Cougs drop one spot on my BlogPoll ballot

After a couple of weeks off for the holidays — between driving from house to house all over Western Washington at Christmastime to spending seven days in Anaheim, five of them at Disneyland, there just wasn’t a lot of time to watch basketball — I’ve resumed casting my ballot for the BlogPoll Top 25, the most recent results of which you can find to the right of your page.

The most notable change on my ballot, which you’ll find below, is that I’ve dropped the Cougs below UCLA. It may not be fair, given that the Cougs didn’t lose to UW, but it wasn’t exactly an overwhelming performance, either. On the other hand, UCLA going into the Bay Area and beating both Stanford and Cal — both of whom had been playing excellent basketball up until that point — warranted some recognition.

Apparently, the other pollsters agreed, as the Bruins moved up into a tie with the Cougs at No. 4.

Of course, we’ll know for sure who is the better team, if only for a month or so, on Saturday. Can’t wait for that one — Cougs then Seahawks? I’ll be in heaven. (It actually could conceivably be the most ruinous six hours of my weekend, but I don’t want to think about that.)

So, without further ado, here’s my ballot, along with some brief comments at the end:

Investigative piece on Harris’ death at ESPN.com

In case you haven’t popped over to ESPN.com this morning, an “E-Ticket” investigative piece on the death of former WSU basketball player Tony Harris currently dominates the front page. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but I’ve read other “E-Ticket” stuff on the site, and it’s usually stellar journalism. (This story on Genarlow Wilson sticks out in my mind, in particular.)