Since the Trojan Men blew-out the Bruins they have beaten Wake Forest 5-2 at home, lost to Duke 3-4 on the road and beat #6 Georgia at Athens 4-2. The Duke loss was close with USC not playing with senior Robert Farah the 11th rank player in college tennis. Against the Bulldogs 2 days later Farah played #2 singles and was the difference in the match, while playing hurt. The #3 Trojans improve to 14-2 overall and will play the Oregon Ducks on march 26 at Oregon. http://www.usctrojans.com/sports/m-tennis/recaps/031910aaa.html

The Lady Trojans improved to 9-6 overall with a 6-1 win against Fresno State at USC, lead by the doubles team of Danielle Lao / Alison Ramos.  Sarah Fansler and Maria Sanchez  lead the way in singles next up for the Trojans will be the Washington schools.  http://www.usctrojans.com/sports/w-tennis/recaps/031710aaa.html

>> Take SB Nation Survey

Hello sports fans! We're always striving to provide you with the best experience possible and it's been quite some time since we checked in with you.

So we're rolling out this survey to learn more about you and your sports world. It should only take about 10 minutes to complete.

We really appreciate your time and this is also going to help make a donation to a good cause.

By next Thursday (3/25) at 11:59pm PST the site that has the highest percentage of their community filling out the attached survey about their sports interests and consumption will win $500 to donate to a charity of their choice. We will leave it up to the discretion of the community manager(s) of the winning blog to decide how to choose the particular charity.

You can take the survey HERE

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WYR2WQT

Thanks for your support!

Once again I've created a group where those of us who frequent this fine site can compete to see who has the best bracket in the NCAA Tournament.  No experience w/ college hoops is required and in fact that may hurt your chances... if you'd like to join:

1) Go to Yahoo! Sports

2) Group ID # is 162086

3) Password to join is "nextyear"

 

The more the merrier so come on and join the fun!

As per the men's version of March Madness, the Pac-10 will only be getting two teams in the women's tournament, which announced its pairings earlier this afternoon. No. 1 Stanford and No. 8 UCLA earned the conference's two bids, and as a result, the Women of Troy will be at home watching according to Scott Wolf:

USC did not make the NCAA women's basketball tournament. The Trojans' RPI was 41, which is not a lock to make it. The season-ending loss to UCLA might have cost USC its bid.

Hmmmm...

I heard about this earlier today but it wasn't official. I guess ucla owns the police now, right?

Jon Artz, the attorney for UCLA senior forward Nikola Dragovic, said that assault charges were dropped against his client because of insufficient evidence.

Maybe Howland kept playing him because he was afraid to get beat up himself.

Most of you are already aware of the fact that Cal and Washington earned bids to the NCAA Tournament this March, but there are two other postseason tournaments, the NIT and CBI, that are featuring Pac-10 teams this year. The NIT has Arizona State, which won 22 games this year, as a number 1 seed, and the CBI has Oregon State in its field of 16. Their inclusions give the Pac-10 four teams headed for postseason play - a significant dropoff from having 6 teams in the NCAA Tournament alone last season.

This year, Arizona could have earned a spot in the CBI, but head coach Sean Miller turned down the invitation, saying:

That's really not what our program is about right now. The goal here is to make the NCAA Tournament and be in a position for a seed that can advance and can threaten for the Final Four. I'm going to sound the exact way I did when I got here. The building process and doing things the right way is at the forefront. Recruiting Arizona players ...making sure that everybody who returns, returns better and making sure that everyone who is on our roster is about winning. It's about team. It's about togetherness and having a bigger picture than six months. In another six months, a culture will be developed, a way of doing things will be developed. Not only by miles, but sometimes in inches we'll continue to improve and emerge on the national level and within our conference. It's going to take a lot of hard work and patience. Part of the story is written and there is a lot of hard work to go.

I'm a little surprised that the 'Cats turned down the bid, considering the youth of their team, but for a program that has been so successful historically, it does make some sense. The CBI is considered an embarrassment in some circles, so for Arizona to partake in the event would be somewhat of a joke for them and their fans. At this point, Miller likely just wants to get his offseason program underway.

Congratulations to our friends at CGB on the Bears dismantling of the powder blue poodles. This final bruin loss of the season provides us one more look into the decaying state of affairs at Westwood's Insane Asylum. The editorial staff at our favorite bruin blog is now running with the rumor that Ben Howland is plotting an exit strategy:

Okay the rumor I referred to in earlier thread ...

… has been officially leaked on BRO. We heard few days ago Howland had sent feelers out to UConn re. succeeding Calhoun. Too bad for Howland UConn decided to reup Calhoun’s K. So the story about DePaul is not happening in vacuum. It sure sounds like Howland is looking to get out of Westwood.

CAN. YOU. BLAME. HIM?

Someone brought up Lavin's comments about all the "pressure" at ucla, which elicited the following threat from you-know-who:

All we were expecting this year was for Howland to have a winning season (lowering from pre-season expectation of 17-18 win regular season). Yeah, we are really unreasonable. If Howland tries to even think about attacking us that way … either directly or indirectly … we will go nuclear.

Ben must be trembling with fear tonight.

Michael Cooper is not new to the coaching game, having led the Sparks to WNBA championships, but the college game is a little different. Cooper has had to learn to make adjustments in his first year with USC's women's basketball team.

His press conference braggadocio brought a lot of midseason attention to the USC women's basketball team. The team didn't handle it well at first, but has since found its stride heading into the Pac-10 Tournament on a five-game winning streak.

The recent upturn even appears to have brought back some of Cooper's swagger:

USC Women Make Adjustments After Coop's Bravado

LOS ANGELES, California (March 11, 2010) – C. L. Max Nikias, USC executive vice president
and provost, will become the 11th president of the University of Southern California on August 3,
2010. His appointment was announced today by Edward P. Roski, Jr., chairman of the USC
Board of Trustees.
Nikias will succeed Steven B. Sample, who has led USC since 1991. In November 2009, Sample
announced his decision to retire August 2, 2010.
Over the course of his career as a researcher, educator, and university administrator, Nikias has
earned accolades for his leadership, innovation and fundraising, as well as his ability to build
partnerships among varied constituencies.
As President Sample’s second-ranking officer since 2005, Nikias is credited with accelerating the
university’s recent academic momentum, recruiting new leadership, strengthening the academic
medical enterprise, helping attract a series of major donations to the institution, creating
innovative cross-disciplinary programs, enhancing the university’s globalization efforts and
increasing support for students at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels.
Nikias’ selection by the Board of Trustees followed a search process that involved an advisory
committee of trustees and senior faculty representatives, working with R. William Funk &
Associates, one of the nation’s premier search consulting firm serving higher education. Between
November 2009 and January 2010 the advisory committee met with 15 key USC constituent
groups, including students, faculty, alumni leaders, community representatives, staff, and various
university supporters and friends. After reviewing approximately 75 candidates, the committee
interviewed seven finalists, all of whom were sitting presidents or provosts at major universities.
“It is a testament to Max Nikias’ abilities that, from such an impressive group of educators, he
was unanimously recommended by the advisory committee,” Roski said. “During his 19 years as
a faculty member and administrator at USC, he has provided distinguished service to the
university in a variety of roles. He is a remarkable and inspiring leader, a brilliant scholar, and
the best possible person to lead our university forward.”
President Sample praised the appointment: “I have long believed that Max Nikias is one of the
country’s most talented provosts. I’m delighted to have a successor whose keen vision and energy
will keep the university moving ahead at a rapid pace. USC will be in excellent hands with Max
as president.”

Continue reading this post »

While I realize the Trojans aren't participating in the tournament this year, but in case you're still interested, I wanted to pass this along to you guys. I've written the SB Nation Pac-10 Tournament preview for the SBNation.com mothership, and I'm hoping many of your will take a few moments to check it out -- for a couple of reasons.

First off, you might learn something. But since I'm aware that you might not, since a lot of you are pretty darn smart and knowledgeable, you should go over there anyway just to see the cool stuff we're doing as a network.

If you've never been over there, the preview is actually the lead story for what's called a "StoryStream." I'll be continuously updating the stream with posts as the tournament advances, meaning that link above will be your one-stop shop for everything related to the conference tournament, including tidbits, game recaps, video, etc.

Updates are shown chronologically, with the most recent ones at the top. (You can also toggle it to show the oldest posts first, because hey, we're like Burger King -- have it your way.) Additionally, you can help me out by clicking the "submit your post" button on the stream to pass tips my way if you find things that you think could be included on the stream.

The best feature, I think, is this: If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to the stream here. The feed will deliver each update I post directly to your reader over the next four days. Pretty cool.

And if you dig it, take a look around the SBNation.com site -- I think you'll especially appreciate the college basketball page.