The Huskies are off the court from their open practice at the Rose Garden.

As usual, the work ended with a dunk session for the fans. Frankly, there weren't many fans in here in this mid-afternoon on a Wednesday. But those who were here seemed entertained.

I thought the best dunk was a nice, under-one-leg-and-in effort by Venoy Overton.

Isaiah Thomas gets credit for using Joe Wolfinger as a prop -- leaping over him and dunking. However, Wolfinger was considerable bent at the waist, so I had to subtract points for that.

Another nice one was the combo of Overton bouncing the ball off the backboard with Quincy Pondexter swooping in to slam it home. Scott Suggs and Justin Holiday tried a cool variation of that -- with Suggs bouncing the ball off the side of the backboard -- but Holiday couldn't finish.

A Holiday dunk probably got the biggest reaction, as his sliced between Jon Brockman and Artem Wallace, and they each boosted him as he leapt, reaching quite a height and slamming it home.

Well, the battle for the hearts of Oregon fans is in full flower. After MSU coach Rick Stanbury made his remorseless pitch for Husky-hating Oregon fans to cheer for his team, the Huskies countered.

During their just-completed press conference coach Lorenzo Romar and Jon Brockman said they fully assume that Northwest and Pac-10 pride will cause fans in the Rose Garden to cheer for them.

We’ll see.

“We’re fired and excited to get this opportunity,” Romar said in his opening statement. “We have not been in the tourney for a couple of years, and now that we are back, we have a lot of new faces.”

I also spoke to one of those new guys in the UW locker room. Former Curtis star Isaiah Thomas says hello to Tacoma. He’s clearly one of the guys that the Mississippi and Oregon media want to talk to, and he seemed to be having a good time, conducting his interviews while sitting in his locker area.

Then the Huskies left for practice in the Rose Garden main arena, which is about to begin.

The Huskies went through their serious practice this morning at Portland State, with Ken Bone and Phil Nelson paying their respects before leaving for their own NCAA assignment.

The Rose Garden practice is mostly to entertain the fans … enough so where the worry is making sure no one gets hurt on the show-offy dunks.

Mississippi State players and coaches have just taken their turns at the microphone.

Four themes:

1.) MSU coach Rick Stansbury wants all the Oregon fans to funnel their Husky-hate into adopting his team tomorrow.

2.) He also says its a misconecption that there was some notable turning point in his team's season, just because they've won six games in a row. He says that was more a function of the schedule and a few close losses in the middle of the season that didn't really reflect a team playing poorly. However, he does admit that some of his freshmen are playing less like freshmen now.

3.) Speaking of freshmen: Which team has a true freshman starting point guard who played last season at a prep school? Answer: Both. And MSU coach Stansbury seems to think Dee Bost's matchup with UW's Isaiah Thomas could be one of the keys to the game. Stansbury particularly stresses Bost's ability to keep opposing guards from getting into the paint. Hmm.

4.) However, it seems that the shot-blocking abilities of MSU forward Jarvis Varnado going to be the focus of most pregame stories. Stansbury says Varnado blocks his 4.7 shots per game and influences a lot more than that. He also said that Varnado doesn't just block shots into the stands, but instead has a knack for either blocking them to himself or teammates, so the majority result in the Bulldogs taking possession.

When I saw the headline about the Sporting News projecting five first-round upsets I figured there was a pretty fair chance the Huskies might be among them.

But no.

Here's the list.

I've arrived at Portland's Rose Garden for today's Media Day. UW and Mississippi State take their turns at practice and interviews in the early afternoon. Here's the interview schedule for the three teams of primary interested to UW fans:

12:05 p.m. Mississippi State student-athletes
12:20 p.m. Mississipi State coach
12:50 p.m. Purdue student-athletes
1:05 p.m. Purdue coach
1:35 p.m. Washington student-athletes
1:50 p.m. Washington coach

Each team also practices in the Rose Garden today, and to my taste it's one of the fun days in sports as the arena is thrown open and fans are invited to come watch for free. Free! Imagine. Something in sports free in 2009.

Mississippi State goes at 12:45, the Huskies go from 2:15 to 2:55.

I'll be back after each with highlights as our coverage counts down to the Huskies NCAA tournament opener at around 1:45-2 p.m. Thursday from the Rose Garden.

Meanwhile, here's my story from today, comparing the last UW tournament team led by Brandon Roy with this UW tournament team led by Jon Brockman.

Yes, in one way, the Seattle P-I was a News Tribune competitor. But as newspapers and a journalists, we also felt like members of the same family.

So, yes, it's depressing to wake up today and realize there is no print version of the P-I hitting doorsteps all across the region. I believe the region is less well-served because of it.

On a personal level, I liked and respected P-I Huskies football writer Molly Yanity and Huskies basketball writer Dan Raley. I miss them already and wish them -- all the former P-I employees -- all the best.