According to CF.C, Joe Salave'a is already paying off. The new WSU defensive line coach, and ambassador to the islands of Hawai'i and American Samoa, has helped the Cougs land Destiny Vaeao. Vaeao plays both TE and DE, but he'll be playing defense for the Cougs.

Also, his name is Destiny, which is pretty amazing.

"Fool me once..." RT @KyleRancourt: I'm kinda surprised Destiny Vaeao didn't wind up at UTEP.

— Brian Floyd (@BrianMFloyd) January 28, 2012

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Former Kennewick high school standout Drew Loftus has accepted an invitation to walk-on at Washington State University. Part of building any championship caliber team is bringing a handful of smart, hard working preferred walk-ons. Now, I know that "part of building any championship team is adding walk-ons" sounds silly, but I think it helps tremendously with depth and Special Teams. Walk-ons are zero risk, all reward type players. They're often a jack-of-all-trades, and don't necessarily have a true position. This lack of a position is a big reason they didn't get offered a scholarship out of high school. They play Special Teams, and are generally happy to do so. They know they have to work harder than the guys on scholarship, so they're willing to run through a wall for you.

Plus, they're the absolute textbook definition of an underdog. And who doesn't love rooting for the underdog?

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Thursday was not kind to the Washington State basketball programs. Both the men's and women's teams suffered blow out losses to schools from Arizona by a combined score of 149-107. The men's team may have suffered another loss with Faisal Aden possibly out for an extended period of time after spraining his MCL.

Official stats from the men's game can be found here with stats from the women's loss here. The WSU athletic department posted highlights and press conference video from the women's game. Both videos can be seen below with recaps and other links after the jump.

WBB: ASU-WSU Highlights (via WSUCougarAthletics)

June Daugherty Post Game Press Conference 1/26 (via WSUCougarAthletics)

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The Arizona Wildcats used hot three-point shooting and stifling defense to bury Washington State in a blowout win Thursday night. UA found themselves open on the perimeter all evening, and made WSU pay time and time again. The Wildcats finished 15-27 from the three-point line.

The Cougs lost more than just the game as Faisal Aden went to the ground without contact on a fastbreak midway through the first half. Aden injured his knee and it appeared to be serious. It would be surprising if he came back to play at any point the rest of the year. A shame, as he was having the best stretch of basketball in his Cougar career. EDIT: Aden's injury has been diagnosed as a Sprained MCL (per Caple).

Arizona's guards abused their Washington State counterparts on both ends of the floor. On offense they were able to create dribble penetration consistently, forcing help off three-point shooters. On defense they were able to get into the faces of Reggie Moore, DaVonte Lacy, and Aden, forcing them into a number of poor decisions and weak passes.

Kyle Fogg got things rolling for the WIldcats in the first half and finished with 20 points on 8-13 shooting. Solomon Hill finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds, while Brendon Lavender came off the bench to knock down four threes and chip in 14 points.

Brock Motum led WSU with 18 points and 10 rebounds. He did most of his damage at the line, going 10-10 on free throws. Arizona did their best to frustrate Brock and were physical with him all night long. In the end, it worked out pretty well as Motum was just 4-12 from the field and turned the ball over four times.

No other Cougar finished in double figures as the team posted an abysmal 39 eFG%. The Cougs also turned the ball over on 23% of their possessions on the way to just 0.88 points per possession.

WSU will look to try and bounce back against Arizona State on Saturday at 2pm Pacific Time.

As mentioned in a previous post linked above, Kevin Calabro and Marques Johnson will be on the call tonight for FSN/Root Sports. For those that want the WSU radio feed with Bud Nameck, that can be found at http://mynorthwest.com/streams/streampop_ktth.php. The Gametracker can be found here. Check the comments for stream links.

Check out my preview of the game by following the link in the gray box and join us in the gamethread! As Calabro might say, "Let's get on a magic carpet ride!

Most of you are of the right age and grew up in the right region to appreciate this news. For those that don't know why those people are so excited, Kevin Calabro and Marques Johnson were the broadcast team during the Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton glory years of the Seattle SuperSonics.

Just hearing those two names brings back fond memories (and thanks to all of this, some bitter ones as well). Calabro and Johnson were a perfect broadcast team. Both are a little crazy, and both do not hold back when it comes to a spectacular play. The chemistry between the two was fantastic, and was something that was noticeably missing with guys like Craig Ehlo after Johnson left for greener pastures.

Tonight, Cougar and Wildcat fans will have the treat of Calabro and Johnson paired up again. The two will be on the FSN national broadcast (and Root Sports NW) at 7:30pm Pacific Time. Hopefully, the commentary will provide some classic lines, like the approximately 156 awesome things that are said in this 37-second clip:

If you don't know who Mike Marlow is, you should -- there's a very good chance he's going to be WSU's next athletics director when Bill Moos decides he's had enough and is ready to head back to the ranch.

For now, though, Marlow is one of the senior associate athletics directors at WSU which, roughly translated, means "big dang deal over there at Bohler Gym." He's a 1990 graduate of WSU who, before being hired by Moos, had spent the previous 13 years building Oregon's empire. I don't think it's unfair to characterize him as Moos' right-hand man in the athletic department.

That's why I was incredibly excited to be able to spend about 20 minutes chatting on the phone with Marlow last week in the midst of snowicepocalypse (before my Internet died -- yes!). We covered a wide range of topics, from the new philosophy of the athletics department to the facilities priorities in Pullman to what every fan can do to help WSU athletics compete at a championship level ... and more.

I apologize in advance for the recording quality -- there was a bit of an issue on Marlow's end that I wasn't able to get sorted out and wasn't able to edit out with my limited skills. Technology is great ... most of the time.

The thing I love the most about the interview is Marlow's passion. Even I started to get fired up when he began talking about "win the Pac-12." (That's near the end. Trust me, it's cool.) I hope every Cougar fan takes to heart what he's saying; we all need to belong to the Cougar Athletic Fund if we care about WSU athletics. A $50 annual donation is all that's required, and I would hope that we're sending graduates into the world who can afford invest into WSU athletics for less than $5 a month. If we're not, our university is in bigger trouble than we think.

If you're not yet a member of the CAF, you can sign up here. I donate $10 a month. It's not much, but it's something. And as Marlow says in the interview, that's all they're asking for.

Audio player after the jump.

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Washington State travels to Tuscon this evening to take on Arizona at 7:30pm Pacific Time. The game will be televised nationally on FSN , which means ROOT Sports NW for those in Washington.

The Cougars come off their most successful weekend of the season, sweeping two of the conference's top teams in Stanford and California. Faisal Aden had his best two-game stretch as a Coug, scoring 57 points and winning conference and national player of the week awards.

Arizona missed an opportunity to keep pace with the Pac-12 leaders after falling in the last minute to Colorado on Saturday. They currently sit one game ahead of WSU at 4-3 in league play.

The road has not been kind to WSU all season. The Cougs are 3-9 away from Friel Court, including embarrassing losses to UC Riverside and Utah. Two of those wins came in front of WSU-friendly crowds, so including the neutral site games is doing them a favor. Arizona has had a relatively easy home schedule, losing just twice at the McKale Center. Those two losses did come against San Diego State and Oregon, so they aren't exactly invulnerable at home.

Offense and Defense previews after the jump.

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