G&T Blog matters: Vernon Adams collects EWU academic honor, GU’s Kyle Wiltjer suttle skill, Mike Leach’s contract with WSU

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

2: The hard work paid off today, when Adams was named Eastern’s Scholar- Athlete of the Month for January, along with basketball player Melissa Williams. It’s been an unlikely road for Adams, a two-time All-American who told me this morning that he didn’t even like the classroom until he came to Cheney.

Friday: Back in New York in November, when Kyle Wiltjer was busy pouring in 32 points against Georgia, one leather-lunged fan inside Madison Square Garden sitting roughly 10 feet behind me gave Wiltjer the business from opening tip to final buzzer.

Every shot Wiltjer netted was greeted with: “You ever going to pass Wiltjer?” or “Pass it for once,” usually accompanied with some colorful language.

Too bad that boisterous fan wasn’t at the McCarthey Athletic Center last night. A, It would have livened up an otherwise quiet building, and B, He would have witnessed a handful of clever Wiltjer passes that led to Gonzaga points.

While it’s true Wiltjer leads GU in FG attempts by a wide margin (185, the next closest is Karnowski’s 125), he also has more assists than Karnowski (24 to 22), though the latter is rightfully receiving heaps of praise for his passing out of double teams.

“He’s doing a good job of moving it,” coach Mark Few said. “He can still grow a little bit there but he’s finding it. That was a game where you had to be tough to get to your move, they were banging and covering down. Shem is doing an incredible job of that, being slow and deliberate, and Kyle is doing that.”

Jim Meehan

Cougars

Friday: We reported  awhile ago that Bill Moos planned to allow Mike Leach’s contract to roll over, in effect extending it until 2019.

Because we’ve been getting some email about the subject recently I thought I’d put up this post to remind people that it happened. Leach’s contract has a provision that states that it automatically renews the length at five years on Jan. 1 of each year unless either Moos or Leach provide written notice stopping the automatic extension.

The extension also resets the clock on both the buyout Leach would have to pay to pursuit another job ($2.25 million if he leaves in year one of the contract) and the buyout the school would have to pay to terminate his contract without cause (60 percent of the base salary due for the remainder of the agreement).

Jacob Thorpe