Sports

Coming off its best season under coach Lisa Fortier, the Gonzaga women's basketball finished 14th in the final Associated Press poll released Monday.

The Blue Devils are bringing in the nation’s No. 1 recruit, forward Cooper Flagg.

The PGA Tour schedule so far this season has been ruled by long shots. Take away Scottie Scheffler’s two victories in 2024, and the tournament winners have mainly come out of nowhere.

The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics voted Monday to ban transgender women from women’s competitions starting next school year, spurring concerns among transgender-rights advocates that the NCAA may follow suit.

A GRIP ON SPORTS • If college basketball isn’t on your radar right now, then we’re not sure we can be friends. After all, what else is there to focus upon? Taxes? The M’s? The sun disappearing and never returning? Ha. All pale in comparison to tonight’s big desert battle. Or Sunday’s outcome in Cleveland.

CLEVELAND – If the hair did not raise up on your neck, if something in your chest did not swell, you were insensate. This was a game that, for all the divided loyalties and warring ambitions between South Carolina and Iowa, offered something that binds. It was decades in the thankless making for women’s basketball, so when the acclamation finally came pouring down like the clouds of confetti Sunday afternoon, it seemed fitting that the champion cutting down the net was a pioneering coach in Dawn Staley, whose tremendous Gamecocks held off the NCAA Division I all-time scoring leader in the rightly celebrated Caitlin Clark, 87-75, to finish 38-0.

CLEVELAND – Raven Johnson skipped over to Dawn Staley, toothy smile beaming, ponytail bobbing behind her, for a moment of celebration. This was exactly what she wanted. The revenge tour was officially over.

MILWAUKEE – The decision to remove Emerson Hancock from his second start of the season again came down effectiveness, pitches thrown and innings worked.

The first two games of the Spokane Indians season the pitching staff led the way to two victories over their Northwest League rival Vancouver Canadians. 

Michael Ajayi will be wearing a Gonzaga uniform if he elects to continue his college career in 2024-25, but the Pepperdine transfer is keeping all options open for the time being and announced Saturday he plans to declare for the NBA draft while maintaining his NCAA eligibility.

GLENDALE, Ariz. – The sounds around this Final Four, they tell the story. This is an event for the ears, not sight, because the sounds are so unique around here.

For a man who will always bleed crimson, the current fate of Washington State University, and college athletics in general, causes him great distress.

A GRIP ON SPORTS • We’re not sure there is anything we want to write about this morning. Nothing pressing, that’s for sure. Oh, there is a little matter of a NCAA title on the line, and maybe history, for Caitlin Clark, Iowa and finals opponent South Carolina. And then there are the post mortems concerning Purdue’s and Connecticut’s decisive semifinal wins in yesterday’s men’s tournament. But, really, we all knew today – and tomorrow – was coming.

State officials are moving ahead with planning for an expansion of Riverside State Park.

BILLINGS – The theory was exciting and quickly grabbed headlines.

MILWAUKEE – Before the words, “played their best game of the season” could be written or even be uttered on Saturday evening, the Mariners found a way to take a seemingly complete performance and a rare comfortable victory, highlighted by a scintillating performance from starter Bryce Miller, and turn it into another second-guessing, stomach-churning, late-inning dramafest.

GLENDALE, Ariz. – The road to redemption for the Purdue men’s basketball team will make a final stop in the NCAA Tournament championship game.