthy”).
Then there’s Oregon State post Kelsey Rees — one of favorite players at Utah — who opted to remain in Corvallis, and won the WCC player of the week award two weeks ago.
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Along with TCU (which looks like a superteam with all the talent that transferred in — the Frogs have their own Oregon State transfer, Donovyn Hunter — and no problem getting used to each other, evidently), Utah and Kansas State are the last unbeatens in Big 16 conference play. Tonight, KSU visits Utah, to bring that down to two, or perhaps one (#11 TCU leads Kansas by six at halftime).
I lecture at the Campbell chess club Wednesday nights at 7 p.m. Pacific time, or halftime at the Huntsman Center. I might be wrapping up my talk very quickly tonight.
My brother Jon is an editor at the KSU athletics site bringonthecats dot com, and didn’t ask me to cover this game for them. I used to be a journalist, but not even my brother gives me assignments.
Utah coach Petersen won’t talk to me on the phone. Before the Cayman Islands trip, the Utah media department put me off until after Thanksgiving. Following Sunday’s win — after which the important question is “how the heck is Kennady McQueen (the senior wing was helped off the floor during the fourth quarter Sunday, and losing her would be a serious hit)” — I was again shoved aside until Thursday.
So I’ll learn with the rest of the world whenever Kennady is OK tonight. I used to be a journalist — when Coach Roberts got the WNBA Los Angeles job, people called me for news, but I didn’t have any.