Southern Utah dropped to 3-2 on Friday night, falling 80-61 to Brigham Young at the Marriott Center in Provo.

The score was not indicative of the game, as the Cougars cruised to a 31-point lead early in the second half. But this is not a crippling loss by any means. This was easily the best team SUU has faced so far, and likely the second best (behind Washington) the T-Birds will play all season.

The Thunderbirds simply had no answer for BYU's Trent Plaisted, who erupted for 10 points in the game's first four minutes.

SUU's small frontcourt was a concern entering the season, but I think they'll be fine once they hit Mid-Continent Conference play. Outside of Oral Roberts' Caleb Green, the T-Birds won't face a big man like Plaisted in league games.

Though he's struggled lately, I'm still impressed with Tate Sorenson. I think he could be a real beast in Mid-Con play — at power forward. But he is really undersized for a five.

I think the key for SUU is Brad Kanis. If he can pick up the system — and finish on offense better — I think this would make a great starting lineup: 1 — Steve Barnes; 2 — Justin Allen; 3 — Nurudeen Adepoju; 4 — Tate Sorenson; 5 — Brad Kanis.

SUU is back home Monday to play Denver, whom the T-Birds beat 74-68 in Denver two weeks ago. DeShaun Walker is a tough guard for SUU (he scored 27 points in the first meeting), but the rest of the Pioneers never got on track.

There should be a larger crowd Monday than we saw Wednesday against Idaho, as the SUU students will be back from Thanksgiving break.

The game tips off at 7 p.m.

Posted by Rich Johnson at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

SUU again looked good on defense, holding San Diego State to 55 points and 41.9 percent shooting from the floor, but their offense is still a work in progress.
That being said, in almost any sport, a team is able to pick up a new defense quicker than a new offense. Ideally for SUU, these nonconference games will do the trick before Mid-Con play starts.

Bright spots during Friday night's game was the T-Birds' bench. Cash Connors scored nine points, making 4 of 8 shots. A sophomore shooting guard, Connors looks like she could be the offensive burst off the bench SUU's been looking for. Additionally, Silvia Da Silva scored a career-high nine points as the backup point guard. With Amy Anderson quitting, Da Silva should get a lot more playing time than the six minutes a contest she was averaging before Friday. Against the Aztecs Da Silva played a season-high 23 minutes. Shooting guard Heather Hillock will serve as the team's third point guard if needed.

Posted by Beau Eastes at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Cha-ching!

There goes another billion dollars.

Cha-ching! Cha-ching!

It adds up fast, faster than you can say, “No WMDs!”

That’s how the cost of combat is hitting the United States. A story in the Christian Science Monitor places the cost of the war on terr-uh — that would be Iraq and Afghanistan — at about $500 billion, with the Pentagon asking for yet another $120 billion to $160 billion to fill out fiscal year 2007.

I was thinking about that the other night while watching Robin Williams, Whoopie Goldberg and Billy Crystal as they hosted Comic Relief on HBO. The money from this year’s benefit will go to help rebuild hurricane-torn New Orleans. I’m not sure how much money they raised, but I’ll bet 10 years of pay it wasn’t anywhere close to $500 billion.

One of the comics on the show suggested that the best way to get New Orleans the funds it needs is for the city to leave the Union, buy a couple of nukes and threaten the United States.

If it wasn’t so dreadfully sad it world have been funny.

But, here we are, sitting atop one of the greatest natural disasters in this country’s history and still doing nothing.

The drinking water in New Orleans is still bad. There’s not much food. People are living in trailers. Neighborhoods look like they’ve just been through Shock and Awe II instead of being a part of mainstream America.

There’s no there there, as one pundit once said about another great American city. Only, this time, it’s an accurate representation of New Orleans.

And, this is more than a year after the hurricane struck.

If you took the entire debt of what it would cost to rebuild the city and subtracted it from the $500 billion, there would still be plenty left to feed the hungry, clothe the poor and still buy a new pair of cowboy boots for the Cowboy in Chief. Or, maybe it could provide better benefits for the soldiers who come home missing limbs or other body parts from this exercise in forced democracy.

We could use a chunk of that money to do some serious work on developing an alternative energy source. We could use it for so many things other than a war that even hard-line Republicans are now saying we cannot win militarily.

We spent $361 billion in today money to lose in Korea. We spent $531 billion to lose in Vietnam. How much will the final tab be for the war on terror?

Posted by Ed Kociela at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 3 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

The witless drive to develop a next-generation nuclear weapon is in the embryonic stages as the shadow of Divine Strake draws nearer and nearer to the Nevada Test Site where the detonation of 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil would replicate the strength of a low-yield nuke.

But, what would happen if a real next-generation mini-nuke was unleashed?

According to a report by Robert W. Nelson, Council on Foreign Relations and Princeton University, a bunker buster with a 0.34 kiloton yield — only 2 percent of the bomb burst over Hiroshima — dropped on an enemy target with a population of 15,000 people per square mile and driven 50 feet into the ground would send a base surge cloud with a diameter of 10,000 feet about 3,000 feet into the air.

Oh, yeah, 10,000 to 50,000 people would receive a fatal radiation dose within 24 hours.

You can rest assured that there would be multiple targets, “to be sure we got ‘em all.”

And, if the bunker busters do, by luck, strike a real target?

It could be even worse.

According to Nelson’s report, the heat from the burst would be swallowed up mostly by the ground and not destroy radioactive or chemical-biological weapons, which would then be spewed into the atmosphere.

The unholy Crusaders would, of course, find the need to test these devices once, twice, God knows how many times at the Nevada Test Site.

And, this from a civilized country.

Don’t worry, it’s coming.

The U.S. Air Force has already awarded funds to investigate retrofitting the B-2 bomber to carry ground-penetrating weapons. Test bombing runs, using the B-2, have already taken place in Alaska. Of course, the weapons were only mock-ups.

But, somewhere, somehow, you can be sure these babies will be deployed.

And, when they do, won’t we all be proud?

Contact your local representatives. Tell them you want America to still be a country with a conscience.

Then call Irene Smith, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency spokeswoman, at (703) 767-5870 and voice your disapproval.

Finally, contact the White House at (202) 456-1414 or (202) 456-1111.

Tell your Mom, tell your Dad, tell your friends and have them jam those phone lines, too.

Let your government know you’re mad as hell and you’re not going to take it.

Posted by Ed Kociela at 09:19 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 3 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

As Jimmie Johnson celebrates his 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup championship following a ninth-place finish in the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, race fans are going to have to get used to some changes in their viewing and listening habits for 2007.
I'm happy on one front of the broadcast spectrum, sad on the other.

NBC had its final NASCAR broadcast in a five-year run that ended on a high note on Sunday. From the entertaining bits on the "Countdown to Green" pre-race show. Wally Dallenbach was funny as a digitized passenger of himself in his "Wally's World" segment (The digitized Wally's best line to the real Wally: "I'm going out with your wife.") but play-by-play man Bill Weber had the best line at the end.
"That was a great argument against human cloning," Weber said in a deadpan tone that had me rolling.
Although they've been stale often this season, the profile of Jimmie Johnson's family was also great.
But in the end, NBC didn't really do much as far as saying goodbye. From the tone of Weber - "It's been a great ride," he said at one point in the closing - I got the impression that NBC wasn't going to miss doing the races all that much. However, Weber, Dallenbach and Benny Parsons will still be the on-air voices for TNT next year.
Bring on ESPN and ABC. A rocking good time will be had by all when we reconvene at Daytona.
Beginning in February, Fox will be the permanent TV home of the Daytona 500. The network's load for Nextel Cup coverage won't be as deep as it has been in years past, when it aired the races up through the Dodge/SaveMart 350 at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif. and split coverage with NBC for the Pepsi 400 at Daytona over 4th of July weekend.
Here's how the TV schedule will work in 2007. Six different networks will air the races:
Fox (Channel 13): The first 13 races of the season, including Daytona on Feb. 18. The run ends at the first Dover race on June 3, 2007. Speed Channel (cable channel 51 in St. George), which is owned by Fox, will air the Nextel All-Star Challenge from Lowe's Motor Speedway on May 19.
TNT (cable channel 46 in St. George): The next six races, from the first Pocono race on June 10 to Chicagoland on July 15.
ESPN (cable channel 29 in St. George): After the off week, from the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard in Indianapolis on July 29 to Richmond, the final race before the Chase, on Sept. 8.
ABC (Channel 4): All 10 races in the Chase for the Nextel Cup, culminating at Homestead 364 days from now.
Speed Channel will be the TV home of all NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races and the entire Busch schedule will be seen on either ABC (which will show the Sam's Town 300 at Las Vegas on March 10), ESPN or ESPN2.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your remotes!
However, if you're not at home and want to find the races on the radio, NASCAR will be moving from XM Satellite Radio over to Sirius starting Jan. 1.
I got a full year's headstart on the departure when I bought my XM radio in June of 2005. One of the coolest things I'll miss is hearing the classic races from MRN Radio that went as far back as the late 1970s. Even from the old tracks like Riverside, Ontario, North Wilkesboro and Rockingham, it was terrific listening material.
I even heard a bunch of the guys who are currently working on the TV side - guys like Mike Joy, Allen Bestwick, Marty Snider, and Mike Massaro, to name a few - on the broadcasts.
Please note: No station in the St. George area aired NASCAR races on regular radio in 2006. In 2007, your best bet to hear the races is to head to a retailer and get a Sirius Satellite Radio.
The programming does cost $12.95 a month, but the listening pleasure will be worth every penny, especially if you're a race fan.

Posted by Tom Zulewski at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

Are we going to sit back and allow this to happen again or are we going to go after the big dogs who want to bring the Divine Strake test back to the Nevada Test Site?

Are we going to allow our children, our grandchildren and the rest of us to face poisoning from whatever gets shaken up off the floor of the NTS?

Are we going to allow the federal government to once again pry open Pandora's box and start testing new nuclear devices?

What are you prepared to do about it?

It's time to place the power back into the hands of the people. Your ethnicity, religion and political party have nothing to do with it. We're all human, sharing the same air and water. Eating from the same garden.

It's time to mobilize.

Posted by Ed Kociela at 07:21 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )