COUGARS

FROM SEATTLE -- Hope you remembered to set your alarm this afternoon so you can be sure you're awake in time for Washington State's game at Washington. OK, so maybe it's not being played that early. But a 12:30 p.m. tip time feels like the crack of dawn compared to some of the Cougars' other start times this season. Gameday reading follows the jump.

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We have this advance of the game in today's newspaper, focusing on WSU's increased awareness about how the Huskies may guard Brock Motum. ... Here's a preview from Todd Dybas of the News Tribune. ... The Seattle Times offers this lengthy feature on UW point guard Abdul Gaddy. ... CougCenter had this writeup a couple days back about Mychal Thompson continuing to say some fairly absurd things on the radio about his son, former WSU star Klay Thompson.

Around the Pac-12 ... Being as yesterday was Saturday, there were a few games played. Arizona State saw its NCAA tournament chances slip a little farther away with a 57-56 loss at USC. ... Speaking of teams not helping their NCAA tournament hopes, Colorado took a pretty ugly 62-46 loss at California yesterday. Speaking of teams that did help their NCAA tournament hopes, the surging Bears notched their 20th win of the season. ... Arizona made a strong comeback but fell short at Pauley Pavilion yesterday, losing 74-69 to UCLA. The Wildcats were swept this week in Los Angeles and are now in fourth place. ... There is one other game today, too: Stanford hosts Utah at 2 p.m. (Pac-12 Networks). The Utes are struggling, and the Cardinal are desperate.

That's all for now. We'll chime back in before the game.

Christian Caple can be reached at christianc@spokesman.com. Twitter: @ChristianCaple

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