Washington State

AT WASHINGTON STATE When: 3:30 p.m. Where: Friel Court, Pullman, Wash. On the air: TV: Pac-12 Networks; Radio: 710. Records: USC 14-16, 9-8; Washington State 12-18, 3-14. Update: USC's chance of earning a first-round bye in next week's Pac-12 tournament ended with a 65-57 loss at Washington on Wednesday. The Trojans are now tied for sixth place with Washington and Arizona State. USC defeated Washington State, 72-68, at the Galen Center on Feb. 7. Before Wednesday, the regular-season finale against the last-place Cougars appeared to be a probable win for the Trojans.

UCLA forward Travis Wear will play against Washington on Saturday, Coach Ben Howland said. Wear left Wednesday's game against Washington State after re-injuring his right foot. Howland said that Wear practiced Friday and “made a positive step forward.” A victory over the Huskies gives the No. 23 Bruins at least a share of the Pac-12 championship. The 6-foot-10 Wear is UCLA's third-leading scorer, averaging 11 points per game, and second-leading rebounder, averaging 5.2 per game.

SEATTLE - You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, not around Westwood. Bruins fans were at their giddiest this season after the Bruins defeated Arizona a week ago. All it took was one trip to Pullman, Wash., to bring out pessimism in the ranks. The Bruins' 73-61 loss to Washington State - the Pac-12's last-place team - Wednesday was an embarrassing moment for a team that seemed on solid footing. Yet, with a victory over Washington on Saturday, the Bruins can clinch at least a share of the conference title.

Shabazz Muhammad plays 32 minutes and goes four for 19 with a grand total of three rebounds and zero assists against a Washington State team that has won three conference games all season after Coach Ben Howland says Shabazz is "one and done" at UCLA? As a lottery pick? I'm not sure which of them is more delusional at this point. Jim B. Parsons Canyon Lake :: Ben Howland is right. He did not adequately prepare the Bruins for the humiliating loss to last-place Washington State.

PULLMAN, Wash. -- Thuds don't come much louder than this. UCLA spent weeks restoring its image, climbing back to the top of the Pac-12 Conference, getting back into the rankings. One rainy night in Pullman put a dent in that. Washington State's 73-61 victory in a near-empty Beasley Coliseum was so surgically thorough that UCLA Coach Ben Howland spent nearly a half-hour sorting things out before meeting with the media. “Whether it was not being able to handle success, I was sitting there trying to figure it out after the game,” Howland said.

It was February 1993, the last time the UCLA men's basketball team traveled to Pullman, Wash., and came away with anything other than a win. Freshman Shabazz Muhammad, the Bruins' leading scorer this season, was nine months from being born. Kyle Anderson, a freshman who is UCLA's leading rebounder, was born seven months after that loss. "Wow," said Jordan Adams, who was born 17 months after the 67-56 loss. "That's a long time ago. " There have been 19 games since, and UCLA has won every one of them.

Forward Travis Wear sat out the final 5 minutes 24 seconds of UCLA's 74-69 victory over Arizona on Saturday. Wear is still struggling on an injured right foot. He played 17 minutes against the Wildcats. Whether he will be back at full strength when the Bruins face Washington State on Wednesday remains to be seen. UCLA Coach Ben Howland said that UCLA's medical staff “told me to play Travis 15-20 minutes. Hopefully he will be OK.” An MRI exam on the foot Thursday revealed no damage.

SEATTLE - Two activists jailed for refusing to cooperate in a federal grand jury investigation of anarchists in the Pacific Northwest were released from prison Thursday after a judge ruled there was little chance they would change their minds. The detainees, Matthew Duran and Katherine Olejnik, were freed from a detention center south of here where they had been held for more than five months, mostly in solitary confinement. Officials had hoped to pressure them to testify about suspected anarchists believed to have vandalized a federal appeals courthouse in Seattle during May Day demonstrations last year.

The third victim killed in the wild attack on the Las Vegas Strip early Thursday morning was a Seattle-area businesswoman on her way to the airport. Sandi Sutton-Wasmund, 48, of Maple Valley, Wash., was identified by the Clark County Coroner's Office on Friday night as the passenger in a taxi that burst into flames, killing her and the driver, Michael Boldon, 62. The cause of their deaths was listed as multiple blunt-force injuries. The cab had been struck by a Maserati that lost control after being struck by bullets fired from a Range Rover on the Strip, police said.