Video slideshow by News for CougGroup from WSU at OSU women's basketball Sunday 12/31/2017(11am tipoff) in Corvallis, Oregon.
Washington State at Oregon State women's basketball Corvallis 12/31/2017. Photo by Tim Marsh/News for CougGroup
.............
Go to this link to see News for CougGroup video
slideshow ...
... WSU at OSU women's basketball Sunday (11 am
tipoff) 12/31/2017, Corvallis, Ore.
::::::::::::::
WSU’s Hercules Mata’afa to skip senior season to
enter NFL Draft
Scroll to last story of this News for CougGroup report
….
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Cold-Shooting
Half Spells Trouble for the Cougs at No. 17/17 Oregon State
12/31/2017
Coug Women's Basketball from WSU Sports
Info
CORVALLIS,
Ore. - Despite a season-best 17 points out of Chanelle Molina, the Cougars
(7-7, 0-2 Pac-12) could not keep a hot start going on the road as No. 17/17
Oregon State (11-2, 2-0 Pac-12) pulled away for a 71-53 victory Sunday
afternoon at Gill Coliseum. For the Cougs, the game was a tale of two halves as
an ice-cold second half ended any chance of an upset after taking a two-point
lead into the halftime locker room. Trailing by just one midway through the third
quarter, WSU went nearly nine minutes of game time without a field goal before
Alexys Swedlund, who posted 13 points in the loss, hit a three from the left
wing with 5:25 to play in the game. With the Cougs' shots not falling, the
Beavers went on a 16-4 run, including 11 points from Marie Gulich, that put
Washington State down 57-43 in the waning minutes of the contest. From there,
the two sides trade baskets while Oregon State hit its free throws to finish
off the contest.
Stat of
the Game
The
Beavers posted a 56-to-26 rebounding advantage including 21 offensive rebounds
that led to 18 second-chance points. The 56 rebounds were the most given up by
WSU since Georgia Tech grabbed 50 in the semifinals of the WNIT on Mar. 29,
2017.
MORE INFO
The win for the Beavers was their
eighth-straight over the Cougars.
WSU held the Beavers to just nine first
quarter points, the lowest first quarter total for any Pac-12 opponent against
the Cougs.
Chanelle Molina led the Cougs with a
season-best 17 points, her fifth double-digit scoring game of the season and
first since posting 11 points against Saint Louise on Dec. 4. Alexys Swedlund
added 13 points with a trio of threes while Nike McClure tied her season-best
with nine points.
The Beavers put three in double-figures led
by Kat Tudor's game-best 27 points including a 7-of-14 showing from deep. Marie
Gulich added 22 points and 14 rebounds while Mikayla Piven chipped in 10 points
and 10 rebounds in just 20 minutes of action.
As a team, Oregon State ended the game
shooting 38.5% (25-of-65) despite shooting just 17.6% (3-of-17) in the first
half. The Beavers finished 9-of-25 from deep while the Cougs hit just 5-of-20
three-point attempts.
The Cougs were without their leading
scorer, Borislava Hristova, for the second-straight game due to injury.
WSU returns home to Beasley Coliseum for
the first time in Pac-12 play and the first time in the new year when the Cougs
take on Colorado Friday, Jan. 5 at 8 p.m. Last season, the Cougs and the Buffs
met three times with WSU taking 2-of-3 including a 79-78 win in the opening
round of the Pac-12 tournament.
::::::::::::::::::::
IN MEN’S
BASKETBALL IN LOS ANGLES 6pm tipoff 12/31/2017, WSU lost to USC, 89-71.
Recap:
::::::::::::::::::::::
ART: Harold
Balazs, titanic figure on Northwest art scene, dies at 89
UPDATED:
Sun., Dec. 31, 2017, 6:25 p.m.
By Carolyn
Lamberson Spokane S-R
An exhibit
of Harold Balazs’ work, “I Did It My Way,” will open at the Art Spirit Gallery
in Coeur d’Alene on Jan. 12. The show will feature more than 130 pieces
representing the seven decades of Balazs’ work, including new paintings from
2017. Enamels, paintings, drawings, sculpture and mixed media assemblages will
be on display. At 1 p.m. Jan. 13, a panel discussion, “Working With a Master,”
will feature Balazs’ friends sharing stories. The gallery is located at 415
Sherman Ave. in Coeur d’Alene. For more information, visit
www.theartspiritgallery.com.
Harold
Balazs, the celebrated Spokane artist whose large-scale sculptures dot public
and private spaces throughout the Inland Northwest and beyond, died Saturday
night at his Mead home, surrounded by his family.
He was 89.
Blair
Williams, whose Art Spirit Gallery in Coeur d’Alene has represented Balazs for
20 years, confirmed the news Sunday morning.
Balazs’
impact on Spokane cannot be overestimated. Among his public works are the
Rotary Fountain at Riverfront Park (made with Bob Perron in 2005), the 1978
Centennial Sculpture floating in the Spokane River near the convention center,
and Lantern on the river side of INB Performing Arts Center.
He has
pieces on display in Seattle and Cincinnati, and closer to home at the
University of Idaho in Moscow and North Idaho College in Coeur d’Alene. Listen,
a large abstract work meant to evoke an ear, was commissioned for Spokane
Public Radio’s new station on North Monroe Street, while Untitled, originally
installed at River Park Square, has taken a prominent place in the newly
redesigned Chronicle Courtyard behind The Spokesman-Review on Sprague Avenue.
“Harold’s
work, over 60 years or more in the region, comprises one of the most
significant, far-reaching, and resonate examples of a life lived in dedication to art,
aesthetics and the humanities imaginable,” said Ben Mitchell, who curated a
Balazs career retrospective at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in
2010. “He is a giant, a titan, and an example to us all.”
Balazs was
born in 1928 and grew up Westlake, Ohio. His mother enrolled him in art classes
in Cleveland when he was 11 or 12, and according to a WSU Magazine interview in
2014, that’s where he first encountered enamel works by Ohio artist H. Edward
Winter. “I was enamored with them,” he told the magazine. “I said, ‘I’m going
to do that one day.’ And I did.”
After his
family moved to Spokane in the 1940s, he enrolled at Washington State College
and earned a fine arts degree. He graduated in 1951 and started selling
enameled jewelry in Spokane.
By then he
was already a husband and father. He and his wife, Rosemary, had met at
Comstock Pool, while he was a student at Washington State; his parents lived
nearby. They married in September 1950 and moved to a “$12 a month shack” in
Pullman, he said in 2016. Rosemary got a job at a bank and served as his art
assistant. Their son, Kurt, was born shortly after graduation.
Soon his
work attracted the attention of local architects who embraced a midcentury
modern aesthetic starting in the 1950s, and they began incorporating his work
in their designs.
In a 2016
interview with The Spokesman-Review, Balazs said he started selling work while
still in college.
“A gang of
us formed a club and auctioned off our watercolors and drawings to earn a
little change. I also did posters for dances and fraternity functions and made
jewelry. And I connected with (Spokane home furnishings retailer) Joel Ferris
while I was still in college, and he introduced me to buyers in Seattle and
Portland.”
That
passion to create, he told the paper, never waned. “Never … never. I still have
to go out to my shop every day, even if just to walk around in the debris.”
Twins
Erica and Andrea were born in 1959, and the family relocated to their 7 acres
on Peone Creek near Mead, where Balazs set up shop.
That
workshop was famously messy. It also was the kind of place that drew young
artists who happily took up Balazs on the offer to come out and make stuff.
“If he
liked stuff a young artist was doing, he would invite him up to his studio to
work with him. That’s how he became known as ‘Uncle Harold,’” said Sue Bradley,
a longtime friend and gallery owner. “He had the ability to make you smarter,
more creative, a better version of yourself.
“Harold
was such a decent human being, so generous in giving,” she added.
While most
well known for his large sculptures, Balazs was prolific in a number of genres.
The Lincoln Building in downtown Spokane is home to two large enamels, “Birds
of the Northwest” and “Northwest Wildflowers.” Some pen-and-ink drawings were
gathered in a limited edition book, “The Family Album,” in 2015.
He also
created pieces for dozens of churches, including a large concrete sculpture at
Messiah Lutheran Church, and metal pieces for St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. At
Spokane’s modernist gem, St. Charles Catholic Church, Balazs’ fingerprints are
everywhere, from the 17-foot tall welded black metal sculpture of St. Charles
Borromeo on the building’s facade to the 12 enamel panels on the entry doors
that tell the story of Jesus’ life.
He leaves
a body of work on paper that includes charcoal, acrylics, watercolors and ink.
In January, the Art Spirit Gallery in Coeur d’Alene will open its long-planned Balazs
exhibit, ‘I Did It My Way,” which will include new paintings.
“Today we
work to prepare for the 2018 Harold Balazs show at our gallery,” Williams wrote
in a statement. “Today we celebrate again, in the artistry, the craft, the
work, the splendor, and the man who created it all. May his memory and his
work, live on forever.”
Despite
its abstract nature, Balazs’ works remains accessible, Mitchell said, because
he was a “democrat – lower case ‘d’ – and a humanist.”
Balazs, he
said, learned from his father, a metal worker, an appreciation for a well-made
thing. That craftsmanship, combined with genuine emotion, results in works that
have impact.
“His work
was always approachable and accessible because it was suffused with joy, with
discovery, with invention, and without any whiff of artifice, the ‘market,’ or
posturing,” Mitchell said.
That
notion of joy is evident in one of Balazs’ most endearing and enduring
creations: The logo “Transcend the Bullshit,” a modernist-style motto he made
into a poster in the 1960s.
“Fifty
years later, it’s still my motto,” he told The Spokesman-Review in 2016. “Andy
(Dinnison) at Boo Radley’s put my design on coffee mugs, and he keeps sending
me money.”
Balazs is
survived by his wife and their three children. Services are pending.
……………………………….
Busy
offseason awaits Washington State and it could be a good thing following
25-point Holiday Bowl loss
UPDATED:
Sat., Dec. 30, 2017, 9:21 p.m.
By Theo
Lawson S-R of Spokane
SAN DIEGO
– For the 20 Washington State seniors who sulked off the field at SDCCU
Stadium, a 42-17 loss to Michigan State in hand, the tail end of a
once-promising 2017 football season may still be marinating a few months from
now.
The
Cougars were tantalizingly close to a berth in the Pac-12 championship for the
second consecutive year before falling hard in the Apple Cup – also for the
second consecutive year – and thus stumbling out of the title game picture.
The
Holiday Bowl lined up a second consecutive appearance for WSU. However, the
Cougars’ offense found almost no room to work against Michigan State’s
tough-minded, high-motored defense. After a respectable showing from Alex
Grinch’s defense in 2016 against Minnesota, the “Speed D” played much of this
game as if it were stuck in mud.
History
books won’t necessarily remember WSU’s senior class for what happened during those
three hours in San Diego, but they’ll surely make note of the 29 wins, three
bowl appearances and 14 All-Pac-12 selections the group collected over the last
four to five years – not to mention some major school and Pac-12 records that
were set along the way.
As WSU
heads into a busy offseason, here should be plenty of storylines to tide the
Cougars over until their next chance to play someone wearing a different
jersey.
Of those,
the most pressing are the ones regarding the two most important pieces of WSU’s
defense: Grinch, the third-year defensive coordinator who’s rumored to leave
Pullman soon in order to become the 10th assistant at Ohio State, and Hercules
Mata’afa, the consensus All-American defensive tackle weighing the options of
taking his talents to the NFL or returning to the Palouse for his senior
season.
Thursday’s
postgame press conference didn’t provide much clarity regarding either dilemma,
but it’s likely that both questions will be answered within the coming weeks.
Leach
didn’t budge when asked if he’d met with Mata’afa: “Any conversations I have
with him on whether he’s coming back or what he’s doing I will share with him
and probably not anybody in here.”
Sophomore
safety Jalen Thompson neglected to reveal anything about Grinch: “Next
question.”
Within the
first month of the New Year, WSU might also have a new face in the office
formerly occupied by Bill Moos. The school has set its target date at late
January/early February to hire a new athletic director. WSU President Kirk Schulz
has oft-cited his wish to hire someone with a strong fundraising background and
Moos’ successor should come in prepared to shave off an athletics deficit that
was reported at $10.7 million for the 2017 fiscal year alone.
Another
priority will be collecting private funds for the expected construction of an
indoor practice facility – a project that should welcome a few more
developments over the next six months, according to Schulz.
The
current Cougars begin their annual “Midnight Maneuvers” conditioning regimen
soon. A handful of the departed ones are playing in senior All-Star games –
quarterback Luke Falk and offensive tackle Cole Madison in the Reese’s Senior
Bowl and running back Jamal Morrow, offensive guard Cody O’Connell and Rush
linebacker Frankie Luvu are headed to the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl.
Some
grouping of those players – plus Mata’afa perhaps – should hear their names
called April 26-28 at the 2018 NFL Draft.
At that
point, their ex-teammates in Pullman may have already put a bow on spring camp.
The spring finale, held annually at Spokane’s Albi Stadium, could be an
intriguing showcase between Tyler Hilinski, the quarterback who started for WSU
in the Holiday Bowl, and promising four-star signee Cammon Cooper, the top
candidate to push Hilinski for starting reps.
All of
that should be enough to distract the Cougars from Thursday’s setback in San
Diego. As Leach might remind his departing seniors, they would be ill-advised
to place the entire season into the context of one game.
WSU
finished 9-4 with a 7-0 record in Pullman and signature wins over then-No. 5
USC and No. 18 Stanford. The 21-point comeback victory over Boise State in
triple-overtime was entertaining in its own right.
“The one
thing that is indisputable is we had a tremendous season. We had a better
season than most people expected,” Leach said. “Probably a few games short of
what we as a team expected, as coaches, as players, a few games short of what
we expected, but it was a good season for us and one where we got plenty of
space to improve on.”
………………..
Cougar
Football
WSU’s
Hercules Mata’afa to skip senior season to enter NFL Draft
Originally
published December 31, 2017 at 7:50 pm Updated
December
31, 2017 at 8:24 pm
After
completing his best season in college, WSU's Hercules Mata'afa has declared
himself eligible for the NFL draft.
By Stefanie
Loh Seattle Times
Washington
State defensive tackle Hercules Mata’afa will skip his senior season to enter
the NFL Draft, he announced Sunday via Twitter.
“I would
like to thank the entire Coug Nation for all the love and support you’ve shown
me throughout my four years in college,” Mata’afa tweeted.
“I’ve had an incredible journey at WSU, and I
couldn’t be more grateful to the coaches, teammates, fans, friends, community
and family who helped me along the way. I will always be a Coug at heart.”
In a text
message to The Seattle Times, WSU football coach Mike Leach said, “I wish him
the best no matter what he decides. However, the NFL themselves and numerous
people I know in the NFL strongly suggest that he stay in college. I agree that
it’s in his best interest to stay in college. In any case, it has been an honor
to coach him.”
Mata’afa,
a redshirt junior from Lahaina, Hawaii, is coming off his best season as a
Cougar. He was a consensus All-American, finished as an All-Pac-12 first team
selection and was named the Associated Press’ Pac-12 Defensive Player of the
Year.
The
6-foot-2, 252-pound defensive tackle set a WSU single-season record with 22.5
tackles for loss, and his 47 career TFLs are the second most in WSU history.
He’ll finish his WSU career with 22.5 career sacks — fourth most in WSU
history.
As an
undersized college defensive tackle, Mata’afa projects best as a rush
linebacker at the next level, but he’ll have to show NFL teams that he has the
physical ability to play a new position. His “tweener” size could affect his
draft standing, but throughout his time at WSU, he’s shown the athleticism,
pass-rushing instincts and physicality to get to the quarterback.
In an
interview with The Seattle Times earlier this month, WSU defensive line coach
Jeff Phelps said he would support Mata’afa if he decided to leave early for the
NFL.
#
