Grip on Sports: As high school basketball seasons end, Gonzaga, WSU, Eastern and Idaho ramp up the madness

A GRIP ON SPORTS • As the high school basketball season ended yesterday, the college season really began to hit its stride. After all, it is March and all that entails. Read on.

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• It’s madness, really. 

I mean, seriously. 

Washington State, having been blown out at USC, leads midway through the second half at third-ranked UCLA.

Gonzaga, winners of its first 29 consecutive games, holds just a two-point lead over 21-loss Pacific at halftime in the West Coast Conference tournament quarterfinals.

And Eastern Washington, with a chance to win a share of the Big Sky Conference regular season title, falls behind by 20 at Northern Arizona, the conference’s 10th-place team.

If that doesn’t add up to madness in early March, I don’t know what does.

But it’s still early March, so the Bruins righted the ship and won by nine. So did Gonzaga, except the Zags won by 32. And Eastern? Well, the Eagles never did get going, fell by 15 and finished second in the Big Sky.

But redemption is always available. At least for the next week or so. EWU heads to Reno for the conference tournament. The Eagles will wear white unless they meet North Dakota in the title game with the conference’s lone NCAA berth on the line.

Washington State has a date in Las Vegas against Colorado on Wednesday. The teams split their regular season meetings, each winning at home.

The Zags get a day off today – thanks BYU – before meeting Santa Clara and Jared Brownridge at 6 p.m. on Monday.

By the way, the one area team that doesn’t seem to be affected by the madness? That would be Idaho, which just keeps puttering along. The Vandals won 84-75 at Southern Utah last night to finish Big Sky play at 12-6. That’s good enough for fourth place, a result that didn’t seem possible when the injuries began to pile up.

• On the high school courts, the B tournament, which has been in Spokane since peach baskets, finished up at the Arena, with a couple of girls teams winning state titles for the first time in decades.

Republic (36 years) won the 1B crown and Davenport (24 years) took the 2B title.

And both celebrated with a fervor that is unmatched in high school sports. Why not? State high school basketball titles at the small school level – Kittitas won the boys 2B and Sunnyside Christian another 1B boys – are worth celebrating. They are not only a culmination of long hours in the gym but a special moment for the community.

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Gonzaga: There is a lot to get to from Las Vegas, certainly, and we will begin with Jim Meehan’s game story analyzing how the Zags turned the game around. Jim also has a story on the kick-start supplied by Jordan Mathews and the three keys to the win. … John Blanchette has a column on the game and a story on John Stockton’s induction into the WCC’s hall of honor. … Whitney Ogden checked in on the injury situation. … I watched at home and saw the same things you did: the first half was hard to explain. … Colin Mulvany and Dan Pelle turned their cameras on the action. … The rest of the conference tournament action included Saint Mary’s plodding its way past an overmatched Portland team and BYU struggling to get past a fired-up, physical Loyola-Marymount squad. … Brownridge had 28 points in Santa Clara’s win over USF.

WSU: The Cougars didn’t shoot all that well and that may have cost them a chance at the huge road upset. That and a second-half meltdown, something that’s hurt them often this season. … The win was UCLA’s ninth consecutive. … Speaking of streaks, Washington has lost 12 consecutive games after falling at USC, 74-58. It’s UW’s worst Pac-12 season ever. … Oregon won the regular season title with an 80-59 win at Oregon State. … Arizona kept pace by traveling to Arizona State and winning 73-60 behind freshman Lauri Markkanen. … Utah finished fourth with a win over Stanford, but that’s like being La La Land at the Academy Awards. … Colorado handed California another conference loss as the Bears sink out of NCAA contention. … In football, John Ross’ record-setting 40-yard time is going to resonate come draft time.

EWU: There are other receivers from Washington at the NFL combine – including two Eagles – and Jacob Thorpe tells us how they all did. (So does the Times’ Bob Condotta.) … Besides the Eagles’ loss at Northern Arizona, there were other important games in the Big Sky. … North Dakota clinched the title with a close win over Portland State. … Northern Colorado got past Sacramento State at home. … Weber State righted the ship, defeated Montana State at home and finished third. … Montana won again, this time at Idaho State.

Idaho: The Vandals’ 84-75 win over Southern Utah wasn’t enough to clinch third (the story is incorrect according to the bracket on the Big Sky website), and they’ll face fifth-seeded Montana in the tournament’s second round Thursday.

Chiefs: For the second consecutive night, Spokane built a lead and then lost to Victoria.

Preps: We have stories on the 1B boys title game, the 1B girls, the 2B boys (those last two from Jim Allen), the 2B girls and photo reports from Tyler Tjomsland on the 1B boys, 1B girls, 2B boys and 2B girls. … Freeman fell in the 1A title game for the second consecutive season. … Gonzaga Prep finished third in the 4A boys in back-to-back seasons. … In Idaho, Genesis Prep won the 1A Division II state title with a 68-62 win over defending champion Dietrich.

Mariners: The exodus for the WBC begins and the M’s will feel the hit to their depth. … It didn’t matter yesterday as the pitching was solid and they won 4-3 over the Rockies. … There will be a little more depth in the middle as Mike Freeman cleared waivers. … Want to speed up the game? Stop striking out.

Seahawks: Though there are moments of excitement at the combine, most of the time it is pretty tedious. … The Hawks need more offensive linemen who can actually block. Just saying.

Sounders: The defending MLS champs had to open on the road and they opened slowly against the rebuilt Houston Dynamo. It cost them a 2-1 defeat.

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• It’s a quiet day. So quiet, in fact, it began to snow at my place. Pretty hard for a while. It will melt. Right? Until later …