Dot...Dot...Dawg (7/5)

And then it was clear. The divergent pulls of desire and responsibility, the very emotions that had reduced her ability to reason to levels seen among only the lowliest of species, had subsided. Everything in her field of vision had aligned in a rapturous burst of focus and light. The money. Her father. The incident. Of course, the dots. It was all there for her to grasp, if only she could extend her reach.

Good morning, Dawg fans. Dots for your pleasure.

• ESPN has published a comprehensive preview of the Huskies (and other teams) under their "Blue Ribbon Preview" moniker. Nothing new here, but worth a read if not for any other reason than it's comprehensiveness.
• Phil Steele released his bowl projections today and has UW slated to be the 7-seed coming out of the PAC and representing in the New Mexico Bowl against Air Force. Phil tends to be practical in his assessments of the college football and he tends to be pretty accurate with very little detectable bias. Ahead of UW he has Cal going to the Kraft Fight Hunger, Utah going to the Las Vegas Bowl, Oregon St going to the Sun Bowl, UCLA going to the Holiday Bowl, Stanford going to the Alamo Bowl, USC going to the Rose Bowl and Oregon going to the Orange Bowl as an at-large.
• Reign of Troy looks at the possibility of UW being a "trap game" for USC. Given that we've won the last two of three from USC, UW doesn't seem to register as a legit competitor in the eyes of the average Trojan fan. I get this when it comes from Duck fan - dropping eight in a row does have that effect - but it is a somewhat curious notion coming from Trojan fan.
• A nice blog post on one of my favorite recent Huskies - Donald Butler. DB is getting some mentoring from Takeo Spikes as he continues his lengthy recovery from his knee injury of a few years ago.
• Butler's old partner in crime, Mason Foster, has completed his conversion to MLB in Tampa Bay's new defense and things appear to be coming together very well. The author of this story calls Foster the "biggest piece of the puzzle". I like to think of him more as "the Missing Link". Here is another nice feature on Mason.
• The Husky Haul is ranking the current Men's Bball Roster in order of importance to the team. Interesting debate topic.
• In case you hadn't heard, Jon Brockman got traded (again) and has joined the Houston Rockets. The Brockness monster will continue to get opportunities in the NBA because he has the physical dimensions required to occupy a backup's seat on the bench. However, his career is quickly devolving to "journeyman" status and, with his contract, I expect he'll be making many more stops along the way.
• Spencer Hawes has also made news by resigning with the Philadelphia 76ers. I'm a little surprised that Hawes, an unrestricted free agent, didn't wait to see how the chips fell for a few other free agent big men. As it is, his new two year extension, worth about $6.5 mil per year, looks like a steal for the Sixers.
• UW is sending two more athletes to the Olympics. Go Dawgs!