Blog matters

A sampling from the past week of blog entries in The Spokesman-Review sports department blog, Sportslink. See daily offerings at spokesman.com/sportslink.

Tuesday: By the looks of it, Gonzaga added some more folks to the bandwagon last night by manhandling Saint Mary’s. Most of the articles I’ve read, from locals to nationals, indicate that Gonzaga is bound for No. 1 seed.

Gaels’ coach Randy Bennett, who was absolutely effusive in his praise of GU afterward, was asked if he’d be surprised if Gonzaga wasn’t a top seed?

“How could they not be?” he replied.

Mark Few wouldn’t go that far, but he stated GU’s case in simple terms.

“We’ve controlled everything that’s been put before us and done an amazing job, which is all we can do,” Few said. “Watch us and look at what we’ve done, look at our results.”

Thursday: Stephen Madison and the other veterans for Idaho know what the Orleans Arena is like early on the first real day of the WAC tournament: lots of empty seats, quiet, kind of surreal in such a big venue. “You’ve got to bring your own energy, bring your own passion and just show what you’ve got,” Madison said.

We’ll see what the Vandals have got at noon against New Mexico State in the quarterfinals. The Vandals are 0-4 in the WAC tourney under Don Verlin. Is there a monkey on the coach’s back? He doesn’t think so. “No, not really. If you feel like there’s one on there, then there’s one on there,” he said. “You know what we’ve got to do is go play as hard as we can and worry about the task at hand.”

(The Vandals ended up losing in first round.)

Thursday: (Regarding WSU’s last possession in loss to Washington.) Brock Motum and D.J. Shelton both thought there should have been a foul called, though the opinions from the UW side obviously differ. I’ve yet to see a replay, so it’s hard to say. Regardless of the no-call, it was the game’s biggest possession – WSU down by two points, the ball in its best player’s hands, time winding down. The Cougars just couldn’t make it happen. That might be the theme of the season.