Huskies selected seventh and Cougars 10th in Pac-12 baseball
coaches’ preseason poll
Originally published February 12, 2018 at 9:55 pm Updated
February 12, 2018 at 9:59 pm
Defending Pac-12 champion Oregon State, coming off a 27-3
conference record last year and a 56-6 overall mark, was selected as the team
to beat.
By Seattle Times staff
Washington and Washington State are both among the
bottom-tier teams in the baseball coaches’ preseason poll in the Pac-12.
Defending Pac-12 champion Oregon State, coming off a 27-3
conference record last year and a 56-6 overall mark, was selected as the team
to beat. The Beavers got 10 of the 11 first-place votes. OSU returns Luke
Heimlich, the Pac-12 pitcher of the year last year and Nick Madrigal, the
Pac-12 player of the year.
The Huskies came in seventh in the poll and the Cougars
10th.
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Budget issues rooted in 2014 loan forgiveness
Late president forgave almost $50 million in
construction-related, athletic expenses
By YASMEEN WAFAI, WSU Daily Evergreen student newspaper reporter
February 9, 2018
Faculty Senate Chair Judi McDonald read aloud financial
figures at a Jan. 25 Faculty Senate meeting outlining a series of forgiven
loans within the university, which are some of the root causes of WSU’s current
financial woes.
The university’s reserves were used to forgive loans
totaling $48.9 million during late President Elson S. Floyd’s presidency,
according to figures compiled by the President’s Office
Phil Weiler, vice president of marketing and communication,
said expenses forgiven in fiscal year 2014 — including $13 million to cover the
athletics department’s deficit, $10 million for the Palouse Ridge Golf Course
and Clubhouse and $5.3 million for Spokane real estate — were largely
responsible for current budget shortfalls.
A variety of sources, including tuition dollars, gifts and
state appropriation, make up central reserves.
In October 2017, WSU President Kirk Schulz announced a plan
to relieve a $30 million deficit in three fiscal years by cutting each unit’s
spending by 2.5 percent, keeping vacant employee positions open and eliminating
the Performing Arts program.
Recent investments in new buildings also put a big dent in
funds, Weiler said. He said the Washington State Legislature funds the
construction of the buildings, but not the maintenance and operations, so the
university is now struggling to pay for employees who upkeep the building.
Since reserves have been drawn down to such a degree, Weiler
said. It is now difficult to deal with budget issues.
“We need to be in that saving mode as opposed to that
investing mode,” Weiler said.
85 percent of the expenses that the university spends every
year has to do with personnel costs, he said. Most employees are paid by that
state, Weiler said, and even if an employee leaves or retires, the state still
funds their position’s salary and benefits. This means if employees stop
working, one of the best ways to build up reserves is to leave the positions
open for a while and allow state money to collect in reserves, he said.
Weiler, who was not at the university during Floyd’s
presidency, said loan forgiveness is within the powers of the president, but
because Floyd died shortly after he made the decision to forgive the loans, it
is hard to know if he had a long-term follow-up. He said many people did not
seem to know that he was terminally ill and there was not a chance for a proper
transition between presidents.
The Board of Regents were involved in approving major
expenditures like the Elson S. Floyd Cultural Center and SPARK building, he
said, but he does not know if they played a role in Floyd’s decision to forgive
the loans.
Weiler said Schulz feels it is important for the Regents to
have good insight into the budget and wants people to see what the budget looks
like through resources like the fiscal health website.
He said now the administration needs to figure out how to
fund on an ongoing basis.
Loan forgiveness total breakdown:
President Floyd forgave $26.7 million in internal university
loans for a variety of different projects including
Golf Course & Clubhouse – $10.10 million
Deficit coverage for WSU Athletics when former athletic
director Jim Sterk was hired – $3.8 million
Additional accumulated deficits for WSU Athletics – $4.5
million
Spokane Real Estate purchase – $5.3 million
Relocation costs for Veterinary Medicine – $1.8 million
Loan for Parking Renovations – $1.2 million
Additionally, WSU did not have the following expenses
budgeted, which resulted in $22.2 million additional deficit
Fiscal Year 2014 WSU Athletics annual deficit – $13.3
million
Overspending Financial Aid funds – $2.7 million
ESF Medical School consultants – $1.7 million
WSU Everett IT purchases – $1.2 million
All other areas – $3.3 million
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WSU researchers helping NASA get submarine to Titan
Former graduate student simulates extreme conditions of
Saturn moon
By Taylor Nadauld, Moscow Pullman Daily News staff
writer Feb 13, 2018
WSU researchers helping NASA get submarine to Titan
Ian Richardson spent many nights working away in the
Hydrogen Properties for Energy Research Lab at Washington State University to
design an experimental system that could simulate the extreme conditions on
Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.
His research will now aid NASA in its goal to send a
submarine 886 million miles across space to explore the oceans of Titan,
believed to be the only other celestial body in the solar system besides Earth
with liquid accessible on its surface.
“(Titan has) a hydrological system just like ours where it
rains, there’s rivers, there’s lakes, there’s seas,” said Richardson, who is a
graduate fellow at WSU.
Of course, Titan’s oceans are not made of water. They are
made of methane and ethane, which interact with Titan’s nitrogen-rich
atmosphere. Temperatures on the moon reach minus-300 degrees Fahrenheit.
That is where Richardson’s research comes in. His challenge
from NASA was to simulate how a submarine would interact with the makeup of the
moon’s unique surface.
“It’s a very unique opportunity to advance both autonomous
vehicles, vehicles that will just do the whole mission profile themselves with
very little human interaction, and also help us design for conditions that are
very different than Earth,” Richardson said.
He was interning at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in
Cleveland where he was studying liquid hydrogen densities and helium in rocket
fuel when a scientist approached him with NASA’s questions about Titan.
The project would be similar to what Richardson had already
been testing with hydrogen and helium. He would observe a nitrogen-based fuel
and whether its interaction to temperatures emanating from the submarine would
cause outgassing, or bubbles, to appear.
Using a small, cylindric cartridge heater to represent the
submarine and give off heat, Richardson and a group of students cranked up the
heat of the cartridge and added it to a test chamber filled with an extremely
cold liquid mixture to observe when the nitrogen began outgassing.
“It wasn’t that difficult to just change the fluids to be
liquid methane and liquid ethane with dissolved nitrogen in it. So it was
really fast and easy for me to do here at WSU versus NASA having to set up a
whole new experimental system themselves and get all the equipment to do it and
figure out all the experimental techniques,” Richardson said.
But the process was not without its difficulties. Jacob
Leachman, associate professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials
Engineering and overseer of the HYPER Lab, said it could take a full day just
to get the temperatures right or to fill the chamber with the liquid mixture.
“The experiments don’t work on your schedule, you work on
their schedule,” Richardson said.
The research now gives NASA a confidence threshold to go off
of as it continues its attempt to develop an otherworldly submarine.
Leachman said NASA wants to get the submarine to Titan by
the moon’s next spring season. That won’t come around for about another 20
years, he said, and scientists will have to take into account the years it
would take a potential submarine to reach Titan from Earth in the first place.
In the meantime, Leachman said he and Richardson are hoping
to work with NASA in the future on designing the actual submarine and observing
how its different components, such as propellers, interact with Titan’s oceans.
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From Vince Grippi’s A GRIP ON SPORTS at Spokane S-R website
WSU: If you had a vote in the college basketball poll, who
would you put No. 1 this week? Theo Lawson had to answer that question. And
yes, Santa Claus, he put Virginia on the top line. … It seems Elson Floyd
forgave the athletic department some of its debt before he died. That news was
shared with the faculty recently. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12, there is always
something to pass along about football recruiting. At least it seems that way.
… In basketball, there is a showdown in Tempe on Thursday night, pitting the
conference’s only two ranked teams, Arizona State and Arizona. … The middle of
the conference pack includes the mountain schools, Utah and Colorado as well as
Oregon. … There is some trouble at USC, with a football player running afoul of
the authorities.
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NCAA BASKETBALL
How we voted: More shakeup at the top and more
drama in the Big Ten Conference
UPDATED: Mon., Feb. 12, 2018, 9:29 p.m.
Michigan State's Nick Ward, right, shoots
against Purdue's Isaac Haas during the first half of an NCAA college basketball
game, Saturday, Feb. 10, 2018, in East Lansing, Mich. Michigan State won 68-65.
(Al Goldis / AP)
Michigan State's Nick Ward, right, shoots
against Purdue's Isaac Haas during the first half of an NCAA college basketball
game, Saturday, Feb. 10, 2018, in East Lansing, Mich. Michigan State won 68-65.
(Al Goldis / AP)
By Theo Lawson Spokane S-R
How we voted
1. Virginia (23-2)
2. Michigan State (24-3)
3. Xavier (23-3)
4. Cincinnati (22-2)
5. Villanova (23-2)
6. Texas Tech (21-4)
7. Gonzaga (23-4)
8. Auburn (22-3)
9. Purdue (23-4)
10. Clemson (20-4)
11. Ohio State (22-5)
12. Duke (19-5)
13. Wichita State (19-5)
14. Kansas (19-6)
15. Saint Mary’s (24-3)
16. North Carolina (19-7)
17. Arizona (20-6)
18. Rhode Island (20-3)
19. Tennessee (18-6)
20. West Virginia (18-7)
21. Michigan (20-7)
22. New Mexico State (22-3)
23. Arizona State (19-6)
24. Oklahoma (16-8)
25. Nevada (21-5)
*Records as of Sunday night
The Spokesman-Review’s Theo Lawson explains how
he voted in the Associated Press Top 25 with five general thoughts on this
week’s poll, a few notes on the Pac-12 and an update on local Top 25
representative Gonzaga.
Five thoughts
1) It was another week of Top 25 mayhem, with
seven losses in the top 10 and four of those coming in the top five. Between
Nos. 11 and 25, there were 11 more losses. No. 3 Purdue, No. 17 Oklahoma and
No. 24 Kentucky were all part of the two-loss club.
2) Michigan State, Xavier and Cincinnati all
made valid cases for the top ranking, but we went with Virginia once again
despite the Cavaliers losing 61-60 in overtime to unranked Virginia Tech. Most
preliminary NCAA tournament bracket projections like UVA as the top overall
seed and Tony Bennett’s group is still defending better than anyone out there.
In their split, the Cavs conceded only 116 points and they’ve only given up 224
in their last four games.
3) The race in the Big Ten was not much of one
until Purdue crumpled twice last week, losing to both Ohio State and Michigan
State. Winning both would’ve practically sealed a regular-season title for the
Boilermakers. Instead, the Buckeyes moved to the front of the Big Ten pack and
these next two weeks become crucial in determining who’ll grab the league’s top
seed.
4) Roy Williams’ Tar Heels were the bounce-back
kids last week, beating Duke and North Carolina State to extend their win
streak to three games. That followed a three-game skid that saw North Carolina
lost to Virginia Tech, NC State and Clemson in an eight-day span. The Heels are
on the rise again and junior forward Luke Maye, with 74 points in his last
three games, is one of the hottest players in the country.
5) Trae Young may wind up as the national player
of the year, but his Oklahoma Sooners no longer look like the national title
contender and Big 12 favorites they were about a month ago. Opponents are
either solving Young or ensuring he’s the only Sooner who scores. OU heads into
the final stretch of the regular season having lost three in a row and six of
its last eight games.
Perusing the Pac-12
Arizona – Sean Miller has been a critic of his
team’s defense these past few weeks and perhaps the message finally got through
to the Wildcats, who conceded 82 points to UCLA then gave up just 67 to a USC
team with a few more weapons. If Arizona can go 4-1 in its next five games, the
Wildcats would wrap up the Pac-12 Tournament’s top seed. That’s still a pretty
big “if” though.
Arizona State – For at least three games, the
Sun Devils looked like their November/December selves, winning twice against
the LA schools that currently sit second and third in the Pac-12 standings. ASU
would need a lot to happen in three weeks to win a regular-season championship,
but the Sun Devils still look like one of five or six teams that could claim a
trophy in Las Vegas.
Home cooking
Evidently, this Gonzaga team is one that can
hang with Saint Mary’s and defend Gaels big man Jock Landale. Landale had just
four points in a 13-point loss to the Zags on Saturday in Moraga. Gonzaga moved
up to No. 9 and No. 7 in our poll, so finishing the regular season with four
wins could potentially vault the Bulldogs into the top five before the WCC
Tournament and presumed rubber match with SMC.
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