33°Quick links: Boys ranch moves assets • GU basketball • WSU basketball • Kendall Yards plan • Swine flu
Really, could Washington State ask for much more? Sure, the Cougars are down by 11 points. And Martin Stadium is empty. But WSU is keeping it closer than anyone could have imagined. With only about 14 healthy bodies on defense, one of whom, Brandon Jones, was injured in the first quarter and another who it was counting on, Jay Matthews, not suited up with his shoulder injury. That opened the door for Easton Johnson, who was on offense until Wednesday. That’s when he moved back to safety. He’s made at least five tackles by my count. No matter what happens the rest of the way, this might have been the Cougars’ most impressive half.
What if they held a football game and nobody came? Would it still make a sound? We’ll examine that proposition on the link. Read on.
It’s football game day. The last one, in fact, in Pullman this year. Last night, as I wandered around town, the mass exodus of students – school is closed for the next week due to the Thanksgiving holiday – made me wonder how many will be at the game today. We’ll see in about six hours. But just because the town is empty doesn’t mean our post will be. There’s plenty if you just read on.
Blackfoot tripped up Sandpoint 29-23 in the 4A state football championship game.
Click the tab below to read my unedited game story.
Gonzaga moved to 2-1 with an easy 90-55 win over IPFW on Friday. The Mastodons (1-3) lost by 19 at WSU on Thursday.
The Bulldogs had four players in double figures. Rob Sacre and Matt Bouldin each scored 15 points.
Read my unedited game story below and check back tomorrow for a day-after post.
Doing what reporters do a lot, sitting, waiting for phone calls to be returned. While I’m enduring that, I figured I could post our advance for tomorrow along with our game-day items. Then you have all evening to read them. Weather prediction for kickoff Saturday: 38 and a 30 percent chance of a rain/snow mix. Nice. Read on.
Things are pretty quiet with Idaho football these days because of the bye week, but I wanted to pass along this note. I asked UI athletic director Rob Spear yesterday if any schools had called seeking permission to talk to coach Robb Akey (UNLV is rumored to be interested) and he said, “I have not been contacted.” He went on to say, “I think it isn’t something we should be caught off guard by. ”
Spear also said this about Idaho’s bowl hopes entering its regular season finale next week against Utah State: “I feel very good about our chances. Obviously we need to go 8-4 to solidify it.”
Kevin McCullough (pictured above), a fixture at linebacker for the Shock the last two seasons, is coming back to Spokane, which also signed two other players.
Read on for more. (There’s additional info on the three at spokaneshock.com.)
Eastern Washington University men’s basketball coach Kirk Earlywine has announced the signing of three high school recruits to national letters of intent and confirmed that JC transfer Tremayne Johnson, who was expected to be available this winter, will enroll at Eastern in January after clearing up some academic issues.
You can read more on the Eagles’ early signees here, and take at look at Saturday’s upcoming road game against Texas Arlington here.
Eastern Washington University’s closes its 2009 regular-season football schedule against Northern Arizona in Flagstaff on Saturday.
I’ve have attached an unedited version of the game advance that will appear in Saturday morning’s S-R below, and I’ve included this link to the game notes supplied by EWU’s sports information department and this link to what NAU’s sports info folks have posted about the game.
In addition, I’ve included this link to the Big Sky Conference’s weekly release and this link to the BSC notebook that ran in the S-R earlier this week and deals primarily with how well Matt Nichols, the Eagles’ record-setting senior quarterback, is coping with life on the field without his close friend and favorite target, Aaron Boyce.
Continue reading Eags looking for road win, FCS playoff berth »
The announced attendance in Beasley Coliseum last night was 5,399. It seemed like less than that. But down the road, when Klay Thompson’s name is mentioned among the greats of WSU basketball – and it will be – you know you’ll run into about 10,000 people who will tell you they were in Beasley when Thompson scored 37 against that Indiana team. We have our game story and a few more notes on the link, so read on.
Don’t want to waste any time thinking of something witty to say to entice you to read on. So I’ll say just a few words. Klay Thompson, 37 points. That enough?
COUGARS • UPDATED: 9 P.M.
Sorry this is late but … anyhow, Klay Thompson is putting on a clinic, rising above 6-foot-3 Zach Plackemeier to hit 10-of-12 shots and score 22 first-half points. At one point Thompson had 15 of WSU’s 22 points. The WSU single-game record is 45 by Brian Quinnett. Delivez Yearby has 11 shots for IPFW, but has hit just three, thanks to the defense of Abe Lodwick and DeAngelo Casto. We’ll be back with our story later.
UPDATE: Thompson finishes with a career-high 37 in 28 minutes as WSU earned a 89-70 victory.
We’re sitting at midcourt in Beasley waiting for the teams to come out for pregame warmup, so we thought we would share our thoughts. Remember, they’re free. And mom always said you get what you pay for. Read on.
The Spokane Chiefs game at Calgary on Sunday has been moved to a 5:00 PST start.
Chiefs captain Jared Cowen has been an Assistant Captain for Team WHL when they play Team Russia on Wednesday, Nov. 25th in Victoria, BC during the 2009 SUBWAY® Super Series. Cowen and Spokane forward Levko Koper will play in Team WHL’s first game of the SUBWAY® Super Series. The Kelowna Rockets will host the sixth and final game of SUBWAY® Super Series pitting CHL All-Stars against Team Russia the following night.
Spokane forwards Mitch Holmberg
(Sherwood Park, AB) and Brady Brassart (North
Vancouver, BC) are two of the 22 player on
Team Pacific’s roster that will participate
in the 2010 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge,
December 29 - January 4, 2010 in Timmins,
Ontario.
Team Pacific is comprised of 11 players from
BC and 11 players from Alberta. Each province
held a provincial camp over the summer to
identify a set number of players. These
players were evaluated during the first part
of the season by a selected group of high
performance evaluators.
Made a quick stop at football practice, and saw a couple things worth passing on. Plus, we have information from Paul Wulff’s press conference. Other than that, we’re looking at basketball, which will start in a couple hours. Read on.
Tri-Cities’ membership in a new arena football league didn’t last long. The Fever have decided to join the Indoor Football League (IFL).
The new arena league was expected to have a Tier 1, including Spokane, Chicago, Arizona, Orlando, Jacksonville, Iowa, Tulsa, Utah, etc; and a Tier 2, which was to include Tri-Cities, Central Valley, Bossier-Shreveport, Tennessee Valley and others. However, Arkansas and Kentucky have opted out, leaving Tier 2 with just five teams. Tri-Cities elected to join the 28-team IFL, along with Arkansas.
I talked to Shock owner Brady Nelson this afternoon. Read on for more on Tri-Cities’ move and Nelson’s thoughts.
A quick post on Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne’s visit Friday and additional tickets becoming available for the GU-Oklahoma game on Dec. 31st at the Arena.
More below.
My column this week is about the Sandpoint football team’s quest for a state championship. Click here to read more.
The basketball team takes the court again tonight for another midweek, nonconference game. IPFW plays in the Summit League with Oral Roberts, who defeated Stanford last night. Oral Roberts also was the Cougars first-round NCAA opponent in Sacramento a couple years back but I really don’t know how I’ve wandered so far from my original point so let’s get back to whatever it was … Oh ya. Basketball tonight, football this morning. Read on.
We have a story or two to share with you, but we also have some news that came out of practice Wednesday night. Read on.
This won’t be a typical day-after post because we weren’t in East Lansing, but I do have some notes, quotes, pictures and links below.
Read on.
Midweek. Only the rest of this one and the next left in Washington State’s 2009 football season. As Cal and Stanford prepare for the Big Game, WSU prepares for a visit by Oregon State. And about 15,000 tickets have been sold. But then again, in recent history, the home game before Thanksgiving week is always sparsely attended. We have more, so read on.
Eastern Washington University, playing its third game in four days, held off Whitman at Reese Court Tuesday night to pick up its first men’s basketball win of the season.
It was a wild contest that you can read more about below in the unedited version of the game story that will appear in Wednesday morning’s S-R.
An interesting and physical contest Tuesday at the Breslin Center as Michigan State used a late comeback to edge the Bulldogs 75-71.
Gonzaga went toe-to-toe with the Spartans and it looked like they might withstand one last MSU rally. But Durrell Summers drained a 3-pointer with 3 minutes left that launched the Spartans on a 10-4 closing run to pull out the victory.
Below you can find an unedited article that will run in Wednesday’s S-R. At the very bottom is the AP article.
Gonzaga led most of the way, but Durrell Summers’ 3-pointer with 3 minutes left gave Michigan State a lead it wouldn’t relinquish and the Spartans won, 75-71.
Summers had 21 points and Kalin Lucas 19 for MSU. Robert Sacre and Elias Harris each scored 17 for Gonzaga. Matt Bouldin added 15 points.
Check back for the game story in about 45 minutes.
COUGARS • UPDATE: 7:20 P.M.
Good evening. We wish we had some basketball notes for you, because that would mean we were spending our afternoon in Beasley Coliseum instead of standing on Rogers Field. My guess is there was at least a 40-degree difference. But we do have some pretty important football notes for you to peruse. Please read on.
Gonzaga took it to No. 2 Michigan State from the opening tip, leading by as many as 13, before the Spartans rallied within 35-30 lead at half.
Center Robert Sacre, despite sitting for a several minutes with two fouls, worked inside for 10 points of 5 of 7 shooting. Forward Elias Harris added eight points and five rebounds. Steven Gray and Matt Bouldin combined to make just 3 of 14 shots. Bouldin had four assists.
GU’s bench chipped in eight points, four by Kelly Olynyk and two each from Will Foster and G.J. Vilarino.
Gray’s 3-pointer gave Gonzaga the lead for good, 3-2, about 70 seconds in. Sacre scored eight straight points as GU stretched the margin to 11-3 as Michigan State went 5 1/2 minutes between field goals.
Gonzaga was in front 23-10 after Olynyk’s layup on a feed from Bouldin. The Spartans, who made just 32.1 percent of their shots, finally found some offense, much of it coming at the foul line. Seven free throws and a couple of interior buckets (with Sacre on the bench) brought MSU within three, but Sacre returned and scored on a short bank shot and Gray added two free throws to make it 35-30 at half.
Kalin Lucas, the 2009 Big Ten player of the year, had nine points for the Spartans, who held a 21-18 rebounding edge. MSU committed 13 turnovers and made just 1 of 5 3-pointers. GU was 1 of 7 on 3s.
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.
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Greg Lee covers North Idaho high school sports and North Idaho College sports.
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Jim Meehan covers Gonzaga basketball, Whitworth football, Spokane Shock football and college volleyball.
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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
Mike Vlahovich covers high school sports, manages the weekly Prep Page and writes a column. Also writes the Washington Preps blog.
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