Daily Dribble: Friday Report Card

Every time Washington State wins a game, there's justification to give Bennett an A. The fact that the Cougars are 14-0 and 40-8 in Bennett's tenure is simply amazing considering the lows the program had experienced in the 13 years since Kelvin Sampson left. So even though beating USC isn't A-worthy in itself, Bennett still deserves the love.

Despite a slow start to the year, the Cardinals have quietly won of 6 of 7 games to get back on the right track. No surprise, the wins are coming now that they have a full assortment of front-court players. David Padgett and Juan Palacios are back in action, and Derrick Caracter has managed not to get suspended for a few weeks (a surprise for him). Four of their next five games are against bottom of the barrel Big East teams like Rutgers, South Florida, and St. John's so expect their record to be something like 15-5 by the time they face UCONN on the 28th.

The Golden Eagles non-conference performance has just been mediocre, 3-4 against D1 teams including a loss to lowly TAMU-CC (3-10). But after beating IPFW last night to improve to 4-0 in Summit League play, its becoming clear the race for the league title is solely between ORU and IUPUI (with Oakland slightly in the mix). Up next for ORU are those very two teams, an interesting stretch during which we'll learn a lot about the league.