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		Michelle Touson on March Madness By Michelle Touson March 10, 2009

	Sportstalk: Michelle the season ends with Stanford 17-12 (6-12) losing 101-87 to the Arizona Wildcats 19-12 (9-9) it was going to be a tough battle going in for the Cardinal and a tough place to win in Tucson. The Wildcats should be a good club in the March post season and they'll make a interesting team for the Pac Ten conference finals. Michelle: Washington is really late playing to the Pac Ten this year they played some very consistent basketball all the way through from front to back and I don't see Arizona taking over Washington University and it might be Washington in the finals with Arizona even though honestly I still have a dark horse place in my heart for Cal and Arizona State. UCLA is never ever out of the picture so this is going to be a very interesting Pac Ten Tournament in Los Angeles. You figure you have Washington, Cal whose number four, Arizona, Arizona State, and Oregon State and all of those guys who are fighting for seeds in the dance and all of them who can get a spot. It's going to be an interesting time and this Pac Ten Tournament is going to be one of the best ones we've had in a while. Sportstalk: Lawrence Hill finished the game with 21 points and 10 rebounds for Stanford but the Cardinal could not get any closer than 55-49 in the ball game. For Hill though a great finish for a hard worked season. Michelle: The season was really good and as I said all year long they lost a lot of leadership when they lost Brook and Robin Lopez. They lost leadership, they lost the inside presence and thats the main thing. The Cardinal have no inside presence. Nobody is taking up space like the Lopez twins. Hopefully they've had a good recruiting class coming in and hopefully they're going to get some big bodies and hopefully they're going to be a year older. I don't think they're going to lose too many players this year. I put them right back in the mix next year and honestly and truly its just like the Cardinal are getting better and head coach Johnny Dawkins is a guy who is going to recruit like crazy just from his experience from being an assistant from his years at Duke. He's going to be a crazy recruiter and I'm excited about the players they'll be getting in the future. Then there's Cal's Mike Montgomery this guy has recruiting California for years so everyone knows the success when he was a head coach at Stanford. So look at Cal for example and now you look at Washington and they've had a very successful year it's the first time they've won the Pac Ten in 15 years. Wouldn't it be nice to say "hey wow Stanford is going to be that team" this is a basketball conference and I really expect to see all the teams all of them getting better and improving. I'm even hoping that USC gets better because I'm really tired of seeing them in the gutter. Last year when the flash in the pan O.J. Mayo was there and I'll be honest with you Tim Floyd please go away I really don't think he's doing a great job and I don't think he's recruiting all that well and I think that they can find somebody else that will be a more efficient coach and I'm not happy with the job he's been doing in as much time as he's been down there. Sportstalk: Connecticut is ranked number one in the AP and USA Today polls what do you like most about the Huskies and their race to the Final Four? Michelle: Defense, it's just not scoring they're playing defense. The Huskies are playing both sides of the ball and that's what you have to do. That's what your going to have to do to go deep into the tournament period. You got to play both sides of the ball, there just can't be a bunch of run and gunning. The Huskies are playing both sides of the ball and their strong on both sides of the ball and that's what your going to have to see. Anybody can be beaten in the tournament that's when they have to be hungry this is the time when people get hungry and that's when you separate the Men from the Boys. Michelle Touson is covering the NCAA March Madness affair all month for Sportstalk