NFL Week 5 Game Picks

Here are the guys picks from Last Week!

NFL Week 4 Game Picks

Here are the guys picks for Week 4...

NFL Week 3 Game Picks

Sorry for the tardiness. Here are the Week 3's picks!

NFL Week 2 Game Picks

Here are this week's games along with the guys picks.

Season Totals

Here are the Season Totals for the guys after Week Five:

NFL Week 1 Game Picks

The guys are doing a football pool for the year! Here are Week One's Picks from each of them. (Apologies for being late on the post, but the picks were in before game time)

CFB Northwest 2012-2013 Season Predictions: WSU Cougars

A new era of Washington State Cougars football is beginning and eyes are on new head coach Mike Leach. Many fans are expecting him to be the "Savior" of WSU Football. Before we should even consider this, he's got to win games and the Cougars have a favorable schedule. There are plenty of win-able games for the Cougs. It will come down to how focused the team is each week. If they stay focused all year, a bowl berth will be in their near future.There is an on-going battle for starting QB between Jeff Tuel and Connor Halliday. I think Tuel is the favorite and will win the job in the end.

CFB Northwest 2012-2013 Season Predictions: Washington Huskies

The Washington Huskies ended last season with a bad taste to their mouths. Sure, then Sophomore QB Keith Price outplayed Heisman winner Robert Griffin III with a 437 pass yds and 4 TD performance at the Alamo Bowl but it was overshadowed by the horrific defensive display by the Huskies. Baylor ran for 482 yards on the ground and put 67 points on the board. The Huskies will look to improve a poor defense with new defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox (was defensive coordinator at Tennessee last year).

CFB Northwest 2012-2013 Season Predictions: Oregon Ducks

The Oregon Ducks will enter into the 2012-2013 season with a new starting Quarterback. The Ducks are currently conducting a QB competition between Sophomore Brian Bennett and explosive freshman Marcus Mariota. Whoever ends up being the starting QB (I'm expecting Bennett to win the job), the Ducks are the favorite to win the Pac-12 North. A relatively weak schedule will be beneficial to them as their main challenge will be USC, who they will have to play in the LA Memorial Coliseum.

CFB Northwest 2012-2013 Season Predictions: OSU Beavers

After a 3-9 season, the Oregon State Beavers will be looking to recover and return to the bowl season. Unfortunately, it may be a struggle to get there to that 6-win mark. The Pac-12 is not filled with many cupcakes or easy wins. However, I see the Beavers making it back to a bowl game.

Summer's Cautious Optimism

With the National Football League (NFL) on their usual break from practice and Major League Baseball in the middle of their 180 game season, National Basketball Association (NBA) fans are left in limbo. However, for a stretch every summer the 30 NBA teams play five or so games to get their rookies and some veterans extra work before training camp. The Portland Trail Blazers are a team, where fans wonder if the team is rebuilding or retooling. The Blazers and their optimistic fans would say retooling because they would propose the team is good enough to compete IF they can get the best out of the players. Pessimistic fans would say rebuilding, thus suggesting the team has too many holes to compete this year.

MLB Mid Season Awards

As we approach the MLB All Star on July 10 its time to reflect back on the first half of the season and the plays and players that stood out above the rest. While the players on this list as of right now are my favorites to win there respected award nothing is set in stone, with the dog days of summer and alot of baseball to still be played new contenders still have time to make there voices heard. With that being said this list will include my Mid Season MVP, Cy Young, Rookie Of The Year, and Comeback player of the year for both leagues. As well as my favorite moment from the first half of the season, lets start off with ROY(Rookies of the year) for the AL and NL.

Nishida's 2012 Mock Draft

1) New Orleans Hornets

Positions of Need: PF or C

Draft: PF/C Anthony Davis or SF Michael Kidd-Gilchrist

The New Orleans Hornets need a forward/center type player because they traded away Emeka Okafor. How fortunate for them that they get the No.1 pick and PF/C Anthony Davis is waiting for them. He doesn't have a dominant post game yet, but he will be an immediate difference maker on defense. Kidd-Gilchrist does not have an overwhelming ability to score and shoot, but his defense is excellent. I believe he is the best on-ball defender in the draft and has NBA-ready ability on defense. He's an active rebounder as well. Also, Kidd-Gilchrist probably doesn't get enough praise for his finishing ability at the rim.

A Historic NBA Playoffs

Forget the fact that this NBA season was shortened and compressed to 66 games and focus on the playoffs. We don't need to focus on the polarizing figure of Lebron James but his accomplishments shouldn't go unnoticed. These NBA Playoffs have seen tightly contested series, sweeps, heartbreaks and relief. This is drama the NBA should keep in its record books.

WSU Basketball Faces Uncertainty Heading into the 2012-2013 Season

While the Mike Leach era of Cougar football is just a few months away from making it’s debut game on a Thursday night against BYU on ESPN, that does not stop Cougar basketball from getting multiple headlines. Unfortunately most of these headlines are not positive for Cougar fans all over the world. The 2012 basketball signing class was thought to be Ken Bone’s best signing class during his tenure at WSU so far, and the best WSU basketball signing class since the 2008 signing class which featured Klay Thompson, Marcus Capers, and DeAngelo Casto just to name a few. However, recruiting blunders are currently unfolding. It all started with Richard Peters the center from Toronto Canada not being able to qualify for school at Washington State University, which now has Peters looking at junior college options in hopes of working towards playing Division 1 basketball. Although Peters will still be in contact with WSU and will likely have them as one of the top schools to consider when the recruiting process reopens up again, this one really hurts. Richard Peters, despite being listed as 2 star recruit on ESPN.com had attracted a lot of attention throughout the recruiting process grabbing offers from Washington State, Washington, Clemson, Seton Hall, and Auburn most notably.

            While the loss of center Richard Peters was a huge blow to the basketball program, more worries are possibly unfolding to realties. The best-rated recruit in the 2012 class, guard from Phoenix Arizona, Demarquise Johnson faces the same questions that Richard Peters had in academic eligibility for enrolling into Washington State University. Before committing to Washington State University, Demarquise Johnson was listed as a 3 star prospect on ESPN, and Scouts.com listed him as a 4 star prospect and was drawing interest to many schools throughout the nation, however the three schools that made the hardest push were UNLV, Gonzaga, and Washington.

           

            Recruiting changes are not the only things that are taking place. Head coach Ken Bone, who will be entering his fourth season at Washington State made a drastic coaching change in hopes to help strengthen the recruiting process. Jeff Hironaka a close friend of Ken Bone and a three time assistant coach for WSU has been demoted and will no longer be an assistant coach for Washington State University, however Hironaka will still have a role on the team. One of the reasons as to why Hironaka was demoted was because Bone wanted to add a recruiter who has contacts in places that other recruiters at WSU do not currently have. Before Hironka was demoted, WSU had three assistant coaches who essentially recruited most of their players in Australia and Washington; those are the two big pipelines that WSU recruiting feeds off of. While Ken Bone is looking for an assistant coach to fill Hironka’s vacant position, its fair to assume that whoever Ken Bone hires will surely help to diversify WSU basketball in recruiting areas that WSU has not been opened to.

            With recruiting and coaching changes taking place, what does this tell us about the state of the program? What does this tell us about Ken Bone? Is it time to think about cougar basketball without Bone as the head coach? After all Bone has had three full seasons to showcase his coaching abilities and let’s not forget that for two of those seasons he had Klay Thompson at his disposal to help lead the Cougar’s toward the NCAA Tournament and he has fell short all three seasons that has resulted in trips to the NIT and CBI Tournament. With the recent hire of Mike Leach, athletic director Bill Moos is not afraid to go big and make a change and although I personally think Ken Bone has this program heading into the right direction, this upcoming season, given the latest recruiting class blunders and coaching changes will give all Cougar fans a great indication of where the program is headed and if they are heading in the right direction, otherwise Ken Bone may have to be concerned about more then just recruiting changes and assistant coaching changes.

Adam Jones Underrated MVP

As we work our way closer and closer to the mid summer's classic in July, it's time we start looking at who the real canidates are for MVP and who was just a spark in the pan. At a glance we see Josh Hamilton leading the AL in home runs, RBI's, and sporting a .338 batting average. The front runner of course, but who can challenge the great Texas slugger for the MVP? Adam Dunn has 20 home runs and seems to be back, he's also back atop the leagues strikeout board strikingout more times then Justin Verlander has thrown. The Grandyman(Curtis Granderson) has 18 homers, but only sporting a .250 average. So who is gonna challenge this guy? Then answer comes from a surprising place, Baltimore's Adam Jones, who is putting together his best season yet.

The Tigers' Overused Ace

While I have the opinion that no pitcher should ever win the Most Valuable Player of the year award, Detroit Tigers' ace Justin Verlander pitched like a MVP last season. However, he only pitched like a MVP during the regular season. When he hit the postseason, he burned out. This year, he's off to minor slow start but I will expect him to get hot in the later months. But if the Tigers do make the playoffs, I believe he will be flat and average like he was last postseason and it has nothing to do with him being clutch or not. It has to do with physical fatigue.

Athletes and Twitter

Zimmer focused on the fans tweeting at players in Social Stupidity. While I agree with him, I'm more concerned about athletes using twitter themselves.

We live in the era of social networking. Now Facebook and Twitter are cool because you can have "friends" or "followers" but what other benefits does it have other than that? It really doesn't have any other significant benefits. If anything, it can only cause damage to a person's image, particularly an athlete.

The Blazers' Undesirable Positions

The Portland Trail Blazers had so much promise coming into the shortened 2011-2012 NBA season but then everything broke down. It started with Brandon Roy's retirement, followed by inconsistent play, followed by a Nate McMillan firing and team overhaul, followed by more inconsistent play and finally, a LaMarcus Aldridge hip surgery and a missed NBA Playoff. Now the team has new pieces and open Head Coach and General Manager positions; Positions which outside coaches and GMs don't want.

Social Stupidity

Social networking (aka social media) today is the most powerful way to communicate with people. It is quick, easy and (for some) as simple as pulling out their phone and typing a message. Twitter and Facebook are the two websites at the forefront of the new age of Tweeting and Facebooking people. Everyone from athletes to actors/actresses to the everyday Joe the Plumber can have one. Although helpful for some to keep in contact with old friends and new friends it is also a dangerous place for those in the spotlight.

The NBA's Age Requirement

Many people have displayed outrage about how the University of Kentucky gets all these one-and-done players. And many people end up not liking the players individually because they feel they should stay in college. I am not one of these people. I actually think the current NBA age requirement is fine. 

The Franchise that Doesn't Play to Win

3...2...1...Zero. The score reads 83-80. The Boston Celtics win the series 4-2. But more importantly, the Celtics proved that the Atlanta Hawks are still the same old Hawks of the past 5-6 years. A team that has "potential" but never shows up in the playoffs. Well, these "young" Hawks aren't so young anymore. It's an excuse that no longer has any meaning to it and it hasn't for the past 2-3 years.

College Football's Unwanted Question

This question and issue has been constantly brought up ever since the NCAA found that former USC runningback Reggie Bush was found to have received improper benefits from an agent: Should college athletes, particularly Division I football athletes, be paid for play?

Pathetic Display

As many know, ESPN is the "Worldwide Leader in Sports" however, today they insulted one of the greatest players in NFL history. While covering the New Orleans Saints "Bountygate" scandal, they overlooked a sad, but important moment in the day. They took two hours to say anything about the death of a great NFL star.