Freshman pitcher Morgan Melloh pitched a four-hitter with 13 strikeouts and 10th-ranked Fresno State blanked St. Mary's 5-0 Wednesday in the first game of a non-conference doubleheader at Bulldog Diamond.
Melloh also hit her second home run, a solo blast to right in the second inning.
Aja Scheuber drove in a run in the sixth with a single and Caitlin Stiglich followed with an RBI double to left.

Fresno State MVP Clifton Smith will fly to Tampa Bay on Thursday and will sign a free agent contract for the weekend with the Buccaneers.

If all goes well, he'll be able to sign a longer deal.

Damon Jenkins, a starter at cornerback, will do the same with the Clelevand Browns.

Quote of the day, from NBA "analyst," Jamal Mashburn, this morning on ESPN, after telling a fairly bad joke ...

"With all seriousness aside ..."

That folks, is some sort of combination of "In all seriousness," and "All kidding aside."

Tracy McGrady, whose been hurt and struggling since the end of the season, had a big Game 5 against Utah Tuesday night. After they showed highlights of the game, Mashburn told a joke about how he could have used McGrady's pain medication toward the end of his own career. At least I think that's what he said. I've lost some short-term memory after repeatedly slamming the front door on my right temple.

Which local area athletes that were drafted or signed will succeed in the NFL?

If a scrub disses you, it's awful. But what do you do when a legend pisses on your shoe?

I guess you sniff it.

By now everyone should have heard about the jabbering going back and forth between LeBron James and DeShawn Stevenson.

But have you heard the playful diss record Jay-Z put out against Stevenson?

In Bob Condotta's blog today (he's the University of Washington football reporter for the Seattle Times), he lists information on spring football game attendance from around the country (these numbers were compiled by Colorado sports information director Dave Plati, so, folks, you're getting this information third hand).

Fresno State's attendance was 2,600 for the free-of-charge April 19 scrimmage. By comparison:

• Nebraska's, where they charge $4-$10, was 80,149
• Alabama's was 78,200
• Ohio State's, where they charge $5, was 76,346.

In the Western Athletic Conference, Boise State's, where they charge $7, was 7,500; Hawaii's was 9,300; Idaho's was 5,100; and Louisiana Tech's was 5,103.

From the surprisingly low: Virginia 5,000, Wake Forest 4,100, Syracuse 3,428, Stanford 2,000 and Washington State 900.

The national average was 14,331 and the median was 8,000.

So, there you have it. Five minutes that you'll never get back.

Fresno State will host an NCAA regional tournament in women's tennis on May 8-9 at the Wathen Tennis Center.

The Bulldogs, 20-7 and No. 16 seed for the 64-team NCAA championships, will face Lamar (22-2) at 1 p.m. May 8, following a 10 a.m. match between Arizona State (14-7) and Sacramento State (21-6).

Those winners will play for the regional title at 1 p.m. May 9. The regional champion advances to the NCAA Sweet 16 at Tulsa May 15-20.

The Fresno State men did not make the NCAA playoffs.

Rob Lowery, a point guard Fresno state was recruiting, signed a letter of intent to play at the University of Dayton, according to the Dayton Daily News . Lowery, who knows Eddie Miller and plays at the same JuCo Miller used to (Cecil College), could have hopped to Fresno and received (probably) significant minutes. Here's a conversation Gary Estwick and I had after finding out about Lowery. We discuss Lowery, the team and a lot of other things ...

Daniel: Just found out Rob Lowery signed to play at University of Dayton ... What’s up with that? Why would you want to play at Dayton?

Gary: Well it’s closer to home [from Maryland]. And Dayton is closer to Cincinnati than Fresno is to LA or the Bay area…

Here's an excerpt from a story by Kevin Seifert in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. In addition to chronicling the Minnesota Vikings' trade for Kansas City Chiefs defensive end Jared Allen, it talks about former Fresno State wide receiver Bernard Berrian and his recruitment this offseason by the Vikings.

It started on Day 1 of free agency, when [team owner Zygi] Wilf sent his private plane to Fresno, Calif., to collect receiver Bernard Berrian. The Vikings had decided that receiver and defensive end were their top priorities, and Berrian was widely considered the best pass-catcher available.

While the Vikings had Berrian on lockdown at the 601 Graves Hotel, several other teams — Oakland and Tennessee among them — tried persuading Berrian to leave town. The Vikings? They kept increasing their offer until Berrian agreed to terms on a deal that included him $16 million in guaranteed money.

Oakland ended up signing receiver free agent Javon Walker, a riskier move considering Walker’s history of knee injuries, while Tennessee was left with no choice but to re-sign journeyman Justin McCareins.

“They sold me on the fact that they’re trying to get to that championship game,” Berrian said. “They told me that they needed a couple pieces to try to get there. And the actual thing is, their two top priorities that they went for this offseason, they got them both. That was impressive.”

Ryan Wendell, Marcus Riley and Brandon Breazell, neither of whom were chosen in this weekend's NFL draft, each came to terms on free-agent contracts with NFL teams.

Wendell, a former Fresno State offensive lineman, signed with the New England Patriots; Riley, a former Bulldog linebacker, will join the Green Bay Packers; and Breazell, the former UCLA wide receiver and Edison High standout, agreed to a deal with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Kevin Robinson, the former Utah State wide receiver out of Hoover High, was selected by the Kansas City Chiefs today in the sixth round of the NFL draft.

The 5-foot-11, 202-pounder was picked No. 182 overall.

Former Fresno State defensive tackle Jason Shirley was chosen in the fifth round (No. 145 overall) of this weekend's NFL draft by the Cincinnati Bengals.

Shirley, a 6-foot-5, 329-pounder, was limited to three games during his senior season because of suspensions.

Shirley was suspended the first two games for conduct detrimental to the team. He played three games, then was suspended a second time after he was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. Police say he crashed a car into an apartment complex on Oct. 8. Shirley was charged with three misdemeanors: driving under the influence, driving with a blood-alcohol content of .08% or higher, and hit and run.

Shirley appealed the suspension and provided medical documents that detailed a concussion he received days before the car crash.

He again was reinstated, but a few days after he was was charged with driving with a suspended license and expired registration. He was suspended again, this time for the remainder of the season.

Senior Jenna Cervantez hit a lead-off homer in the bottom of the eighth to lift No. 10 Fresno State past No. 24 Hawaii, 3-2, Saturday in the first game of a doubleheader at Bulldog Diamond.
Freshman reliever Ryane Petersen (3-0) threw five innings of shutout ball and allowed only four hits.
Petersen also hit a two-run double in the fifth inning to tie it 2-2.
Morgan Melloh started but was hit hard. She gave up seven hits, two of them back-to-back homers by Care Warwick and Valana Manuma in the third inning.

Freshman Morgan Melloh pitched a six-hitter and Fresno State got home runs from Jenna Cervantez and Andrea Ortega to turn back Hawaii 4-3 Friday in a Western Athletic Conference softball game at Bulldog Diamond.
The teams will play a doubleheader today starting at 1 p.m.
No. 10 Fresno State (43-8) improved to 9-3 in the WAC, but still trails No. 18 Nevada by one game in the loss column. The Wolf Pack is 12-2 in conference after beating Louisiana Tech twice on Friday. No. 24 Hawaii (33-15) fell to7-5 in conference.

People are always asking (OK, maybe once a month, but still) how long it takes to write a column. Sometimes, it takes 50 minutes. No lie. Start to finish.* Especially when a game ends at 9:30 p.m. and my column deadline is 10:30 p.m. and I have the look of a guy whose wife's water just broke in the eighth inning of a no-hitter and he's having to make decisions that no man should have to make. It gets ugly on deadline sometimes. Things are said. Computers are banged against countertops, or possibly other reporters. Internet connections are cursed. If you're dating a sportswriter -- and really, why wouldn't you be? -- you don't really even know the person until you see them working on deadline. Not good. It's like that episode of "Friends," where Ross tries to convince everyone that the guy Rachel is dating (Ben Stiller) has a terrible temper, but no one believes him until they walk in on him screaming at the chick and the duck and the goose, or whatever animals Joey had in his apartment. That would be me trying to make a deadline, Captain Insano.

*And that includes the time when I'm pacing, guzzling Red Bull or snorting coffee grounds. Hey, they're my performance-enhancing drugs of choice.

On the other side of things, though, some columns take a long time. I've probably spent 40 hours starting at a computer, writing and re-writing, for one column. The more in-depth, feature stuff. You're probably thinking, "I've never read anything of Matt's that should have taken more than a lunch break," and you're probably right, but once you do 10 or 12 interviews for a big story, you have dozens of pages of notes and a couple different digital recorders with interviews on them, and of course none of it is organized. Heck, if we could organize we'd have actual jobs with responsibility, not ones where we're paid to spill mustard on our 10-year-old dress shirt while watching a football game.

I mention this because this week I wrote a column about the Fresno State women's golf team, and more specifically Chelsea Czinski, the No. 5 golfer. The back story is that last year the Bulldogs had a golfer named Jennifer Shipley. She was a sophomore. She was good. She was all-WAC. She shot a 64 at some tournament in Las Vegas, which you and I will never ever ever do. There are probably pro golfers who've never shot 64. And then she quit. Just like that. Last August. It was so strange, her teammates and coach still aren't sure what happened. The weirdest part wasn't that she quit, it was that she did it so publically, sending out an announcement to the media, claiming there had been "mistreatment." It seems everyone she talked to she gave a different reason, so no one is quite sure of the truth. This spring, her boyfriend quit the men's golf team. Now, I'm told, she goes to school and works at Ann Taylor, which this blog has always considered a clothing store for middle-aged women, but what do I know? Maybe it's all teenagers in Ann Taylor.

Fresno State coach Angie Cates thought Czinski could be the No. 5 golfer. Somebody had to. Czinski was a freshman, but she had talent and she'd gone to the fancy academy down in Florida for training. Well all fall the role of No. 5 got passed around a lot, and everyone pretty much stunk. Czinski did not come through at all in the fall. The Bulldogs No. 5 golfer was sometimes shooting in the high 80s, or worse, which puts a lot of pressure on your top four because they know if they blow up and shoot 83, it's probably going to be a score that counts. We don't need to revisit the entire story, since you can -- and should! -- very well read the column yourself.

The story of this spring was that Czinski got a good talking to by Cates* right before Christmas break and she absolutely delivered. And the day after I wrote a column about it, Day 2 of the WAC Tournament, she shot her best round of her short career and the Bulldogs won their first WAC title. Cates now has more outright WAC titles than Fresno State football coach Pat Hill, a fact I will definitely have to remind him of the next time I want to spoil his good mood. The things I prelude almost never play out the way I insinuate they might, so it was nice to see, for me. Because it's all about me, apparently. The coolest part was that the top four all played great, so Czinski's round technically didn't even count. She played her role perfectly, the unsung No. 5. I think she shot a 76, which is great since all they've ever asked is for her to shoot in the 70s.

*Angie Cates might be the nicest person I've ever met, not including my mother. During the WAC Tournament she gave me the candy bar out of her sack lunch because her mother was in town and they were going to Angie's second wedding dress fitting. She gets married this summer. The first time, apparently, the dress was a touch tight, which is hard to believe because she's so little, but it was, and so she'd been cutting back on the sweets. You've got to have a great sense of humor to tell a columnist with a blog that kind of information. Anyway, I always accidentally call her "Phoebe," you know, because of Phoebe Cates the actress. I did it twice while interviewing Fresno State golfers and neither of them had any idea who Phoebe Cates was. I'm officially older than the Pyramids.

The point of this blog post, I think, was to explain that the Czinski column took longer than my taxes. I don't know why. It just did. The tourney ended at sometime around 3 p.m. and at 10 p.m. I was still struggling. Words were caught in my spleen or something. And usually that means I didn't do enough interviews or find enough interesting tidbits, but I had plenty. I spent the entire day with Czinski's parents, a massive Polish man with a bad knee and a little Japanese woman, and they were absolutely fantastic. Super down-to-earth people, not the parents I expected of a girl who'd attended a fancy golf school in Florida. They said they wanted to invest in their daughter, for her, and I believed them.

Maybe I should invest in a ghost writer who can type faster.

Center James Tchana said Wednesday night he will leave Fresno State after the spring semester and enroll at Long Island University, a Division II school in his adopted hometown. Tchana said he has given the school an oral commitment. He will have two years of eligibility remaining when he signs later this month.

Also, Paul George, a senior at Knight High-Palmdale, signed with the Bulldogs, becoming the first spring recruit added to the incoming class.

George averaged 23 points and 11 rebounds last season, and his team reached the first round of the state playoffs. He gives Fresno State depth in the backcourt, where he will share time at small forward with rising senior Dwight O’Neil. George can also play power forward, although coach Steve Cleveland wants him to gain weight in the coming months.

Tchana, a native of Douala, Cameroon, played in 15 games last season, and averaged 1.2 points and 0.6 rebounds.

The improvement of rising sophomores Nedeljko Golubovic and Brandon Webster and next season’s addition of Arizona State transfer Sylvester Seay was expected to further minimize Tchana’s role.

Hey football fans, the NFL Draft is less than a week away, and we want our readers to play the role of general manager.

Here's how some readers responded: Reader's responses ...

Sound off on your team's draft strategy. If you're a Dolphins fan, what should you do with the No. 1 pick? If you're a proud Steelers fan, what's the key pick that will get your team back to the league's elite? If you're a Falcons fan in Fresno, show us you're not alone and voice your opinions.

We want to hear from fans of all teams. We'd also like to see your team spirit, so if you can, send us a mug shot of yourself featuring a team cap and your best game face.

Give us your Draft Day brilliance with a comment to this blog post, or send an e-mail to sports@fresnobee.com. Please include your name, your hometown and a phone number.

We'll share some of your responses (and game faces) with our NFL Draft preview, which will run in Friday's Bee.

The NBA playoffs are under way. Which teams reach the final? Who do you like to win the title?

Several thousand fans showed up today to watch the Bulldogs spring game.
The band was out, and so were the cheerleaders ... make sure to check out the paper Sunday for more coverage.

Offensive Coordinator Doug Nussmeier was calling out "OOO OOO OOO" in the coaches box upstairs as Colburn bootlegged left inside the 10-yard line. He had Kinter open in the back of the endzone for a couple of seconds before finally zipping a strike into Kinter's hands.

Both he and Grady have been animated in their box. Ryan Skidmore just dropped a pass and you could hear a thud in the box ... earlier when QB Matt Faulkner missed a swing pass read, one of them shouted.

They were pleasantly silent when Faulkner found Duffy for a quick swing pass to the left side ... Duffy outraced former Golden Eagles teammate DE Chris Lewis for the score.

Lewis looks like he gained weight since his suspension last season. Not all of it was good weight. He's improved since the start of spring practice, though.

-- The defense adjusted to that swing pass Duffy scored on. ... Sonny McCree wrapped Duffy up for about a 4-yard loss.

Bear Pascoe got back in as the first team off. takes the field with Colburn at QB ... and boom, the ball goes to Bear who does a bear thing, trucking CB A.J. Jefferson. He had no shot at Pascoe, who lowered his shoulders nicely on that one for a 10-yard gain.

also on this drive, Mathews picked up his two longest runs of the day ... a 7-yarder with Kinter as the lead back and a 15-yard gain after a missed tackle.

The Dogs lost both their starting kicker and punter this season. Redshirt freshman Kevin Goessling is the placekicker for the fall ... Soph. Robert Malone is the punter.

Goessling just went 4-6 on FGs. He hit his first three. The first two were from 40 yards ... the third I didnt see. He was short from 51 yards and from 50. A 48-yarder bounced off the cross bar ... GOOD

Dont know if I've seen an I formation yet ... the Dogs have shown lot of 3 and 4 wr sets so far .... just like last year....

The WRs seem to ahve a pretty steady rotation flowing in and out of the game ... I don't know how well Chastin West will play this fall. That will be a boost to the Dogs if they can get him back healthy for those end arounds. Ajirotutu has made some catches this spring,

FB Reynard Camp ... aka Big Nasty ... don't know if he's seen the field yet. And he

Just like Pat Hill said in an interview this week tho, they'll use a lot of 3 wr sets this season ... he said the preconceived notion that the Dogs run the ball all the time from I formation is wrong.

Ryan Skidmore, a backup TE, just took a hit after a big gain .... it looked like he could have fumbled. if this was game action, they'd definitely be reviewing in the booth.

Skidmore was slow getting up, but then jogged it back to the huddle...

It took the Bulldogs a long time in 07 and forever in 06 to get an interception, but Damion Owens just collected the BUlldogs first in the spring scrimmage ... off Ryan COlburn who was playing with the first offense. ...

TB and Bear Pascoe have not renentered after that first drive .... TB has the headset on ... I was definitely hoping to see more of the full first offense.

When I saw Nick Bates go out for first team defense, I assumed he had passed Brown in the depth chart. But Brown wasn't out for second team defense either ... or third ....

I'm wondering where he is ...

TB (Brandstater, this is a blog and I type slowly so we're goign to use abbreviations now) connected with Seyi fior abotu a four-yard pass touchdown in teh south endzone to complete teh first drive. the run didn't work too well for yards, but the pass did. The defense picked up a pass interference too.

Kyle Duffy just scored on a 44-yard run foer the second team offense... Clovis West representing once again.

Things haven't gone too well for third string QB Matt Faulkner. He threw an INT on his first attempt in 7-on-7 drills and almost threw a second oen laster on.

Now in full scrimmage, his team is commiting penalties. ... and the runs aren't working ....

They just ran a draw up the middle on 3 and 13 from inside the 15. ... I guess there's not goign to be any risk taking, even in practice.

The starters on the off. line in this first drive have been, R-L:

Kenny Avon
Andrew Jackson
Adam McDowell
Charley Robbins
Kenny Wiggins

This position group has played musical chairs over the past two seasons bc of injury or suspension (Kyle Young back in 06.)
The biggest deal this season will be McDowell making the move to center in place of Joe Bernardi who injured his knee last season ... I think it was in the bowl game if I remember correctly.

Run blocking so far has been ...

Ryan Mathews has gone nowhere in his first two handoffs ... Jon Monga, a senior dlinemen who's expected to be play a big part for the defense this season, caught him in teh backfield with a host of other Bulldogs ....

Mathews got the start over Lonyae Miller who entyered afterwards ....

brandstater has hit two receivers for huge pass plays.
Marlon Moore on the first for abotu 20 yards and Seyi Ajirotutu on a second play for about 45 yards .... Owens tried to jump theroute but missed, leading to a long gain after the catch.

The run has really been stifled so far ... but TB's shown he can move the ofefnse when the offense isn't running effectively.

The Dogs are starting it off slowly this spring ... with 7 on 7 drills. Db's and LB's versus the offense's passing game in third down situations.

On the first snap, quarterback Tom Brandstater hit Marlon Moore over the middle for a long completion.
Brandstater's going to have to be great this season if the Dogs want to pull off a BCS run.

The starting defense that came out was :
Weakside LB: Nick Bates
MLB: Ben Jacobs
Strsongside LB: Nico Herron

Bates got one start last season ... Quaadir Brown got eight ... Senior Trevor Shamblee got two ... I'll try and figure out y Shamblee started those last two games of the season instead of Brown ...

DBs:
Damion Owens and AJ Jefferson at CB and Jake Jorde and Moses Harris at safety. Marvin Haynes, from Fresno, has been sittign otu this spring with a groin injury.

The first thing you notice when you look at the Bulldog Stadium field is ... there's not much grass.
The Bulldogs practice field looks better than this.
The center of the field, where the Bulldog was painted in the fall, is nearly all dirt. The endzones are splotchy. The south side of the field looks particularly bad in the middle .... They'll have to figure something out before the home opener Sept. 13 against Wisconsin.

The season starts at Rutgers on Sept 1.

OK Bulldog fans,

I'll be blogging the entire spring game and I'll be getting some postgame video interviews to post by Sunday morning to give a little extra access.

This should be pretty fun. It's nice outside, 68 degrees with a breeze. The girls are out ... I caught a guy staring hard through his sunglasses at a group of college girls that walked by near the open concession stands. (Here's a tip fellas: The shades hide your eyes, but if you turn your entire upper torso to stare, you might as well take the glasses off.)

Paul George, a senior at Palmdale's Knight High School, said Monday he will sign later this week at Fresno State.

It's funny that the two parties didn't get together last year, before George signed with Pepperdine. It wasn't until Vance W. left the school and George asked for and received his release that he looked hard at Fresno State, and the Bulldogs did the same.

In the end, he will stay close to home - maybe not as close as the Los Angeles area, but driving distance.

George reminds me of New Mexico State's Herb Pope, a big bodied guy who can handle the ball and shoot and play like a guard. George probably won't show up in Fresno as strong as Pope, but he has four or five years to improve.

In less than 48 hours, we might find out how Rob Lowery of Cecil College decides to spend his next two years; he's deciding between Fresno State and Central Florida. He played last season at the same junior college which produced Eddie Miller.

The Bulldogs already have Reggie Moore's services in the fall, but they want a second point guard, along with an athletic power forward - a perimeter shooter would be nice.

The nine-member Campus Fee Advisory Committee postponed a meeting today to discuss a proposal to help the university's financially troubled intercollegiate athletic program by increasing students' activity fees.

Students, in a nearly 2-to-1 margin, voted down the fee increase last week. The committee can make a recommendation or remain neutral.

Stephen Trembley, executive vice president in the student government, said the committee wanted to allow for a 14-day window for students to challenge the vote. The meeting is now expected to take place early next week.

Nick Watney shot a 1-under 71 today at the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Ga., helping him finish the four-day event at even par.

The former Fresno State All-American, playing in his first Masters, currently stands at tied for 12th place after rounds of 75-70-72-71. Today, he had an eagle on the par-4 No. 14, three bogeys and two birdies.

Former Fresno State All-American Nick Watney shot par-72 today at the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Ga., to stand at 1-over through three rounds.

He is tied for 23rd in his first appearance at the Masters. Today, Watney had three birdies on the front nine. On the back nine, he had five bogeys and two birdies.

Trevor Immelman leads at 11-under.

Former Fresno State All-American Nick Watney finished 2-under par today in the second round of the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Ga. His 70 gave him a two-day total of 1-over 145.

Through the front 9 today, Watney was at 3-under after birdies on Nos. 2, 7 and 8. On the back nine, Watney bogeyed Nos. 14 and 17, and birdied No. 15.

Fresno State senior guard Tierre Wilson, the WAC Player of the Year, has accepted an invitation by the Washington Mystics to attend their WNBA preseason camp.
Wilson becomes the first Bulldogs player to sign with a WNBA team. The Mystics' camp opens April 10 in Washington.
Wilson wasn't selected in Tuesday's WNBA draft, but was contacted afterward by both the Mystics and the Detroit Shock about a possible free-agent contract.
She said she chose the Mystics because they have more open guard positions than the Shock.

All the blog can say about this is, wow.

Former Fresno State All-American Nick Watney shot a 3-over 75 in his first appearance in the Masters golf tournament this morning in Augusta, Ga.

Watney had one double-bogey, three bogeys and two birdies.

It's about time we posted about the National Championship game, won by a school which I not only attended in the late '90s, but am currently attending*. The Kansas Jayhawks of course beat the Memphis Tigers, a game that I thought was over when Memphis really started to slow it down, and when it was a 9-point lead at the 2-minute mark, and when that stupid free throw was tipped out, and when Derrick Rose hit that %#@*&%^% bank shot, and CAN WE CATCH A BREAK HERE?!?!? DO I NOT PAY MY TAXES AND OCCASIONALLY BREAK FOR WHEEL-CHAIR BOUND CHILDREN IN CROSS-WALKS!?!?!

*I will save you the lengthy story, but the short version is that I attended the University of Kansas for three years, 1997-2000, where I absolutely imploded my GPA because I spent a little too much time here, and here, and here, and with these two, OK, maybe not those exact two, but two who looked a lot like them. Those were magnificent years, one of which I lived in Oliver Hall, the dorm just across the baseball field from Allen Fieldhouse, and camped out for many Jayhawks games, and saw Paul Pierce hit about 37 consecutive shots against Oklahoma on Senior Night and my ears are still ringing. I used to go to Jayhawks football games, too, back when they were pretty bad. I even got to help tear down goalposts when Kansas beat Colorado, back when the Buffaloes were still relevent, although probably not as relevent as we were imagining at the time. I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, but eventually got lucky and stumbled into the William Allen White School of Journalism at the age of 22. It's a fabulous school with brilliant professors, but unfortunately it requires a 2.5 overall GPA before it will hand you a diploma. Two years of pseudo-effort only pulled me back up to a 2.48, or something, a fact that didn't stop me from getting my first newspaper job. Or the second. Or the third. Or this one here in Fresno. Still, though, the idea of me attending college for parts of six years without getting a degree is somewhat disconcerting to my mother, so this school year I finally signed up for an extension course -- "Introduction to Marriage and Family Planning," because it was supposed to be the easiest -- and that's what I'm currently taking. I'm a little behind right now (SHOCKER!) and have to finish it by June, so you never know, I might be a KU student next year, too. Oh, and I need a good grade to bring the GPA up, and let's face it, if I could get good grades, I wouldn't be in this mess. (Yeah, that's the short version of that story.)

Of course it turned out that Kansas could catch a break. They got a steal, a couple clutch baskets underneath, the Mario Chalmers' 3-pointer that will be talked about in small Kansas towns* for the rest of time as we know it, 'til all the continents drift back together and dinosaurs make a comeback. Memphis missed a couple free throws late, which everyone had predicted would come to haunt them, including this blog, which had them losing to some red team from California with a tree for a mascot. I still contend that free-throw shooting was not the Tigers' downfall. They weren't THAT bad, 12-of-19, and when you're talking about the final minutes of a national championship game, I'm not convinced that any team makes all those free throws down the stretch. It's not your average pressure we're talking about. OK, the Jayhawks made theirs, which is I guess why they're champs, and now I'm supporting the missed-free-throw premise which I had just declared somewhat irrelevant. Moving along. Pay no attention to the details.

*West-coasters out here in California have no concept of just how many small towns there are in the Midwest. They're all small. Here's a good example: I went to high school in Hugoton, Kan., a town of 3,000 people. There were 62 people who made it to graduation in my class. Kansas high schools are spread between 1A (smallest) and 6A. Hugoton High School, with graduating classes of a few dozen people, is a 4A school. One of my buddies in another town was in a graduating class of five, and used to brag about being class secretary. Lawrence is one of the bigger towns in the state and Fresno is six times as big. And that's if you're including the 30,000 students at Kansas.

Those photos from earlier in this post were of the celebration Monday night in Lawrence. I've heard stories that there were 40,000 people on Massachusetts Street in Lawrence. That's the bar district in Lawrence, a seven-or-so block stretch of one street, a little like the Olive Street portion of the Tower District here in Fresno except a LOT more bars and many, many obnoxious Kansas apparel stores. It is certainly not built for 40,000 title-crazed fans, but at least there was no major damage done, unlike after the 1988 Kansas title, when I'm told there were some issues with keeping police cars right side up. Little bit of the same grunge feel, cool coffee shops and young people with bikes and skateboards and dreadlocks. It's pretty sweet. So imagine that. There were 40,000 people on Mass Street. In Allen Fieldhouse, there were 10,000 people acting like the game was happening right there, doing the same pre-game chants, holding up newspapers when Memphis was introduced, tossing confetti during made baskets, Waving the Wheat, singing the alma mater and doing the Rock Chalk Chant* when the game was wrapped up in overtime. I couldn't find a good video of the Jayhawks Waving of the Wheat, but I continue to say that its the only true waving of the wheat in college sports today. Schools with their own versions should be banned from NCAA competition. Anyway, all that was going on in Allen Fieldhouse, WITHOUT A GAME. Except for the broadcast on the scoreboard. People even rushed the court at the end of the game -- something I'm not sure whether to be proud of or embarrassed about -- and that never happens at KU.

*Don't ask me what it means. I have no idea. Someone, somewhere, knows, but it isn't me.

As I was discussing on Sporting News Radio this week, I actually watched the game from a cabin in Bass Lake (no, of course not my cabin; I'm still paying on these shoes) with several guys. Two guys were cheering for Memphis just to be pains, I think, but most everyone was cheering for Kansas, and a couple guys needed a Jayhawks win to seal up their bracket pools. When Chalmers hit that three, it was the closest thing to a heart attack I've had since the Boise State Fiesta Bowl*. I went from a reclined position in a chair, to mid-air. Instantly. Pretty sure my feet never even touched the ground. I was the first person to jump eight feet directly from his butt. You could have driven a Honda Civic under me. The rest of every hour since is a little hazy, and which is scary considering it's Thursday now. My dad called Tuesday and said one of the local radio stations in southwest Kansas was playing the KU fight song every hour on the hour, which he also said had gotten old after about 90 minutes.

*For that one, I jumped and actually landed on the coffee table. There was someone sleeping in the next room, so I couldn't even scream, just ran around the house like a mime on fire, wishing there was anyone to high-five or yell "DID YOU SEE THAT?!" (Not sure whether I mean a mime actually on fire, or a mime pretending to be on fire, but I guess it works either way.)

I've been going to MSNBC.com* (edit: NBCSports.com) for most of my KU coverage because one of their editors, Mike Miller, is a fantastic guy and a Kansas alum. Also, I was in his wedding last summer. So yeah, I'm biased, but he does good work. Here's the clips of the postgame press conference. Notice Memphis coach John Calipari saying pretty much the same thing I did concerning missed free throws when he says, "They're not machines, these kids. They're just not." Interesting that my dad said something similar when he called, about how remarkable it is when you realize how much pressure is on these basketball players, how much you as a fan ache and celebrate with every basket, die a little with every pass and steal and rebound, and then at the end they stick a microphone in front of a player's face and he sounds like an overgrown boy. They're teenagers. They'd be shooting hoops in the driveway, dunking oreos and thinking about girls if they weren't in San Antonio with millions of fans and millions of dollars bending on every move they made.

It's crazy. Just plain crazy.

(*Edit: "MSNBC.com" is no longer correct, or perhaps doesn't even exist. I still works, apparently, if you type it and hit the "enter" button on that Internet thingie, but I'm told that is not how we should be referring to the site. It has become NBCSports.com, for reasons I do not understand, but surely involve somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.2 billion and two CEOs murging into the same human being.)

The Web site Nationalchamps.net has the Fresno State football team at No. 23 in its preseason rankings released Wednesday.

Boise State, which sets up to be the Bulldogs' biggest competition for the Western Athletic Conference title this season, is ranked No. 25. Ohio State is No. 1.

CollegeFootballNews.com mentions the Fresno State football team in a flattering light in its Big Ten team-by-team schedule breakdown.

For its entry on Wisconsin -- which visits Fresno State on Sept. 13 -- the Web site had this to say:

"As insane as this might sound, considering Michigan might be down and the Badgers get two weeks to prepare for the trip to Ann Arbor (as do the Wolverines) the real early problem could be the September 13th trip to face a fired up and very good Fresno State."

Apparently, here in Sports Columnist Land we're going to spend the day answering emails and phone calls from concerned Kansas State football fans who would like it pointed out that their beloved Wildcats play at Louisville this year, whereas* in today's column, yours truly only mentioned the other three nonconference games: North Texas, Louisiana-Lafayette and Montana State.

*I'm not even sure I used it correctly, but "whereas" is a pretty snooty sounding word. I'll try to work "henceforth" in here later to keep it company.

Among the angry was Aaron from Kansas City. Take it away ...
"You obviously did a little research on K-State's non-conference schedule, however, you blatantly left out a key ingredient to that line-up. That's their September 17 match-up on the road against the Louisville Cardinals. That's a pretty big omission on your part, don't you think?"

Of course it was an omission. Always omiss the details that hurt your argument. They teach you that on the first day of columnist school. I'm not sure it qualifies as "pretty big" though. The Wildcats still have a bad nonconference schedule, or as they should be calling it, "The Sun Belt Conference Tours Manhattan, Kansas."

But we here at the blog would like to commend these faithful Kansas State fans for their commitment to accuracy, as well as their persistence. It takes a long time to dial 11 numbers on a rotary phone*.

*That would be the standard Kansas-lacks-technology joke, which I am allowed to tell because I am, as many of you know, a native of the Sunflower State. Yes, a proud member of the Hugoton High School class of 1995, an elite group of 62 graduates. (Some time the blog will explain how it lost a rigged class officer election.) It's a little like the dentist on "Seinfeld," who converted to Judaism and then felt it was OK for him to tell Jewish jokes. That's me. I was born in Kansas, raised there, drove a tractor, slopped hogs (even though I don't know what that means), ate at the Dairy Queen and the Pizza Hut, so I've paid my dues. I can make fun.

Because we are a service blog -- making up for the inadequacies of the column has suddenly become a full-time gig -- we now present the new-and-improved, fully-updated 2008 Kansas State football schedule, in its completeness. You can judge for yourself.

KANSAS STATE
Aug. 30 - North Texas.................. Manhattan, Kan.
Sept. 6 - Montana State............... Manhattan, Kan.
Sept. 17 - at Louisville.................... Louisville, Ky.
Sept. 27 - Louisiana-Lafayette...... Manhattan, Kan.
Oct. 4 - Texas Tech*.................... Manhattan, Kan.
Oct. 11 - at Texas A&M*....... College Station, Texas
Oct. 18 - at Colorado*...................... Boulder, Colo.
Oct. 25 - Oklahoma*..................... Manhattan, Kan.
Nov. 1 - at Kansas*........................ Lawrence, Kan.
Nov. 8 - at Missouri*........................ Columbia, Mo.
Nov. 15 - Nebraska*...................... Manhattan, Kan.
Nov. 22 - Iowa State*..................... Manhattan, Kan.
(*Big 12 conference games)

In full disclosure, I should tell you that not all have been annoyed at the column. Many Kansas State fans were in full agreement, and those emails were actually worse than the angry ones because those people were standing at the edge of full-blown depression, and that's no way to be when your team is still five months away from a kickoff.

Galen from Belton, Missouri, you have the floor ...
"I am a K-State season ticket holder, and I agree with you 100%. Prince is trying to save his job."

It seems that, yes, Kansas State football coach Ron Prince is trying to save his job. What other impression could you get from his signing of 19 junior college transfers and dumping Fresno State from the schedule? Hard to be too upset with him, though. If someone gave you a $750,000 job and said, "Win or it's gone," you'd be inviting the Sun Belt to town, too. If I'm a Kansas State season ticket holder, though, forking over three installments of $6.99, or whatever they charge in the Midwest, I'd be a little annoyed at the devaluation of my entertainment dollar. Can you imagine selling season tickets to Broadway, and before the 2008 theater season, it was announced that, oh by the way, instead of Les Miserables in Week 5, you would be watching two chubby mechanics eat Carl's Jr. chili burgers? I'm not saying Fresno State is Les Mis and Montana State is a couple chubby mechanics (Though I did kind of say that, didn't I?), but as a college football fan, the Bulldogs are a team I want to see in '08. Ryan Mathews at running back. A good passing game. A possibly ranked team.

Still, it still isn't a bad season ticket when you get to see Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Iowa State. There are college football fans who would walk through plate-glass windows to see the Sooners and Cornhuskers in the same season. (Also, there are quite a few college football fans who've walked through plate-glass windows on their own, with absolutely nothing on the line.) Fresno State fans would surely like to see games like that. This year is a rarity. Wisconsin comes to Fresno, and someone at Fresno State says the university from Madison has already purchased 4,000 tickets. It's going to be a good one. Badgers and Bulldogs. Red Wave vs. Bucky Badger. Fresno State administrators are so sure it's going to sell out, they've already devised ways to force you into buying tickets for all the other home games, just to get to see the Wisconsin game. No single tickets will be available, just group packages or season tickets. That's what I'm told. The messenger requests no punches to the face.

We love added bonus material, so here is your 2008 Fresno State schedule, conference games asterisked for your convenience, because that's how the blog rolls...

FRESNO STATE
Sept. 1 - at Rutgers..................... Piscataway, N.J.
Sept. 13 - Wisconsin................................. Fresno
Sept. 20 - at Toledo......................... Toledo, Ohio
Sept. 27 - at UCLA....................... Pasadena, Calif.
Oct. 4 - Hawaii*........................................ Fresno
Oct. 11 - Idaho*........................................ Fresno
Oct. 25 - at Utah State*..................... Logan, Utah
Nov. 1 - at Louisiana Tech*.................. Ruston, La.
Nov. 7 - Nevada*....................................... Fresno
Nov. 15 - New Mexico State*...................... Fresno
Nov. 21 - at San Jose State*........... San Jose, Calif.
Nov. 28 - at Boise State*.................... Boise, Idaho
(*WAC conference games)

Wisconsin pretty much makes the home ticket. Without the Badgers, you'd be buying season passes to watch Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico State and Idaho. But that's what happens in mid-major land. Can't pay enough to get I-AA games, and the BCS schools can buy out of pretty much any contract to come to your place. Even if you're in the Big East, which we can all hopefully agree is a pretty shoddy football conference, you get seven home games. Observe the Rutgers schedule, which still has a hole to be filled ...

RUTGERS
Sept. 1 - Fresno State................... Piscataway, N.J.
Sept. 11 - North Carolina .............. Piscataway, N.J.
Sept. 20 - at Navy........................... Annapolis, Md.
Sept. 27 - TBA.............................. Piscataway, N.J.
Oct. 4 - at West Virginia*............ Morgantown, W.V.
Oct. 11 - at Cincinnati*.................. Cincinnati, Ohio
Oct. 18 - Connecticut*................... Piscataway, N.J.
Oct. 25 - at Pittsburgh*.................... Pittsburgh, Pa.
Nov. 8 - Syracuse*......................... Piscataway, N.J.
Nov. 15 - at South Florida*...................