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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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What college hoops needs is a few more awards

Gonzaga guard Kevin Pangos is a four-time All-WCC first-teamer. (Tyler Tjomsland)
Gonzaga guard Kevin Pangos is a four-time All-WCC first-teamer. (Tyler Tjomsland)

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Did you agree with all the Academy Awards, or did you like "American Sniper" more than "Birdman?" How about all the Grammys and Emmys? If you answered no (and even if you answered yes), then you may be happy with our column topic today: sports awards. Read on.

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• The college basketball regular seasons are about over. Which means, before we can get to the meat of the schedule, the NCAA tournament, we have to endure awards season. The West Coast Conference got a jump on everyone yesterday when it announced its all-conference teams and other assorted awards, leading to a bunch of "what-the-heck-were-they-thinking" comments on social media. Gonzaga fans were ecstatic about the men's awards – as well they should be with the school sweeping every major honor – and disgruntled about the women's – tri-coaches of the year has to be some sort of joke, right?  The Pac-12 also got into the discussion with its awards for the women, and there was a little hemming and hawing out of Pullman about those. Always is, and not just in Pullman. The first bone of contention for many, including this guy, is the expansion of first-team honors. Fifteen folks making up the first team, as is the case in the Pac-12? Really? Heck, the WCC picks 10 and that's twice as many as needed. There are five players on a basketball floor for each team, right? So there should be five players on a first team, five more on a second team, five more on a third team if you want to go there. Five at a time. That's it. But, Vince, deserving players will be left out. No, they won't. Make a decision. Vote. Pick five. Then, by definition, those are the five most deserving players. Heck, pick the five best overall or pick by position if you want. Yes, maybe the first team might have been Kevin Pangos – the WCC's player of the year – and Kyle Collinsworth, Kyle Wiltjer and Stacy Davis and Brad Waldow. That would mean last year's star, Tyler Haws of BYU, is left off. Przemek  Karnowski and Santa Clara's Jared Brownridge too. So? Second team is pretty darn good. What's wrong with deciding who is best and who is second-best? And don't get me started on the conference splitting the women's coaching award three ways. Really? Didn't Gonzaga win an 11th consecutive title with a first-year coach? I've heard a million times how hard it is to replace a legend and that's exactly what Lisa Fortier did – at least she replaced a guy who had won 10 consecutive titles. And she did it while having to replace an all-league backcourt, made even tougher when the recruit earmarked to handle a big part of that followed the old coach down the road. But that wasn't enough to earn the award by herself. Nope. Two coaches of teams that finished three games behind the Zags in the standings shared the award. Thirty percent of the conference's coaches were picked. Why stop there? Why didn't every coach in the conference just get a trophy, like a third-grade soccer league? 

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• WSU: Besides the All-Pac-12 women's basketball awards, there are other interesting pieces from around the conference today. Jacob Thorpe covers it all in his morning post with links. ... Jon Wilner is starting a series of blog posts on the Pac-12's finances and he has the first installment up. ... It looks as if there are a couple conference schools on the wrong side of the NCAA bubble. ... Every school has big shoes to fill in football, including WSU. ... Someone will have big shoes to fill at the Pac-12 Networks. Rick Neuheisel is headed to CBS Sports.

• Gonzaga: The sweep of the WCC awards was the big news from yesterday, with Jim Meehan covering it with this blog post and a story in today's S-R. ... Tom Clouse has a piece on the women's awards. ... Though BYU finished down the standings, another Cougars woman won the player of the year award. ... There were Bay Area players honored as well. ... The BYU loss has taught the Bulldogs a lesson. ... This Oregonian story on Eric Reveno of Portland is worth reading. He's on the hot seat, put there, he says, by the administration.

• EWU: Unless there are some major upsets in the final week of the regular season, the Big Sky tournament will be held in "The Well." ... Gotta love this bracket matchup. Check out the 2-15 game in the East Region.

• Chiefs: Spokane is on a roll, having won four consecutive games. The latest was last night's 7-0 blasting of Vancouver. Chris Derrick has more in this game story and blog post. ... The Washington Senate has passed a bill to exempt the WHL from some state labor laws. ... Portland had February's player of the month. ... Tri-City may not make the playoffs. ... Everett picked up an overtime win last night.

• Preps: So does winning get old? Not really. John Blanchette has a column today on Colton's winning streak under coach Clark Vining (pictured).

• Seahawks: There seems to be an inexhaustible supply of people stung by ticket brokers before the Super Bowl. ... Missed this story yesterday in the News Tribune but wanted to pass it along. Again, if the Hawks would have scored and won the game, Chris Matthews would have been the MVP, as the votes were already cast. As someone who has covered enough big events to know, that's the way these things work. ... The Hawks' free agents feature guys on both sides of the ball. One, Byron Maxwell, decided to change agents this week.

• Mariners: For once, the M's and San Diego, which share the Peoria spring training complex, look to be good at the same time. ... Dustin Ackley wants to avoid another early season slump. ... Danny Hultzen is happy to be back pitching. ... Kyle Seager has more important things to worry about than just baseball. ... Mike Zunino wants to improve on that .199 batting average.

• Sounders: The big news isn't who is the new centerback or striker. Nope, it's whether the season will start on time.

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• Midweek madness is what we call Wednesdays this time of year. Seems better than calling them hump days again. 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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