After a tough first half, things couldn't have gone better Thursday night for the Eastern Washington men's basketball team, which rallied to beat the Lumberjacks 74-68.

The Eagles evened their conference record to 5-5, and got a great opportunity to improve  their postseason situation

Attached is a brief postgame interview with Gonzaga Prep boys basketball coach Matty McIntyre after his Bullpups rallied from a 23-8 deficit in the first quarter to pull away from Lewis and Clark. Here's a link to the game story.

The Central Valley boys won their 11th straight and University of Idahho-bound Ty Egbert went off for 40 points here. The University girls rallied to top Mt. Spokane.

CLICK the tab below to see updated Great Northern League boys and girls scoring leaders provided by Cheney athletic director Jim Missel.

Not sure if I actually slept last night or if I simply dreamed that I slept for a couple hours. I’m guessing Gonzaga’s staff and players were pretty restless after a disappointing 83-73 setback to BYU last night at the Marriott Center.

So many things went wrong. Another stinker of a first half — that’s two straight, after trailing Portland by four last Thursday. Three, really, counting the San Diego game (32-28 GU at the break). Another road test failed. GU is 11-1 at home and 3-0 on neutral courts but just 3-3 on the road with two double-digit WCC losses. Another rash of turnovers, an issue that has surfaced from time to time with GU this season. Another subpar performance in a big game.

First, the links: S-R game story, other reports by the Salt Lake Tribune (also here), Daily Herald (also here).

Read on for my day-after BYU post.

A GRIP ON SPORTS

So we are supposed to have six more weeks of winter, right? Well if it's anything like the preceding six weeks, I'm fine with that. Other than a couple days, this has been an easy winter to navigate in the Inland Northwest. Now for the basketball around the area, that hasn't been as warm. Read on.

COUGARS

FROM PULLMAN — As usual, we round up Thursday's Pac-12 basketball action in our Friday morning post. And we've got some more quotes from last night's WSU game. Read on.

Idaho had two highly winnable WAC games the last six days. And in both, the Vandals fell flat at pivotal moments. After losing track of Hawaii in the last few minutes on Saturday, UI could do little right in the first half at Fresno State on Thursday night in a 65-55 loss.

The back-to-back losses have dropped Idaho back to. 500 — on the year (11-11), in the WAC (4-4) and in the last four years in conference games under Don Verlin (28-28). More on the Vandals after the jump.

BYU, which ended GU's season last year in the NCAA Tournament, handed the Bulldogs another lopsided defeat Thursday that will make Gonzaga's bid for a 12th straight WCC title even more difficult.

BYU rolled to an 83-73 win, dropping GU to 17-4, 7-2 in the WCC. Saint Mary's is 11-0 after knocking off San Diego.

You can read my game story here. Check back tomorrow for a day-after post.

COUGARS

FROM PULLMAN — Washington State stayed perfect at Beasley this season with a 60-53 win over USC. Here's our overview.

Spokane Chiefs defenseman Corbin Baldwin received a two-game suspension by the Western Hockey League after a major checking to the head penalty and a game misconduct in Wednesday night's 4-1 loss at Kamloops.

Baldwin, one of three 20-year-olds on the team, will miss the Chiefs' games this weekend when they host Victoria today and travel to Kootenay on Saturday.

The ailing Chiefs are already playing with limited reserves, as Tanner Mort (upper body, two weeks), Cole Wedman (upper body, one week) and Reid Gow (right hand, one month) are all sidelined with injuries.

COUGARS

FROM PULLMAN — Might have been easy to forget amid all of yesterday's football excitement that there's still a basketball game tonight. We're on press row and have some thoughts. Read on.

COUGARS

FROM PULLMAN — Mike Leach spoke about his recruiting class for roughly 51 minutes on Wednesday. And while we didn't transcribe the entire thing, we did come close. The result is posted below for your perusal.

Click the tab below to see today's menu.

A GRIP ON SPORTS

Last year I trekked up U.S. 195 to Northern Quest Casino for Washington State's signing day get-together. This year all I had to do was drive from home. But there was a lot more that was different to the event than just a much shorter drive. Read on.

Good morning. I was a little surprised — and not just because it was 5-something in the morning — when I saw the odds in the S-R and BYU was listed as a 3.5-point favorite over visiting Gonzaga tonight. Figured it'd be a toss-up or 1-point either way.

Lots of coverage of the first GU-BYU WCC matchup, beginning with my game preview, GU-portion of S-R basketball notebook, glance and John Blanchette's column. Elsewhere, there was coverage in the Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News and Daily Herald.

Check back here tonight (11-ish) for my game story. For in-game updates, follow me at twitter.com/SRjimm.

COUGARS

FROM PULLMAN — Boy, do we have some links for you. Lots of them. Links for days and miles. So many that we've broken today's post into three parts. Read on for both of them.

COUGARS

FROM PULLMAN — Here's the complete list of Washington State's signees, with comments from Mike Leach about each of them. Click here to watch Leach's press conference.

UPDATED

The video is of Central Valley boys basketball coach Rick Sloan. I asked him about his team's 10th straight win Tuesday, 69-52 over Shadle Park. Here's a link to the CV/Shadle boys story and roundup of the other Greater Spokane League games.

The shocker last night occured in the girls when the No. 1-ranked Central Valley girls were upset 54-53 by the vastly improved Shadle Park Highlanders. Here's that story along with the other GSL games.

The Post Falls boys topped Lake City to throw the 5A Inland Empire League race into a logjam. Here's our area boys roundup. And Lewiston's girls grabbed share of league title with Coeur d'Alene, but the first night of the 5A Region I tournament will be held at Coeur d'Alene on Friday.

Here's a link to the updated GSL boys and girls scoring leaders.

UPDATED: 2:20 p.m

Robb Akey and his staff at Idaho have finalized their 2012 recruiting class — 20 high school and JC players and three JC players who are already on campus. The group includes Coeur d'Alene High's Chad Chalich and Deon Watson. Another Idaho product, Eagle High kicker Jace Johnson, has also signed.

Chalich is one of three prep QBs apart of the class, but only two will stay at the position.

See the full list below — and we have an update on the Vandals' coaching staff openings after talking to Akey this afternoon.

Eastern Washington announced its recruiting class Wednesday morning, which includes seven defensive backs, 12 defensive players total - and a quarterback named Bowe.

“Every position required a hole or two to be filled, and we did a good job of that,” said EWU head coach Beau Baldwin.

The Eagles signed Bowe Merin, a 6-foot-2, 190-pound QB out of Stockton, Calif.

Read on to see the complete list of Eagle signees…

As in Bowe Merin, a 6-foot-2, 190-pound quarterback from Stockton, Calif., who signed a national letter of intent Wednesday to play at Eastern Washington. Here are some video highlights of Merin from last year.

For the season in his only year as a starter at St. Mary's of Stockton, Merin was 73-of-134 for 1,158 yards, 13 TDs and seven interceptions. St. Mary’s finished the year 9-3 overall and won the Tri-City League title with a perfect 5-0 record.