Blogs Around the PAC-10

One of my brother’s favorite sayings is “Opinions are like a**holes – everyone’s got one and they all stink.” Normally, I agree with him 100%, but my experience today has me questioning the accuracy of that statement. The problem is that I’m finding plenty of a**holes, but very few opinions. I’ve spent the day trying to find PAC-10 blogs that have some bite to them. Some sort of opinion about the teams. I like what I’ve seen on Rush The Court – although they just do brief check-ins on the conference as a whole. What I’m really looking for is an opinionated blog about each individual team.

Now, I want somebody with an opinion. If I wanted an AP recap, or to hear what the newspaper or a major sports website had to say, I’d go there. I don’t’ need to have you (BS Sports) copying it and referencing it on a blog. I want to hear what an educated fan has to say about the team. Here’s the best of what I could find so far. If there is anyone that knows of a good blog for any given PAC-10 team, shoot me a message and I’ll check it out.

Keep in mind, I have only taken cursory glances at these blogs this week since I’ve been spending most of my time trying to sift through the junk blogs that are watered down versions of cbssports.com, espn.com, foxsports.com, etc.

Hopefully, from here on out I will be able to highlight some of the best opinions and interesting topics from around the league. As I get better blogs, or fill in the blanks (Washington, Stanford) this should become a more interesting topic. For now, here’s the best of what I’ve found.

PAC-10: Rush The Court – Like I said before, these guys focus on NCAA Basketball as a whole, but do weekly check-ins on each conference. They provide a nice Ranking with some evidence and some opinion. When you want a quick overview on the conference as a whole, this is a good place to start.

Arizona State Sun Devils: Check out Pitchforknation.com and wireddevils.blogspot.com. I would give the edge to Wired Devilsif you are looking for college news as PFN seems to focus on more player follow-up and football than anything to do with college basketball.

CAL Golden Bears: I like what Bear Talk does. You get a good dose of news, but they throw in some good opinion as well. Probably one of the better blogs that I’ve found for any conference team.

I also like what I’m seeing over at California Golden Blogs.com as well, but there seems to be less opinion and more reporting there.

And if that’s not enough CAL for you, here’s there’s some good analysis – at least for their game against Washington – at http://bearsnecessity.com

 

Oregon Ducks: A good site is addictedtoquack.com  they’ve got some Power Rankings, some reporting, and some opinion on there. All the elements that I believe a good blog ought to have.

I thought that I might have found something when I came across ducksattack.com, but it seems as though they are more content with finding AP releases or other news reports than reporting how they see it. But it may be worth a look anyhow.

 

Oregon State Beavers: Building the Dam is surprisingly one of the better PAC-10 basketball blogs. I guess your team doesn’t need to be very successful for you to have a good blog? There are a few mistakes, like calling Budinger an inside player, but the guy is headed in the right direction.

Stanford Cardinal: I couldn’t find a single blog about the Cardinal that wasn’t just compiling news stories. How sad. I guess they teach too much intellectualism over at Stanford so people forget how to have an opinion. But lack of creativity from the Cardinal should be no surprise, afterall they do have that stupid tree as a mascot.

UCLA Bruins: I was amazed at how hard it was to find a good UCLA basketball blog. I found a plethora of article gatherers, but spent a terrible amount of time looking for an opinion. Does the LA smog kill brain cells or something? Eeesh. Eventually I found Bruins Nation and was relieved that there was someone that wasn’t content with just referencing other people’s work.

 

 

 

 Washington State Cougars: The Coug Center is great. These guys do it right. You’ve got some current news, some opinion, analysis, and some articles referencing previous players.

Washington Huskies: I’ve found plenty of blogs. But they were all either promoting AP sources, or belonged to a paid journalist from one of Washington’s newspapers. I don’t want a paid columnist, I want a fans opinion.