The Pac-10 coaches teleconference is over for this week, and the most newsworthy item for UW fans may be that USC coach Tim Floyd said guard Dwight Lewis, the team's leading scorer at 15.8 per game, will try to play Thursday in Seattle.

Lewis suffered a sprained ankle in practice Monday.

Said Floyd this morning: "We anticipate Dwight will try to play this weekend. He got hurt the first minute of practice yesterday and was walking around on crutches. But he told me he'd be okay, so we'll check him today.''

The Trojans swept UW last year, winning in LA by 15 points and in Seattle by 14. But Floyd said he anticipates more difficult games this year.

"This is a different Washington team because of the addition of Isaiah Thomas and we are certainly a different team with the loss of O.J. Mayo, who was spectacular when we played in Seattle last year,'' Floyd said.

In fact, Mayo scored 29 for USC in Seattle last season.

UW coach Lorenzo Romar wasn't asked much of anything about this year's team, but was asked to talk about Brandon Roy, whose jersey will be retired prior to the USC game Thursday night.

"He could have gone to many different universities and some with maybe a higher profile than Washington (had at the time), but he wanted to stay home and represent his home state and his local school,'' Romar said. "This is what he wanted to do. He felt like 'I'm not going to go away, but I'll stay here and help my own school get on the map,' and he certainly did that. (We had) three NCAAs and two Sweet 16s and he was a big, big part of that. He wanted to done day have his jersey retired and that is happening for him. He stayed four years in school and he came in like so many do, as a boy, and left as a man, and now he's gone on and taken everything he got to the next level. Not just his game, but the way he handles himself off the floor. He's just a great, great example of someone in today's age, of someone who really did things the right way.''

Romar was also asked about how Roy was able to handle coming off the bench his junior year after injuring his knee early in the season

"There's no question, the day Brandon Roy joined our team as freshman, that day he was our best player, and that went on for four years,'' Romar said. "He was always our best player and everybody knew he was our best player. And yet when he came off the bench, he never complained one time, not once. When he came off his injury, things were going well and some days he could go and some days he couldn't. So instead of going back and forth, we just said 'you know what? Just come off the bench and if you can't go, you can't go. It won't be a disruption.' He did that and you didn't hear a peep out of him. He just kept playing, kept leading, and became a great leader for us.''