ESPN.com - ncw - Picking apart the Pac-10

Every day, we run across stuff we can't explain, stuff that makes us start wondering about a lot of things. While leaving work the other night, for instance, I glanced into an empty conference room, and guess what's sitting on the table?


	Stanford and Nicole Powell are battling with Arizona State and Washington for first in the Pac-10.

An open box of corn starch.

OK, maybe you're the kind of person who keeps walking. You just don't care. The box doesn't even register.

Or maybe you're the kind of person who ...

Says, "Gee, that looked a lot like a box of corn starch." Continues walking halfway down the hall. Stops. Goes back.

"That's what it is, all right."

Pauses. Says to self, "Hmmm, there's not even a kitchen on this floor." Starts walking again. And then can't stop thinking about it on the drive home.

Why did someone bring corn starch to work? Why did they leave the box open? What all do you use corn starch for? Is it supposed to be kept refrigerated? If you were looking at a cup of corn starch and a cup of baking soda, could you tell the difference? Have I ever actually bought corn starch, or is it something only my mom buys? Is there any other kind of corn starch besides "Argo?" Is the woman on the box supposed to be an ear of corn with human features or a human wearing a corn outfit? What's in corn starch?

The only answer I've come up with is to the final question. The side of the box says: "Ingredient: corn starch."

Don't ask for any more of an explanation. Which brings us to our main basketball topic this week: the Pac-10. That's what I was really supposed to be thinking about on the way home.

See why I fell into the corn-starch trap? It's easy compared to thinking about the Pac-10.

How is this league race going to unfold? Who's really the favorite? What's been parity and what's been putridity? What kind of NCAA Tournament possibilities are we looking at for Pac-10 teams?

For some insight, we can turn to our old friend, the coaches' teleconference.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Forget insight, let's just get a few laughs out of it.

"Anything can happen," Arizona State's Charlie Turner Thorne said. "Because anything already has."

Turner Thorne played for Tara VanDerveer at Stanford from 1985-88, and while there, won something called the H-Block Award. This has nothing to do with "Prisoner: Cell Block H," a syndicated British-women-in-prison series we used to watch when we had just five channels, six during thunderstorms. We loved the incongruous "PCBH" put down, "If you had another brain, it would be lonely."

Anyway, the H-Block Award is this egghead thing for the Stanford senior female athlete with the highest GPA. So Turner Thorne, whose Sun Devils picked up a ranking and won seven in a row before falling to Washington last week, is pretty sharp. If she says stuff like, "I really don't know what's going to happen," you can be assured nobody really knows.

But we'll ask anyway. Washington coach June Daugherty's Huskies moved into the poll for this week and were in a three-way tie with Arizona State and Stanford at 8-3 for the league lead going into this Thursday-Friday-Saturday slate of games. The Huskies and Sun Devils improved to 9-3 with wins Thursday. Stanford can again force a three-way tie with a win againt Cal on Friday.

Washington swept the Arizona schools last week, and senior guard Megan Franza won the league's weekly honors. After winning nine of 10, the Huskies lost three of four but bounced back with four victories in a row.

		We can make one declarative NCAA statement for sure: There will be at least one Pac-10 school involved in the Sweet 16. That's because Washington State is the host school for the West Regional. I wouldn't bet a box of corn starch on any prediction beyond that.

Problems solved or just patched up?

"There's four weeks left, (so) there's a lot of basketball to be played," Daugherty said. And, unfortunately, she continued:

"I hope it doesn't sound like coach's cliché or whatever, but we're just focused on what we've done all year, and that's just (to) take one opponent at a time and get after it and work to improve and play together. We don't feel like we've played our best basketball yet, although we feel like we're making big strides right now, and we want to continue down that road."

Well, that pretty much speaks for itself, doesn't it? Feeling more curious about the history of corn starch, now?

Ah, but there's an unexpected surprise from Kathy Olivier, whose Bruins have somehow won two Pac-10 games. One of those was against Arizona, and for whatever reason, the Wildcats didn't run into the freeway afterward.

Instead they seek revenge as UCLA makes the trek this weekend into the Grand Canyon State.

Olivier mentioned that she thinks Arizona coach Joan Bonvicini is particularly good at using a loss to motivate her team. Plus the Wildcats are supposed to see the return of Veranda James, a 6-foot-3 forward who appears to be another in the nation's stellar freshman class but who has been limited in game appearances by injuries and academic problems.

"You can see the confidence with her, but also how it inspires (everybody else)," Bonvicini said of when James is on the floor. "It just changes the whole demeanor of the team."

Upset with losses to Washington and Washington State last week, Bonvicini pulled the ol' 6 a.m. practice trick twice in hopes of instigating a demeanor transplant herself, and thinks her team responded well.

Now she'll see if her Wildcats can perform a payback exercise against both L.A. schools, which beat 'Zona on Jan. 18-20. Oh, jeez, the surprise. Almost forgot about it. This doesn't really need any context, just remember it's Olivier talking about UCLA.

"Our team is a team that's comfortable defensively," she said. "We almost like defense."

Meanwhile, Oregon coach Jody Runge doesn't sound as if she likes much of anything right now.

When the Ducks won seven in a row from Dec. 22-Jan. 18, it looked as if they might have successfully found a solution for not having point guard Shaquala Williams this entire season (freakin' ACL) and not having various players for parts of the season due to injuries. But things have deteriorated as Oregon has lost five straight games -- and seven of its last eight after a one-point loss to Washington State on Thursday -- and really has to start shoveling in coal fast to make an NCAA Tournament surge.

Runge is perturbed that the Ducks (5-7 Pac-10, 12-10 overall) had four consecutive league road games -- the only other Pac-10 school that also faced that this season was Oregon State -- and that her reserves haven't exactly provided much reinforcement.

"It would be nice to shake up your starting lineup with people who were actively competing for starting positions," Runge said, "but unfortunately what we're getting is role-playing off the bench and not a competitive effort to take somebody's starting role."

Is anybody in the Pac-10 really happy these days? Well, actually ...

Stanford is feeling a bit more chipper. After losing Jamie Carey and Susan King, the Cardinal has settled in with Nicole Powell mostly running the point and has won seven in a row.

Of course, tune in next week and everything might be different with everybody. OK, well, probably not with UCLA ... but then again, the Bruins might yet do some more damage to somebody with NCAA aspirations.

As for that question, one would guess four bids. Meaning that a great deal could be on the line when the Oregon schools play host to the Arizona schools on March 1-3. As for seeding, having one among the top 16 (home site) might be it this year for the Pac-10. If it gets that.

Well, we can make one declarative NCAA statement for sure: There will be at least one Pac-10 school involved in the Sweet 16. That's because Washington State is the host school for the West Regional.

I wouldn't bet a box of corn starch on any prediction beyond that.

Knocking all but Knoxville?
After Florida didn't exactly provide us a thriller vs. Tennessee last week, losing by 30, the question of the SEC's Achilles' heel again was raised.

No one can argue with the SEC's success in the NCAA Tournament, but ... how come nobody in the league can really challenge Tennessee?

One might point out that few teams in the country do, which is true. But the SEC never stops banging the drum about how it's the best conference in the nation -- and yet the other 11 almost never even come close to the Big One.

John Adams of the Knoxville News-Sentinel raised this issue in a no-punches-pulled column last Sunday. He pointed out that in the last four seasons, Tennessee has just two losses in league play.

Then he noted that no SEC coaches have been fired in that time period -- and how that contrasts to the coach head-chopping that goes on in SEC football.

That's where I think his point goes astray. Criticizing the women's hoops coaches for not being competitive for the most part vs. Tennessee is legit; although it must go hand-in-hand with asking how much the other schools' administrations really put into and care about women's basketball.

But comparing it to football isn't really logical. On one hand you've got a sport that's been around for 100 years, has a very large talent pool and is worshipped beyond reason at SEC schools.

On the other, you have a sport that has a competitive collegiate history that goes back, realistically, not much more than 25 years. If you're still alive 75 years from now, send me an e-mail (mv@afterlife.org) giving your thoughts on the women's basketball talent pool then. Not sure I'll be able to answer, but I'll bet it will be a lot bigger. And maybe Mississippi State will have beaten Tennessee by then.

Is the pressure to win in SEC football huge? You bet. So are the salaries, the perks and the team budgets. The SEC football coaches who are fired get contract buyouts. Then they can go coach at another school via the "Magical Coaching Retread System." Or they can be TV studio analysts or go float on a lake somewhere.

If a school fires a women's basketball coach for not beating Tennessee, then it must do two things: spend the time to find a coach it thinks can beat the Orange Crush and spend the money to help that coach do it and somehow help create anywhere near the type of atmosphere in its arena that Tennessee has. And that takes something beyond money -- it takes people at the top genuinely being interested.

Not exactly a big mystery why so few women's basketball coaches get fired, is it?

Red-hot Sooners
Oklahoma, even having lost center Jen Cunningham to the freakin' ACL (she's supposed to try a brace and play before long, but we'll see), has been sizzling in the Big 12. The Sooners' only loss in the last 16 games came on Megan Taylor's buzzer-beater as Iowa State won 81-79 in Norman on Jan. 6.

Iowa State and Texas Tech, which shared the Big 12 regular-season title with Oklahoma last season, have run into difficulties in recent days.

Wednesday, Iowa State lost at Colorado. Let's just say Big 12 prognosticators saw this coming, despite the Cyclones' 95-61 dismantling of the Buffs in Ames on Jan. 27. Boulder is back to being a very hard place to win.

Texas Tech escaped Kansas with a 49-45 victory Wednesday. To recycle an old line, the offenses were poetry in motion -- were the poet Sylvia Plath.

Tech had lost at home to Texas on Saturday and absolutely had to have the win at Kansas. Tech's final four regular-season games are all monsters: home vs. Oklahoma (noon ET Saturday, Fox Sports), at Colorado, at Texas and home vs. Iowa State.

Oklahoma, now 11-1 in the league, has a one-game lead over Iowa State and Tech. The Sooners play at Tech, home vs. Baylor and Oklahoma State and at Texas.

The Cyclones visit Kansas (4 p.m. ET Saturday, ESPN2), then are at home vs. Texas and Texas A&M and finish at Tech.

Last year, the regular-season title wasn't decided until the final night; it could come down to the same thing this year.

Oklahoma's Stacey Dales and LaNeishea Caufield have met every expectation this season. But Tech coach Marsha Sharp said there's danger in facing the Sooners and only thinking about Dales and Caufield.

"People tend to overlook their other players," Sharp said. "And then they'll really take it to you."

Mechelle Voepel of the Kansas City Star is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. She can be reached via e-mail at mvoepel@kcstar.com.

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