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The Shadle Park Highlanders played well in the first half, building as much as a 10-point lead before going into halftime with a 36-28 lead over the O’Dea Irish.
Senior point guard Robby Douglas led the Highlanders with 12 points. O’Dea trimmed Shadle’s lead to 26-23 with 2:33 to go before intermission, but a 10-5 spurt opened a comfortable margin back up for the Highlanders.
More later.
Click the tab below to read my unedited State 3A tournament girls basketball story.
We didn’t post right after the game, but we do have to unedited version of our game story about the women’s team loss to Arizona. Read on.
The first sign that something was amiss came in Game 2 of the season on Nov. 15, when Idaho traveled to Texas Southern after toppling Utah and lost by 7. Don Verlin seemed at a loss to describe the loss to such a pedestrian team after a quality opening win, but that was just the start to a topsy-turvy season that officially came to an end tonight in a 87-71 loss to host Nevada in the quarterfinals of the WAC tournament. The Vandals close the year at 15-16.
Click below for more.
It’s a good thing we told you in the advance the Big Sky Conference women’s basketball court at Eastern Washington’s Reese Court was all about parity or you might think the first day was full of upsets with the No. 6 and No. 5 seeds winning. What was upsetting is they won big, No. 6 Montana State 89-66 over No. 3 Sacramento State and No. 5 Portland State 75-61 over No. 4 Idaho State.
Today’s schedule has PSU against No. 2 Montana at 3:30 and MSU against No. 1 EWU at 6. We have a quick look at the Eagle matchup below.
In other news, Washington State lost by two to Arizona at the Pac-10 Tournament (look for Vince Grippi’s post shortly) and last night Idaho won it’s WAC opener and faces league champion Fresno State on Friday.
A short bracketology update: ESPN has Gonzaga as a No. 7 at Notre Dame against Middle Tennessee, which thundered the Zags in their first NCAA Tournament in 2007, College RPI has them as an 8 in Minneapolis against North Carolina; both those have EWU/Big Sky as a 16 at Stanford; and Realtime RPI has GU as a 5 in Austin against Bowling Green with EWU as a 15 in Tempe against Notre Dame.
The Shadle Park Highlanders played a solid first half, taking a 24-14 lead into halftime.
They welcomed the return of sophomore standout Aleisha Hathaway, who scored seven of Shadle’s nine first-quarter points.
But she had to sit out the second quarter with two fouls.
More later.
We’re in the Galen Center for the opening game of the women’s Pac-10 basketball tournament. The Washington State band is in attendance. A few administrators and a sprinkling of fans. As the Cougars prepare to face the Arizona Wildcats the one thing that stands out is the paucity of Wildcats. There are only eight players on the UA team – heck, it’s hard for them to run shooting drills – but that hasn’t stopped the Wildcats from posting a 13-16 overall record, though they were just 6-12 in Pac-10 play. … The Cougars are 8-21, 3-15 in conference. But they lost their first 10 Pac-10 games, which means they are 3-5 since, including wins over third-place USC (18-11) and fifth-seed ASU (17-12). … The last three games, WSU coach June Daugherty has changed her starting lineup, going with 6-foot junior Katie Madison and bringing 6-1 Rosie Tarnowski off the bench. … Arizona’s Ify Ibekwe, a 6-2 post, has 16 double-doubles this season and the junior has 38 in her career. One came against WSU (12 points, 11 rebounds) in the recent 73-66 win in Tucson. She averages a Pac-10 best 11.3 rebounds a game. … The Wildcats also won 67-60 in Pullman early in January. … WSU freshman post Carly Noyes posted her career high with 15 points in the first meeting between the teams. Sophomore guard April Cook averaged 14 points in the two meetings. … We’ll be back at the end of the game with a quick post.
Try as they might to give it away in regulation, the East Valley Knights prevailed over the Mount Rainier Rams 77-72 in double overtime in the State 3A tournament Thursday at the Tacoma Dome.
Jenni White and Kimmie Thatcher led the Knights with 22 points apiece.
More later.
The North Central Indians used balance and better execution to pull away from the Bremerton Knights 71-55 at the State 3A tournament Thursday morning at the Tacoma Dome.
Four players ended up in double figures led by Lucas Evans (18 points) and Brendon Olsen (15).
NC (16-12) takes on defending state champ Franklin (16-13) Friday at 11 a.m.
More later.
The worst thing about overtime games, if you are on the losing side, is the sense afterward that one thing, one little thing, one block out, one shot, one pass, may have made the difference between winning and losing. Or 13 missed free throws. We have some links, so read on.
One more overtime game between the Ducks and WSU. One more close loss for the Cougars. One more tough defeat. Two WSU stats stick out: 17, as in turnovers, 12 of those in the first half; and 12 of 25 from the line in an overtime game. We have our unedited game story on the link, so read on. By the way, I spent most of the end of the game preparing a post-buzzer post only to see it disappear into nothingness when my internet connection dropped. Sorry.
Click the tab below to read my uneditied State 3A boys basketball tournament story.
Folks, I’ve been at high school tournaments that have been run better. We’re sitting here watching the Cougars play the University of Oregon and have no access to statistics – at any time. Even gametracker is either way behind or off line. So you’re going to have to rely on my stats. The Cougars jumped out to an 11-5 lead, then forgot how to play transition defense - or take care of the ball. In the final 8 minutes, 47 seconds, Oregon scored 17 of its 24 points in transition. Fastbreak layups, transition 5 footers, kick outs for 22-footers. You name it, Oregon scored it. If it wasn’t for WSU’s 3-point shooting – I have the Cougars 5 of 12 from beyond the arc – this would be ugly. Oh, and the play of Brock Motum off the bench. The freshman had six points – complimenting Klay Thompson’s 11 points – and a team-high five rebounds – plus kept two other possessions alive with hustle. But unless WSU takes care of the ball (11 turnovers) and does a better job in transition – and the Cougars keep Malcom Armstead and Tajuan Porter in front of them a little better – it won’t have a shot at a comeback. More at the end of the game …
The Shadle Park Highlanders got out to a 16-2 lead, then pushed it to 35-15 before settling for a 39-23 lead at halftime.
The Highlanders attacked fullcourt pressure the best way possible - by attacking the rim.
Sophomore Brett Boese led with 12 points.
More later.
Click the tab below to read my unedited 3A girls state tournament story.
Less than an hour to tipoff and we finally are getting you our pregame post. You ticked or happy? Either way, read on. We also have some football news.
The East Valley Knights gave a respectable account of themselves, pushing No. 1-ranked and defending state champ Kennedy Lancers to the finish before falling 61-55 at the State 3A tournament Wednesday.
EV senior point guard Jenni White had 17 points.
More later.
Can the Vandals finally string together a few stellar games and make some noise in the WAC tournament? We’ll find out starting tomorrow night when Idaho faces host Nevada in Reno. Click below for a story on the matchup — and UI’s adversity this season.
The North Central Indians opened a 20-9 in the first quarter, but they gave up all of that advantage and borrowed some.
The Union Titans took advantage of 19 NC turnovers en route to a 63-54 win in a State 3A tournament opener at the Tacoma Dome.
More later.
the Shadle Park Highlanders, 3A state runners-up last year, survived their first-round game Wednesday with a 47-46 win over the Capital Cougars.
The Highlanders played without leading scorer Aleisha Hathaway, a sophomore who averages 14 points per game.
Senior guard Jenna Humphrey was one of a handful of Highlanders who stepped up in place of Hathaway. Humphrey scored a game-high 17 points, including two key baskets late in the fourth quarter when Shadle took its first lead.
More later.
It’s hard to believe this could be the final day of Washington State University men’s basketball for the 2009-2010 season. But that is a possibility should the Cougars lose tonight. Is there still a chance of postseason play, of say a CBI bid? Sure. But the possibility became less and less realistic with each defeat as the season wound down. Another loss tonight might just put an ax in WSU’s year. We’ll see. Read on.
The Spokane Chiefs came up with a solid all-round effort to pick up a critical 5-2 over Kelowna Tuesday night to move within two points of the lead in the Western Division playoff chance with the end Western Hockey League season five days away.
“Our penalty kill was great in the second period, our power play gets us a goal when we could really use one and they had the one partial breakaway in the third but other than that we were pretty solid defensively,” Chiefs coach Hardy Sauter said. “And goals from some unusual suspects, which is OK. … It’s all a result of hard work and trusting our teammates.”
And the mental game was just as impressive. The unedited game story is below.
Click the tab below for a feature on West Valley girls basketball coach Lorin Carlon and his Eagles that will be published in Wednesday’s newspaper.
Carlon is pictured above at practice.
Click the tab below to read a feature on the Shadle Park boys basketball team’s seniors that will appear in Wednesday’s newspaper.
Attention shifts away from Gonzaga, safely in the NCAA Tournament, to the hopes of Eastern Washington, Idaho and Washington State, who play in league tournaments this week.
The Eagles have the best shot as Big Sky Conference champion and host for the league tournament, which begins Thursday at Reese Court.
But while we managed to touch bases with Cougar coach June Daugherty, our attention in the basketball notebook this week goes beyond the court, posted below along with a lot of notes that basically have no chance to make it into the paper. I also need to correct yesterday’s post, it was Brianne Ryan who earned co-Defensive Player of the Year honors and she was the third Eagle to win that, joining Michelle Demetruk in 2003 and Joanna Chadd in 2006.
Washington State freshmen KiKi Moore and Carly Noyes were recognized in the first Pac-10 media post-season voting.
Finally, while the Zags went down a spot in the AP Poll, they moved up to 15th in the ESPN/Coaches Poll.
We got an early start flying out of Las Vegas and a late start on the day-after post. But we’re home, welcomed by some wind and snow, and here’s a recap of Saint Mary’s 81-62 win over the Zags in the WCC title game.
Links: S-R gamer, John Blanchette column, Chris Anderson photos, San Francisco Chronicle gamer, Contra Costa Times here and here, A.P. gamer, Seattle Times column, Tacoma News Tribune gamer and Las Vegas Review-Journal gamer.
Read on.
The Washington State men’s basketball team is in Southern California, getting ready for the Pac-10 Tournament that starts with its game tomorrow night at 8 on FSN. The women will follow the same route in about 24 hours (the Pac-10 women’s tourney starts a day later at the Galen Center). In advance of the men’s game, we have our look at the Oregon game (seems like I typed those same words just the other day) on the link, so read on.
Idaho basketball coach Don Verlin confirmed this afternoon that senior guard Kashif Watson will not travel with the team to the WAC tournament in Reno, Nev. Watson was suspended indefinitely Friday for making critical comments on Twitter directed toward Verlin. He missed his final home game and it appears his career is over if the Vandals do not get a postseason tournament bid. UI plays host Nevada on Thursday at 6 p.m.
Steve Bergum covers EWU football and men's basketball, college baseball, and writes weekly golf column during the summer.
Recent work by Steve
Vince Grippi covers WSU sports and invites readers to share their thoughts on the sports news of the day.
Recent work by Vince
Greg Lee covers high school sports throughout Inland Northwest.
Recent work by Greg
Jim Meehan covers Gonzaga basketball, Whitworth football, Spokane Shock football, college volleyball and prep softball.
Recent work by Jim
Dave Trimmer covers a variety of high school, college and professional sports and is the primary writer on the weekly Then & Now series.
Recent work by Dave
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