Updated: with Blanchette's Vandersloot column

The afternoon belonged to Courtney Vandersloot and Gonzaga, the night belong to the rest of the area D-I teams as Idaho, Eastern Washington and Washington State came up with road wins. Each was significant, the Vandals sweeping Boise State for the first time in 14 seasons, the Eagles ending a five-game losing streak, the Cougs getting six league wins for the first time in 10 seasons with their first sweep of Cal in 13 seasons, the last time they won more than two league games on the road.

First, the lone local game: We approached  Courtney Vandersloot's historic moment (that's not her 1,000th assist above) and the Gonzaga women's game differently, with columnist John Blanchette writing the story.  Jesse Tinsley's complete slideshow. Here's the story from Gonzaga assistant sports information director Liz Smith. If you want to see Courtney Vandersloot's milestone 1,000th career assists, it's here. And there are more of her assists here.

There is a lot more news, and it's not all Vandersloot, though we have the 1,000-assist club. Read on.

NCAA Division I assists

Women

Suzie McConnell (Penn State; 84-88) 1,307

Andrea Nagy (FIU; 91-95)1,291

Tine Freil (Pacific; 89-93) 1,088

Courtney Vandersloot (Gonzaga, 08-11) 1,006

Men

Bobby Hurley (Duke; 89-93) 1,076

Chris Corchiani (NC State; 87-91)1,038

Ed Cota (UNC; 96-00)1,030

Pushing Think Pink, ESPN pushes women's basketball this weekend. There are four games on ESPN networks at 11:30-11:50 Sunday and another four from 2-2:15, with a number of ranked teams playing. At 3 on ESPNU it's Tennessee at Vanderbilt but Angie Bjorklund (U-Hi) won't be playing for the Vols. Monday there are two big games on ESPN 2, No. 12 Oklahoma at No. 2 UConn at 4 and No. 5 Texas A&M at No. 1 Baylor at 6.

Idaho and Eastern and Washington State stories.

Washington gave Stanford a tussle, something no one else in the Pac-10 can say this year.

Don't look now but Montana, given up for dead, is back in the Big Sky race after knocking off league-leading Northern Colorado on the road with Katie Baker (Lake City) having her usual solid game (can't get UM website up at this time). ... Also in the Sky, Lyndi Seidensticker (Lewis and Clark) leads an offensive explosion with 21 points on a career-high five 3-pointers as Montana State out-scores Sacramento State.

In the WCC, Portland finishes off Loyola Marymount with Tara Cronin (G-Prep) having another strong game of 19 points, her sixth double-figure game in the last seven.

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