Give and Take: Blog matters

A sampling from the past week of entries in The Spokesman-Review blog SportsLink at www.spokesman.com/ sportslink/

1: While fans are sure to point out that the location is a lot less neutral for some schools than others, it’s a change from the prior practice of having one of the participants host.

The Spokane Chiefs announced Wednesday the signing of Kailer Yamamoto, whose older brother, Keanu, just completed his rookie season with the Western Hockey League team. Kailer, who will turn 16 years old in September, was selected by Spokane in the fifth round of the 2013 bantam draft. He totaled 17 goals and 23 assists in 34 games this season for the U16 Los Angeles Junior Kings. 

Chris Derrick

Vandals

The Idaho men’s basketball program scored a perfect 1,000 in the latest year of the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rates that were unveiled today – one of two single-year perfect scores for UI athletic programs. The women’s golf team had the  other 1,000 for 2012-2013.

That’s the good APR-related news for Idaho. The bad news came nearly three weeks ago, when UI announced its football team was ineligible for the 2014 postseason and would lose four hours of practice time each week because of a four-year APR score of 901, well below the 930 threshold. Idaho’s 2012-2013 score was 838.

Even with a projected 960 in 2013-2014, Idaho would be below a four-year score of 930 next year. Yet athletic director Rob Spear has said that he expects the school won’t get dinged again in 2015 because it will have shown substantial progress.

Josh Wright