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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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Today WSU throws Bone a party


COUGARS

In another week the hoopla will have all died down. Sixty-degree days will be the norm. Spring football will be hitting the dog days. Normality will return to the campus. But today Washington State will throw a welcome-to-Pullman party for Ken Bone, the Cougars' new basketball coach. They'll let him step in front of the television cameras and the rest of the assembled Eastern Washington media and give Cougar Nation a chance to meet the guy who'll be on the bench next season. Then, when everyone's packed their gear and headed for the airport or 195, Bone will get down to work. He'll start filling his staff, talking with returning players, re-wooing recruits, finding a house, all that quiet stuff one does after taking a new job. But today is for the noise. Before we put in the ear plugs – heck, I'm too old for a party – let's do some linking. Read on.
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• Think maybe our links this morning are going to be dominated by the Bone news? You would be right. But how about a football one to get started? Here's an interview Paul Wulff did with Buster Sports' Nick Daschel yesterday. Football aficionados, you are welcome. Now back to our regularly scheduled Ken Bone hype. ... We have our story of course. And we'll have more from today's events. ... Bud Withers of the Times has a column with his opinion about the choice, while the P-I talked with Bone's former boss, Lorenzo Romar, about his new gig. And freelancer Howie Stalwick had the news in the News Tribune and other papers. ... There were other candidates and some of them are trying to explain their interest, like Birmingham's Mike Davis in this piece, or deny the same, like Corpus Christi's Perry Clarke in this story. ... Back to Bone, who said goodbye to his team and to Portland yesterday. The news was overshadowed a bit not only by yesterday's events – Doesn't Virginia play North Carolina every year? Will Ken Griffey hit 162 home runs? – but even by another coaching hire in the Pac-10, with Arizona finally getting a coach, Xavier's Sean Miller. Papers on the coast that played them together put that hire on top.

• A couple of more links before we go. Cougar fan or not, you need to read John Blanchette's column on one of Eastern Washington's own, John Stockton, who is headed for the basketball Hall of Fame. And our Dave Trimmer has this feature on former WSU baseball player Rob Ryan on the same day WSU defeats BYU.

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• That's it for this morning. As you might expect, it will be a packed day. We'll be at the Bone press conference and will post a story from there. Then we'll be outside with the football team for practice and will have a story from that. Then, hopefully, we'll be collapsed on our couch. Until later …



Vince Grippi
Vince Grippi is a freelance local sports blogger for spokesman.com. He also contributes to the SportsLink Blog.

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