Reeling Toreros visit Gonzaga

College basketball: Short-handed San Diego visits Gonzaga tonight at 7 at the McCarthey Athletic Center. The Toreros (9-17, 2-8) lost senior guard De’Jon Jackson last week to a season-ending knee injury and played without senior guard Brandon Johnson (groin) in Thursday’s 70-56 loss at Portland.

Head coach Billy Grier, in his third season at San Diego after 16 years as a GU assistant, said Johnson was limited in practice earlier this week. “He’s day to day,” Grier said Friday.

San Diego has lost eight of nine, including a 68-50 setback against Gonzaga last month.

Jim Meehan

Championships at Plantes Ferry

Cross country: American record holders Dathan Ritzenhein and Shalane Flanagan highlight the field for the USA Cross Country Championships today at Plantes Ferry Park.

The top five committed finishers will make up the men’s and women’s junior and senior teams for next month’s IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

Ritzenhein, who won this event in 2005 and 2008, broke Bob Kennedy’s 13-year-old American record in the 5,000 meters last August, and will be challenged by Olympic trials steeplechase runner-up Billy Nelson and USA Half-Marathon runner-up Patrick Smyth. Flanagan, the 2008 Olympic bronze medalist at 10,000 meters and winner of this event that year, is joined by two other former champs – Emily Brown and Blake Russell.

The program begins at 9 a.m. with the Erik Anderson Community Run, followed by the masters and junior races. The open women’s 8K race is at 1:15 p.m., with the men’s 12K at 2.

John Blanchette

WAC reprimands Idaho’s Verlin

College basketball: The Western Athletic Conference has reprimanded University of Idaho men’s basketball coach Don Verlin for complaining about referees.

WAC commissioner Karl Benson said Verlin’s comments violated the conference’s sportsmanship code and said any further violations would have him suspended for at least one game.

The comments came in a postgame news conference following the game against Nevada on Wednesday. Nevada won 67-66. Verlin told reporters that the game was poorly officiated and that officials in the league need to figure out that Idaho is “a contender, not a doormat.”

When Benson announced the reprimand on Friday, Verlin apologized.

Associated Press