Yeah, we lost. I guess you knew that. That one hurt more than most Coug losses because it was against the Huskies and we led by 13 points with 12 minutes to go.

In the last 10 minutes, we looked tight. We looked like we were trying not to lose. And someone explain to me why Patrick Simon took that game-losing shot from the corner?

I love the kid’s story, coming from Ephrata and all, but I just haven’t seen much in the way of consistency from him. I thought he was supposed to be a long-range specialist, but he lacks confidence or lacks something, I don’t know what it is.

In his defense, he never should have been asked to take that shot. He was cold and hadn’t played in the game until he was inserted with 19 seconds to go. I’m a Ken Bone fan, but what was he thinking there?

It’s one thing to put Simon in, but then to have him take that shot when he’s cold off the bench. I don’t get it. Someone explain that to me. Honestly, the kid hasn’t been reliable with his shot whether he’s hot, cold, luke-warm, on-fire, whatever.

Did it not make more sense to have Brock Motum try to create something on his own, especially with a fouled-out Aziz N’Diaye on the bench. Or I would have opted for a Reggie Moore drive that might have resulted in a three-point play and a victory or two free throws and overtime.

Then again, you could justifiably argue that Moore probably would have missed one if not both of his free throws the way the Cougars were shooting them yesterday. How could they go 6 for 20 from the foul line in the second half? Inexplicable stuff from the Pac-12’s best free-throw shooting team.

I’ll have a link later to a Kitsap Sun column about watching the game at the Village Pub in Magnolia. Fun times there. I want to thank the Village Pub for having the 710 ESPN Seattle crew there for a viewing party.

I hope that everyone who went had a good time in spite of the outcome of the game. Four of us – including former Mariner Dave Henderson – threw in $100 each to buy 80 Jagermeister and Fireball shots at the end of the game.

Go Cougs. We’ll beat the Huskies in the Pac-12 tournament. And if we don’t, oh well, we’re still Cougs and they’re not.

Join me for the 5:00 tip off of the Cougs vs. Dawgs basketball game at the Magnolia Village Pub this Saturday. In this video, I outline my strategy for defeating the Huskies.

A big weekend is coming up for the Cougs with Mike Leach arriving in Seattle Friday night to show us his new recruits and talk about his team and basically fire us all up again.

The event will be held at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center on the waterfront. We will broadcast “The Kevin Calabro Show” from Bell Harbor from 3 to 7 p.m. on 710 ESPN Seattle.

We’re planning to have a lot of Washington State guests on the show, including Leach, athletic director Bill Moos, Jack Thompson, Robbie Tobeck, Marcus Trufant and Chris Dyko, the guy I’m looking forward to interviewing the most.

Dyko’s a lovable lug who was one of the anchors on one of our best offensive lines ever. Every time I see him, I think of the 1988 game in the Rose Bowl when we beat top-ranked UCLA and Troy Aikman. What a beautiful day that was. I remember being really hammered and really happy.

Dyko goes to almost every Cougar game, home and away, and for reasons I can’t fully explain, I love the guy to death. It’s probably because his main goal in life is to have fun, which is mine too.

If you have questions for Leach or Moos or Trufant or anyone else, pass them along and I’ll ask them.

Should be a fun afternoon and evening. More than 800 Cougs are expected at Bell Harbor. If you don’t have a ticket and want to go, maybe you can. I’d visit wsucougars.com for more information. Or call WSU West. Or heck, just show up and I’m guessing they’ll take your $100 and let you in.

Then on Saturday night, I hope you’ll join me at a 710 ESPN Seattle viewing party at the Magnolia Village Pub for the Cougar-Husky game. Tipoff is at 5 p.m. There will be prizes, drink specials, a Cougar trivia contest at halftime and hopefully a Cougar win to cap it all off.

Go Cougs.

With the possibility of the NBA returning to town, I started to reminisce about when the Sonics first came to town in 1967 – I was 10 years old and thrilled when the NBA put an expansion team here. The news of the arena plans brought back memories of Bob Rule, Walt Hazzard, Tom Meschery, Bob Weiss and other members of the original Sonics. Loved that team to death, and back then, play-by-play man Bob Blackburn was my hero too.

Read my entire article, Who Will Fill Seattle’s New Arena, at the Kitsap Sun.

Just some reminiscing about my old hang out in Bellevue.

Nice win by the Cougs last night in Pullman. It was an unbelievable first half, outscoring the Sun Devils 36-8 and pretty much coasting the rest of the way.

I admit to being worried early in the second half when we couldn’t break Arizona State’s full-court press, allowing the Sun Devils to get within 43-31 with 13:07 to go.

I didn’t think we were going to blow all of that 28-point lead, but I thought we might blow the pointspread – I had a small bet on the Cougs -8 ½ and figured ASU just might cover.

Fortunately Patrick Simon hit a three from the right corner and we were able to pad the lead again.

As I’ve written off and on all year, I don’t know what to make of the Cougs. They can be pretty good or pretty bad on any given night. I know this – not as many people care about them as they did during the Dick and Tony Bennett era.

For obvious reasons – we’re not winning as much. But still, it bothers me when only 5,200 fans show up for a Saturday game against a conference opponent.

That type of apathy makes me wonder if coach Ken Bone is on the hot seat. I like to think that he’s not because I like Bone personally and believe that he’s a good coach.

But with the big-splash hiring of Mike Leach as our football coach, I just wonder if mediocrity from our basketball team will be tolerated much longer. I tend to think not.

So Saturday’s game against the Huskies is a big one – I feel like we’ve got a decent shot to beat the Dawgs, but we could just as easily get our doors blown off if Terrence Ross and Tony Wroten play the way they did yesterday against Arizona.

If you’re not going to Pullman for the game, hope you’ll join me at the Village Pub in Magnolia for a 710 ESPN Seattle viewing party. Should be a good time. Tipoff is set for 5 p.m., and we’ll have a halftime trivia contest and give-aways galore.

Go Cougs.

Hope you like the new look on the website. My thanks to Patrick Welch, who has completely redesigned the site, making it cleaner, cooler and more user friendly. Your comments are welcomed and appreciated.

Here’s a link to today’s video, reminiscing about the demise of the Mustard Seed in Old Bellevue.

I recently sent the video below to my newsletter subscribers. They got first crack at questions for Angela Rypien, quarterback for the Seattle Myst (watch the video). The newsletter readers sent me some good questions and I’ll post the interview for everyone to see next week sometime.

Amid all of the excitement for a proposed arena in Seattle is this important tidbit from yesterday’s news conference – it won’t be built until an NBA AND NHL team are secured.

I was working under the hopeful assumption that Chris Hansen, the private-investing hedge-fund hero dude, had plans to build the arena without a firm commitment from an NBA and/or an NHL team.

That, of course, was naïve on my part. I was just thinking that Hanson would bet on the come, going ahead with the project regardless, knowing that financially strapped NBA and NHL teams would be Seattle bound at some point in the near future. They would be even more apt to show up here if a new arena were empty and ready for them to move in.

Then I thought – clearly I do too much thinking – that Hansen would build the arena if he had one commitment from an NBA team OR and NHL team. But we learned at the news conference that that isn’t the case either.

So even though I remain wildly optimistic about the NBA returning to Seattle and the NHL showing up for the first time since the Metropolitans disappeared 90-some years ago, the details and timeframe are rather sketchy.

I like to think Hansen is privy to behind-the-scenes stuff that tells him, for instance, that the Kings won’t be able to come up with a financial plan for a new arena, prompting a move to Seattle.

I also like to think that he knows something about the situation in Phoenix, suggesting that a move by the Coyotes is imminent because they’re not going to be able to find local ownership.

And if they can’t find local ownership, there’s a rich guy in Chicago, Don Levin, who said he’d be interested in owning an NHL team in Seattle. Which would be perfect because Hansen is interested in owning an NBA team but not an NHL team.

Or maybe he knows something about the fragility of other teams such as the New Orleans Hornets. But it was just the other day that NBA commissioner David Stern said the league was committed to staying in New Orleans and has two or three prospective buyers that will be required to keep them there.

I sit here and assume that Hansen is a brilliant man who has his ducks in a row, but then I wonder if he does. I have no doubts about the financing of the project, but what if Sacramento announces on March 1 that it has come up with a feasible financial plan of its own for a new arena.

And what if the Hornets find a buyer who signs a lease extension at the New Orleans Arena? And the Coyotes get a local bigwig to buy the team and keep it in Glendale, Ariz.?

Then what? Do the shovel-wielders and backhoe drivers in Seattle sit on their hands and wait two or three or even four years before the first cubic yard of dirt is moved?

When you’re wildly optimistic like I am, you don’t want to become slightly pessimistic because that would be a contradiction in terms, not to mention, not much fun. The definition of not much fun is having this arena plan in place with no prospective tenants.

I would have much rather heard Mayor Mike McGinn say that the project will start when ONE team is secured in Seattle.

Because here’s the thing – even those of us in the wildly optimistic camp have to invest in blind faith to think that the arrival of two teams will magically coincide with each other.

I mean, isn’t there a chance that Seattle gets either the Kings or the Coyotes but not both? What happens then? What if the Kings want to move to Seattle and are fine with playing in KeyArena for two years while the new arena is built.

But will they move here if an NHL team doesn’t join them right away in Seattle? Maybe there’s some wiggle room, and maybe there’d be assurances from the NHL that an expansion team would be coming in the future, but would Hansen be able to proceed with his plans with one firm commitment and one that’s not as solid?

Given his background as a big Sonics’ fan, Hansen is more interested in acquiring an NBA team. But what if an NHL team comes here first?

I read a story in the Globe and Mail yesterday that said that KeyArena would be less than adequate as a temporary home for the NHL. It would have 11,000 seats, 2,000 of which would have obstructed views. The story said an NHL owner at the Key would take a financial bath, especially if the team played there for two years, presumably lessening the chances that a team would want to make the move here. Maybe the Tacoma Dome would be a better temporary option for hockey.

But again, I’m assuming that Hansen must have a handle on all of these scenarios, positive and negative. Just like him, I’m hoping for the former because when you’re wildly optimistic, you want no part of the latter.

Raise your hand if you can figure out the Cougars. I can’t. For all the world, I figured we’d lose to the Beavers in Corvallis last night.

We hadn’t won a Pac-12 game on the road. I assumed the Beavers were better than us, even though we beat them in Spokane earlier this year.

But what a nice surprise it was to turn on the radio last night and have Bud Nameck telling us that the Cougs led by 15 early in the second half. Unbelievable. I don’t know where that came from, but it was good to hear.

Brock Motum continued his incredible stretch of play with 24 points in the Cougs’ 83-73 win. Motum is averaging, what, around 26 points in the last four games. Baseball always talks about crafty left-handers – Motum is basketball’s version, always finding ways to get his shot off inside.

Who could have envisioned Brock Motum doing this? Not me. You? Like Arizona coach Sean Miller says, Motum is the Pac-12’s most improved player this season. Heck, he might be entering the conference player of the year conversation.

Let’s see if we can keep it up against Oregon tomorrow at 2 o’clock. The Ducks, in a delightful display of dominance, throttled the Dawgs 82-57 last night. I don’t expect us to get throttled like that, but I’ll be surprised if we win. I’m just hoping we keep it close with a chance to win in the last two minutes.

CALABRO SHOW: We’ll be at the Seattle Golf and Travel Show today from 3 to 6. Hope you’ll stop by and say hello. Or better yet, stop by and say Go Cougs.

WEBSITE NEWS: This here website will unveil a new splashy look over the weekend. It will be better than ever before. Special thanks to Patrick Welch for making all of this possible.

COMING UP: I’ll be at the Village Pub in Magnolia on Feb. 25 at 5 p.m. for the Apple Cup of hoops – the Cougs vs. the Huskies. It’s a 710 ESPN Seattle Cougar viewing party. Should be a good time, especially if the Cougs win, and even if they don’t, we’ll drink beer and down shots of Jagermeister, I can promise you that.

THEN THERE’S THIS: I’m passing this item along because I’m crazy about my golden retriever too. Cubs GM Jed Hoyer told a Chicago radio show that he’s driving to spring training so he can take his golden retriever with him, saying: “I love my dog too much, apparently.”

Hey Jed, if you’ve got a golden, it’s impossible to love him too much.

You can follow me on Twitter if you’d like at @cougsgo. I’m on Facebook too at Jim Moore. Thanks for stopping by the website. Go Cougs.

Here’s yesterday’s column from the Kitsap Sun, weighing Peyton Manning’s chances of joining the Seahawks.

After I wrote the column, news came out that Manning would be willing to sign an incentives-laden contract with a minimal base salary. That makes him even more attractive as a quarterback alternative in Seattle.