Nevada hoops does the right thing

Sports fodder for a Friday morning ... In its never-ending frenzy of trying to dream up new ways to connect with the community, package its product and peddle tickets, every now and then the university up on North Virginia Street takes a step back from the business of sports and makes us smile.

This week the Nevada Wolf Pack men's basketball team announced it was giving a scholarship to seldom-used guard Keith Fuetsch. It was an announcement that hardly anyone outside the McCarran circle probably even noticed or cared about. But it was a reminder that college sports hasn't totally turned itself into an infomercial trying to sell us steak knives and industrial strength paper towels. Fuetsch played a grand total of 51 minutes over his first two seasons as a walk-on. He's been a back-up to the back-ups and, well, if that changes this season it will be a long year at Lawlor Events Center. But the Bishop Manogue graduate works his tail off in practice, gets as much out of his 6-foot, 170 pounds as anyone could and he's an asset to his teammates. It's just nice to see the Pack reward all that.

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Sports Illustrated believes the Wolf Pack football team will lose to Oregon, Boise State and Texas Tech, beat UNLV and New Mexico and sweep through its seven Western Athletic Conference games for a 9-3 regular season. That seems to be the safe prediction for this Pack season. Yes, there are five or six games on the schedule that the Pack simply cannot lose no matter how many players get locked in the men's room at kickoff. So, yes, it likely all adds up to a 9-3 year. But the gut feeling here (they've earned that gut feeling after last year) is that they will somehow, someway find a way to go 2-2 after the first four weeks and end up 10-2.

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Don't give up hope yet, San Francisco Giants fans. We know the Giants were six games out on Thursday morning. And we know their offense makes a World Cup soccer game look like an Arena Football League shootout. A six-game deficit with a month to play, though, is not an impossible dream. And it's not like they are chasing the 1927 New York Yankees. It's the Arizona freaking Diamondbacks. As soon as the Diamondbacks realize they are in a pennant race they'll wilt like a month-old Mother's Day bouquet of roses.

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If the Giants would have rid themselves of Aaron Rowand and Miguel Tejada back in May or June (instead of doing it on Wednesday), they might have been a whole lot closer to first place than six games on Thursday morning. The Giants have spent the entire year waiting for Cody Ross, Aubrey Huff, Andres Torres, Pat Burrell and Brandon Belt to either get healthy physically or mentally and, well, they simply cannot wait any longer. Given all of the injuries - and slumps - this organization has suffered through this year it's a minor miracle they were just six games out on Thursday.

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Forget Boise State's Kellen Moore for the Heisman Trophy. The last player from a non-BCS conference to win the award was BYU's Ty Detmer in 1990. So you can eliminate all of the non-BCS schools and, while you're at it, eliminate everyone in the nation who doesn't play either quarterback or running back. That leaves Oregon running back LaMichael James and Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck. But they play in the West, nobody east of Reno respects the Pac-12 and the vast majority of Heisman voters live east of Omaha. Don't you just love the Heisman?

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The Reno Aces' quest for a Pacific Coast League championship begins Wednesday and Thursday at Aces Ballpark against the Sacramento Rivercats. The Aces will likely have to win both of their home games to have even the slightest chance of taking the best-of-5 opening series. Reno has gone 3-18 in its last 21 games away from the friendly confines of Evans Avenue and Second Street. Professional baseball now, though, all comes down to relief pitching.

It's the same in Triple-A.