Seattle Sports: In the Morning

Despite his success in Boston, Ray Allen remains bitter about getting traded by the Sonics, he tells the P-I's' Gary Washburn: "I thought they totally blew it by trading me. And Rashard definitely wasn't thinking about coming back once that happened. We're sitting on a potential 50-win team, easily, because that's all we talked about was we needed a third scorer. And we can get fortunate to be able to draft Durant. Under mine and Rashard's tutelage, whatever struggles (Durant) had would have been minimized because he wouldn't have had to take the brunt of all the offense."

Former Sonic and Cougar center James Donaldson tells the the P-I's Dan Raley how then-Wazzu coach George Raveling motivated him to improve his very raw game: ""He gave me two keys off of his key ring, one to the gym and the other to the weight room, and said, 'I can't watch you seven days a week, 24 hours a day, so take these keys and make something of yourself.'" Can we try this with Quincy Pondexter?

The recruitment of Jeremy Pargo, an inner-city kid who couldn't read in ninth grade, represented a turning point for Gonzaga, writes the Times' Bud Withers: "The Zags' basketball program came to national prominence mostly — not exclusively, but mostly — by recruiting white players like Matt Santangelo and Richie Frahm and Casey Calvary and Mark Spink. To take the next step, to grow to the level of North Carolina or Kentucky or UCLA, the Zags had to expand to black America. Which is how they found themselves in Chicago a few years ago, pursuing Jeremy Pargo, who had blown up in a summer camp, but who had no grades and no test score. And once they saw those numbers, no recruiters."

EDSBS listens in to Rick Neuheisel's job pitch: "I’ll just cut the bullshit and get down to the x’s and o’s of this thing: Rick Neuheisel will personally tape forty dollars to the underside of your chair every day if you’ll hire him as UCLA football coach, Monday through Friday. Think about that for a minute. That’s $10,400 dollars a year, all cash, all on the DL, and all between you and me, friends."

An early guess at the 2008 Husky football offensive depth chart, from the Times' Bob Condotta.

Condotta also links to a schedule of the American Football Coaches Associationconference and asks: "Wonder if any of the UW defensive coaches will go to Mike Bellotti's address on 'Quarterback Fundamentals in the Spread Option Offense' on Wednesday afternoon?"

Condotta also, in that same post, says that Willingham and UCLA defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker will meet today.

A friend asked yesterday how Spencer Hawes was doing, and I didn't know. The answer: not much. He's played 22 games and is averaging 3.1 ppg and 2.3 rpg.

Mike Holmgren keeps saying he's going to play Sunday like a regular game, which is insane. He tells the Times' Danny O'Neil: "I believe in momentum going into the playoffs. I do believe in that." So, if the Hawks had earned a bye, would you have scheduled a game against a semi-pro team that week? Truly mental.

Roosevelt grad and former Arizona Wildcat Marcus Williams, who was drafted by the Spurs, then cut in training camp, has been resigned by them after he averaged 18.1 ppg in the NBDL.