Fast Break
College basketball
Burns joins Idaho staff
Idaho’s gain is the Community Colleges of Spokane’s loss.
Mike Burns, who served as interim men’s coach at CCS this season after being fired as head men’s coach by Eastern Washington, will join the staff of Idaho’s new coach, Don Verlin.
Burns has strong ties to the Northwest and most recently led CCS to a No. 1 ranking in the NWAACC with a 30-2 overall record. He was named NWAACC East Region coach of the year.
Burns spent three seasons at the helm of the EWU men’s program. In 2006-07, Eastern led the Big Sky Conference in scoring and ranked third in NCAA Division I with an average of 84.2 points a game.
Burns spent the 2003-04 season as an assistant at Washington State under Dick Bennett after spending the previous three years as an assistant at EWU on Ray Giacoletti’s staff.
College basketball
Few a finalist for coach award
Gonzaga coach Mark Few is one of five finalists for the Clair Bee Award that will be presented by Chip Hilton Sports and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame at the Final Four in San Antonio, Texas, next Monday.
The award honors a Division I men’s coach who, through his actions on and off the court, makes an outstanding contribution to the sport.
Joining Few on the list of finalists are Trent Johnson, Stanford University; Ernie Kent, University of Oregon; Bob McKillop, Davidson College; and Rick Stansbury, Mississippi State University.
College football
Eastern delays spring practice
The recent run of funky weather has forced Eastern Washington to push back its opening day of spring practice.
The Eagles were scheduled to start spring drills this afternoon, but first-year coach Beau Baldwin decided on Monday to delay the starting date until Friday, in hopes that his snow-covered practice fields might be usable by then.
“I’m just crossing my fingers that it gets warm enough and the snow melts,” Baldwin said. “We always get a little bit of bad weather, and some occasional sleet in the spring, but not snow like this. We can’t paint the fields.”
Baldwin also announced the scrimmage scheduled for Saturday has been cancelled, and the scrimmage slated for Woodward Field on April 12 might be moved to the practice fields to preserve the grass at Woodward.