Federer withdraws from Davis Cup first round

Good news for the Andy Roddick-United States camp. Roger Federer will rest his ailing back during first round play of the Davis Cup.

Australian open highlights can be found here.


Also, a list of the first round ties for the Davis Cup:

06 Mar - 08 Mar

Argentina	March 6-8
Czech Republic v France	Czech Republic	March 6-8
United States v Switzerland	United States	March 6-8
Croatia v Chile	Croatia	March 6-8
Sweden v Israel	Sweden	March 6-8
Romania v Russia	Romania	March 6-8
Germany v Austria	Germany	March 6-8
Spain v Serbia	Spain	March 6-8

Pac-10 rankings on Yahoo!

In all honesty, I think this isn't the same deep conference that sent five teams (UCLA, USC, Oregon, Arizona, Stanford and Washington State) to the tournament last year, and could have potentially (Arizona State) sent one more.

UCLA has been as good as advertised with their prized recruiting class from this year (Jrue Holiday and Drew Gordon, anyone?) and point guard Darren Collison (14.1 ppg, 5.1 assists/game) opting to stay in school. Washington has been solid with the "other" Isaiah Thomas and Justin Dentmon giving the Huskies a formiddable outside combo to team with the guy with no neck and double-double machine inside, Jon Brockman. Arizona State has disappointed with the amount of talent they have in stars James Harden and Jeff Pendergraph, and the rest of the conference, with the exception of the youthful Ducks, being mediocre.

At any rate, here are the rankings from Yahoo! sports.

ESPN gives front page treatment to NHL!

In case you haven't seen it yet, Jerome Iginla and his NHL compatriots have graced the front page of ESPN's Web page today. I dig it, let me tell you. After seeing the sport buried behind the out of season MLB and my own beloved sport of soccer on the tabbed browsing on ESPN's site, it was a welcome sight to see hockey get some love.

Streetball/And1 show has official blog

If you guys are interested in keeping up with the 2008 And1 Mixtape Tour, here's a blog that Grayson Boucher, or "The Professor," lists as his official blog. I pretty much stopped watching ESPN2's coverage of the show after I got a real summer job in high school, but I always enjoyed seeing some of the things people can do athletically and skill-wise with the basketball.

Duke Tango online

In case you like Mr. "Oh, baby!" as much as I do, here's his MySpace page.

ESPN + Spokane = Gonzaga bedlam

In case anyone is still harboring hopes of getting on television for their fleeting 5 seconds behind Digger Phelps' ubiquitous highlighter, here's some hope for you: ESPN's College GameDay will be coming to Spokane this Saturday as the 18th-ranked Zags host the 14th-ranked University of Memphis Tigers.

Look for Jeremy Pargo (who's a friendly guy, FYI) and Mike Goodson to press Tyreke Evans. I haven't been impressed with Evans the few times that I've seen him this year, and I think this is definitely a winnable game for the Zags if they can force Evans into bad decisions and turnovers. The Zags will have to be strong inside against Shawn Taggart, Robert Dozier and Pierre Niles-Henderson to keep them off the offensive glass to win as well. As a team, Memphis holds a +4 turnover margin and nearly a +5 rebound margin.

As a side note on a team Gonzaga has dispatched of twice this season, what happened to Tennessee? Talk about unmotivated and unfocused -- a total of five losses in the past two months. Games against Gonzaga and Memphis ended with losses to quality teams. But Kentucky, LSU and Kansas aren't the best resume builders. Tennessee should dominate the second half of their schedule against a weak Southeastern Conference this season. It will be imperative for them to find a go-to-guy (Wayne Chism?) if they are to be successful down the stretch. Also, here's Bruce Pearl's bare chest.