NCAA Basketball San Francisco

Duke associate head coach Johnny Dawkins will be the next head coach at Stanford, according to sources. Dawkins, a former Duke player and assistant for 11 years, takes over for Trent Johnson who left for LSU.

He inherits a team that will lose the Lopez twins, Brook and Robin, to the NBA draft, but will return its primary perimeter players in Mitch Johnson, Lawrence Hill and Anthony Goods, who will all be seniors next season.

Despite flirting with Georgetown a few years ago, many people do feel that Dawkins will one day replace Mike Krzyzewski at Duke. Getting the Stanford job as his first head coaching gig is quite an endorsement of how good of a coach he is.

They are getting a great guy. Dawkins wanted his first head coaching job to be at a school with high academic standards that also had a great hoops program. Stanford is definitely that. He's just 44 years old, so he could be around Stanford for many years to come.

Or when Duke looks for Coach K's successor.

He's also in charge of player development for the U.S. Olympic Team as they get ready for the Beijing Games this summer.

Just two wins shy of 800 career victories, Eddie Sutton is back coaching college basketball. He will take over at San Francisco after coach Jesse Evans stepped down:

"Coach Jessie Evans has requested a leave of absence for the remainder of the basketball season," USF athletic director Debra Gore-Mann said in a statement. "I have approved his request. Eddie Sutton has agreed to serve as interim head coach, effective immediately and for the remainder of the 2007-08 season. I [or someone from the USF athletic administrative staff] will be traveling with the team as much as possible for the immediate future to lend my support to the student-athletes and to assist interim coach Sutton in any way I can."

Sutton comes back to coaching trailing just Bobby Knight in wins among active coaches. As for his little drinking problem that saw him get into a drunk driving accident in his final season at Oklahoma State?

"I'm physically in good health," Sutton said, adding that his drinking problem is a thing of the past. "I feel very strong."

"As a recovering alcoholic you have to work on that every day," he added. "I still attend meetings."

USF is currently 4-8, good for seventh place in the eight-team West Coast Conference.

Hi again. I'm Zach. And you are? It's OK. I can guess. Your name must be Sunshine because you're hot. Or Fire. Because you're scorching. Anyway, feel free to come by and hang out the FanHouse headquarters. I'll show you a good time. We can talk UCLA hoops. Or cheerleading. What's that? You want to talk about shopping? Oh (expletive) that. I wanna talk about basketball...

Thanks for staying with me, folks. My girl (pictured to the right) and I are having some communication problems, as you can tell. Anyway, new week, new rankings. Here we go...

UCLA is still in the top five after a loss at Washington. The Bruins are No. 4 in the AP and No. 3 in the Coaches' Poll. Speaking of the Huskies, the Dawgs are getting votes -- just two of them, but still -- in the AP Poll. It seems as though there are a few writers who haven't seen UW play before this past weekend.

Washington State is still lingering outside of the top 10, at No. 11 in the AP and No. 12 in the Coaches'. Oregon is No. 16 and 18, respectively. And that's that.

Remember when there were six ranked Pac-10 teams? Not the case anymore. Arizona and USC are both getting some votes, but Stanford has fallen off the face of the Earth. We'll see if these top Pac-10 teams can make some noise when it counts.

What happened to Cal? A tournament team last year, the Bears, although losing Leon Powe to NBA trim (and cash), returned many. The outlook was good, the start was good. Hell, Cal even blew out a good Kansas State team.

But then DeVon Hardin got hurt. And the wheels came off.

After losing to Arizona State 42-41 Saturday, Cal is the No. 8 seed in the Pac-10 Tournament and will likely need to win three games just to make the NIT. Those mere 41 points, yep, lowest output since 1988. Hell, the football team put up more than that on multiple occasions.

The Bears have lost 10 of 12 and that man pictured? Yeah, Ben Braun's chair might be getting warm. He has one of the longer tenures in the Pac-10, but he really hasn't done much at Cal, and while injuries have decimated the Bears this year, to lose to Arizona State at home?! Friggin' Arizona State?!

Home teams in all CAPS:

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, folks. I've been stuck working 12-hour days covering the Washington 4A High School basketball tournament. (The talent isn't what it's been in the past...)

WASHINGTON STATE over Usc - Second place on the line, Friel Court will be rocking. Cougs are the better team and the defense will be too much.

Ucla over WASHINGTON - Like the Huskies can win back-to-back games...

Arizona over STANFORD - Arizona has way more athleticism, but height of Tree could cause problems for the 'Cats.

CAL over Arizona State - Arizona State is playing well, but on the road, going for its second win...yeah...don't think so.

OREGON over Oregon State - If Oregon State can shoot better than 70% from the free throw line, well, it will be a moral victory. Ducks win this one easily in the Civil War on the hardwood.

No. 4 UCLA 75, Stanford 61 - The Bruins completed their first perfect record at home in 32 years and the students all put their fingers in the air to signify it. Arron Afflalo, in what might or might not have been his final game at Pauley Pavilion, had 20 points and UCLA clinched at least a share of the Pac-10 regular-season title. The Bruins head to the Washington schools next week.

No. 9 Washington State 58, Oregon State 54 - The Cougs, who lost Thursday at The Pit, weren't exactly impressive Saturday, but a win's a win. Down by five at the half, the Cougars came from behind to beat the Beaver. Aron Baynes, who I know as much about as I do shopping for women, scored a career-high 14 points for WSU. The free throw woes continue for the Beav, who shot just 12-23 from the line. That's 52% folks. If they hit five more, they win the game.

USC 84, Cal 66 - The new Galen Center has been good to the Trojans, who strapped up and protected their third-place position in the Pac-10 with the easy win over the Bears. USC went 15-3 in its inaugural year at their new gym. Taj Gibson had 18 for SC and Ayinde Ubaka 15 for Cal.