HOT COUGAR ACTION: Some Statistical Appreciation For Brock Motum

In order to come up with a trivia question every Monday, I first have to do some research. I start by opening up the team stats, then looking for anything that stands out. This season, that means a lot of clicking on Brock Motum's player page. Motum's season numbers are impressive, but it wasn't until Sunday I realized how impressive they were.

At first glance, Motum's season averages of 17.4 points per game and 6.8 rebounds per game seem solid but not spectacular. However, few in WSU's basketball history have matched his production. On the season, Motum has scored 436 points and grabbed 170 rebounds. If he maintains his season averages over the six guaranteed games left on the schedule he will finish with roughly 540 points and 210 rebounds. In doing so, he would become only the third player in WSU history to score at least 500 points and grab 200 rebounds in a season. Steve Puidokas in 1975 and Vince Hanson in 1945 are only two to accomplish that feat.

While the 500/200 club isn't as rare nationally as it is at WSU, it is still a select group. Last season 62 players eclipsed 500 points and 200 rebounds including just four from the Pac-10. So far this season, 15 other players have matched Motum's 436 points and 170 rebounds.

Motum's numbers go past counting stats as few can match his shooting efficiency. On the season, Motum is shooting 56.7 percent from the field, 41.2 percent from three and 75.9 percent at the free throw line. Only one other player with at least 250 field goal attempts, Doug McDermott from Creighton, can match those numbers this season. Since 1998, only five other players with at least 50 three point attempts can match Motum's shooting percentages and none of those five played in a BCS conference like Motum.

And all of this is without mentioning no player in the history of college basketball can match Motum's block celebration.

Men's Basketball

The Palouse Awaits: Cats at WSU on Thursday - University of Arizona Wildcats Official Athletic Site
GAME DATA: Arizona (18-8, 9-4 Pac-12) opens its final two-game road trip of the regular season Thursday at Washington State (13-12, 5-8 Pac-12) at 6 p.m. PST on FOX Sports Net

Conference Power Rankings: Pac-12 - College Basketball Nation Blog - ESPN
8. Washington State: Is Ken Bone's team as good as Craig Robinson's? I don't know. Probably not, all things considered. But I'm allowing the Cougars to leapfrog the Beavers here if only because Washington State -- having lost leading scorer Faisal Aden to a devastating, career-ending knee injury -- still fought hard enough to take a 10-point win in Corvallis on Thursday. With Aden gone and the Cougars' tournament chances nonexistent, it would be easy for this team to merely trudge toward the finish. That they aren't is worthy of some small commendation.

Football

Peter Berg On HBO's On Freddie Roach, His Plans for Rahm Emanuel, and the Status of that Friday Night Lights Movie: The Stream: GQ on TV: GQ
GQ: Did you originally thinking about making this a film, or was it always a short series? Peter Berg: No, my vision for the whole "On Freddie" is actually to create a series for HBO called the "On" series, and we've started filming Mike Leach, who's a college football coach—do you know who Mike Leach is?

Women's Basketball

Zags, Cougars selected women’s hosts for 2013 - Spokesman.com - Feb. 13, 2012
Spokane continues to draw the right kind of attention, as the NCAA announced Monday that Gonzaga and Washington State universities have been selected to host 2013 women’s NCAA Division I basketball tournament games here.