USC wants to be in it for long run - LA Times
This was supposed to be a preamble to their one shining moment, the calm before USC and star recruit O.J. Mayo stormed back into the NCAA tournament in 2008...

...But it turned out those who dismissed USC this season did some shoddy detective work.

The roster included, among other assets, gritty freshman Daniel Hackett, who filled in capably at point guard until Gabe Pruitt returned from an 11-game academic suspension; a menacing inside presence in freshman Taj Gibson; and a steady scoring threat in junior swingman Nick Young...

...so today the fifth-seeded Trojans will play 12th-seeded Arkansas...

Also, Mother's day with USC - LA Daily News
Lodi's Doucette, Harden in the Big Dance - Lodi News
USC Guard Has Bigger Impact, Smaller Waist - NW Arkansas Morning News
Nutt Hopes Hogs Can Avenge USC Losses - Ft Smith Times-Record

He's in Need, but Too Proud to Beg - Washington Post
Willie Wood sat up in his bed and used his hands to help lift and maneuver his legs so he could face his breakfast tray...He has gout and has been unable to walk for the past four months, and he's about to undergo replacement surgery on his left knee to go with his previously replaced right knee and right hip...

...the room's occupant is a football legend.

Wood, a D.C. native who was a Hall of Fame safety on the great Packers teams of the 1960s, would get dressed shortly after breakfast. There would be a physical therapy session later in the day...His knee replacement surgery will come soon and Wood, 70, hopes to be up and about and back on the golf course not too long afterward...

Also, Wood paid a hefty price - Washington Times
Old friends gather to help ailing Wood - Green Bay Post Gazette
Wives United by Husbands’ Post-N.F.L. Trauma - NY Times

10 Intriguing Spring Storylines: USC's new crop of receivers - CNNSI
While USC will return star QB John David Booty, the Trojans lost two of the best receivers in America in Dwayne Jarrett and Steve Smith, who combined to catch 141 balls for 2,098 yards and 21 touchdowns last season. Booty will use the spring to gain a good rapport with Vidal Hazelton (7) and Patrick Turner (1).







Also, Defense reigns supreme - Lindy's

[Moore] Floyd's USC comeback all about heart - USA Today
This could be the best year of basketball coach Tim Floyd's life.

After getting fired from his last two jobs, he has proved again that he's a winner.

Aided by a new 10,258-seat on-campus arena, he has rejuvenated the traditionally mediocre Southern California basketball program...

...Floyd has even enthused a USC student body that became accustomed to worshipping the one and only true Trojan god — football. He has signed what some basketball experts deem the No. 2 recruiting class in the country.

All that pales in comparison...to what happened to Floyd on Feb. 25...

Also, Razorbacks must silence the critics - Daily Breeze
Floyd takes team to a scary movie - LA Times
USC faces a pack of agitated 'Hogs - LA Daily News
Trojans take in horror flick - OC Register

Spring look around the Pac-10 - ESPN
...USC Trojans
Spring practice starts: March 20
Spring game: April 7

Spring key: USC welcomes back 10 starters from a defense that was dominant a year ago, particularly late in the season. It welcomes back seven starters from an offense that rolled over Michigan's vaunted defense in the Rose Bowl. Yes, the Trojans, the likely preseason No. 1, are national title favorites again. The only significant area of concern is receiver, where Steve Smith and Dwayne Jarrett must be replaced. The offense won't have the skills of coordinator Lane Kiffin any longer, though, as he's taken over as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders. That means Steve Sarkisian will run the show with help from new receivers coach and passing game coordinator John Morton...

[Waldner] Personality goes long way at USC - Daily Breeze
...it was reasonable, critics believed, to speculate about how the Trojans, especially Pruitt and Young, are not tough enough, serious enough, intense enough or whatever enough to win big games.

Pruitt took the high road when asked his reaction to this reaction.

"I think we've played pretty well," he said.

Pretty well includes the third seed in the Pac-10 Tournament. Pretty well includes a 23-11 record. Pretty well includes two wins over Oregon, which drew a No. 3 NCAA seed to USC's No. 5 seed.

Not that Pruitt was shrugging off the poor performance against the Ducks.

"It's tough," he said...

Also, Tournament new to the Trojans - LA Daily News
USC hopes this is at least a start - OC Register

Local radio personality competing to be voice of the Rockies - Glenwood Springs [Colo.] Post
Fresh off a week of calling seven straight playoff basketball games, KMTS/KGLN news and sports director Ron Milhorn on Monday will put his vocal chords to work for a big prize: to become the public address announcer for the Colorado Rockies...

...The Rockies have pared down their pile of more than 250 applications and demo tapes to the top few, all hoping to replace the retiring Alan Roach...

..."I dropped off my resume and demo and then it was off to Boulder to do a game," Milhorn, who has a bachelor's degree in broadcasting from the University of Southern California and is a former Trojan football player, recalled. "I kind of forgot about it and then got a call on Friday."...

Greased Lightning - Daily Trojan
There are six words Chad Doreck is dying to hear.

"You're the one that I want."

He isn't daydreaming of a lustful encounter with Paris Hilton or Angelina Jolie. Doreck's one wish is to be chosen from a pool of thousands of potential Danny Zukos to star in a Broadway production of the musical phenomenon "Grease."

Since January, former USC student Doreck has been vying for the role of Danny on NBC's "Grease: You're the One that I Want," a reality television show on which starry-eyed contestants compete to become the next real-life Danny or Sandy...

Also, Long Beach native voted off reality show - Long Beach Press-Telegram

[Adande] USC racial 'joke' is no barrel of laughs - LA Times
To Pete Carroll, it looked like the opposite of a team at the center of a racial controversy.

He watched his football squad go through its final workout before spring break Friday morning, saw players of various ethnicities sweat together, roughhouse and joke around. To him it seemed like a racial utopia.

Ironically, it was the comfortable banter between different races in the Trojans football family that led to the issue at hand this week, when a player took the "White Nation" moniker bestowed on a group of Caucasian special teams members by an African American assistant coach and started a "White Nation" group on Facebook.com — in what was supposed to be a joke...

Also, Social-Network Postings Incite Furors on 2 Campuses - Chronicle of higher Education

Fed Up - NY Times
Barry Glassner has made it his business to set credulous consumers of mass media straight. His best-known book, “The Culture of Fear,” took apart several stories poised somewhere between urban myth and the lead item on the evening news, arguing that according to statistics, teenage moms aren’t really tearing up the fabric of society, road rage is less of a problem than lightning strikes, and gun control, not building more prisons, might be the best way of stopping violent crime.

This time around, Glassner, a sociologist at the University of Southern California, takes the same approach to what we eat. In “The Gospel of Food: Everything You Think You Know About Food Is Wrong,” he promises to blow the lid off your dinner...

...although his book delivers some convincing arguments, Glassner also makes many points that aren’t all that shocking...