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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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Plenty of news before Zags hit court

Did you ever have one of those days, where you wanted to get everything done in a timely fashion so you cal steal away a little time for yourself to do something, like maybe watch the WCC women's championship game at noon on ESPNU, but everything goes wrong?

Maybe you wake up and find out your email has been spammed so all your friends, family and acquaintances think you're stuck in UK with a passport or money, plus your contacts are gone so you can't tell them otherwise? You find out all your friends are comedians and cheap and it's a dang good thing you're not stuck overseas.

But you forge ahead with work because Gonzaga star Courtney Vandersloot won a national award and the other three area teams are preparing for league tournaments, only to lose the post and all the links. Well, I'll try again. Read on for a Top 25 vote, a local star scorching hot in Tennessee and league tournament pairings. And check back later after the game for more league awards.

OK, what did I have before?

Pac-10: No. 8 Washington State plays No. 5 USC (the host) Wednesday at 5, Followed by No. 6 Cal and No. 7 Washington.

WAC: Idaho, which swept Boise State for the first time in eons, have to be the Broncos again in a 5-8 seed match in Las Vegas, Wednesday at 6. A win means a Thursday matchup with No. 4 Nevada.

Big Sky: Eastern Washington is the six seed, facing No. 3 Montana State and Lyndi Seidensticker (Lewis and Clark) at 6 p.m. on Thursday, followed by No. 5 Idaho State against No. 4 Montana and Katie Baker (Lake City). The tournament is at Portland State, home of the league champion Vikings for the first time, led by seniors Kelli Valentine (Mead) and Lexi Bishop (Shadle Park).

Tennessee steamrolled Kentucky for the SEC championship on ESPN2 Sunday afternoon. It was an amazing shooting disiplay by the Vols, led by Angie Bjorklund (U-Hi), who hit seven 3's for the third time in her career. You can see it here. In her last four games (Senior Day and SEC Tournament), she is shooting 88.9 percent from three – 16-of-18 … which is absolutely insane. She made 12-of-14 (.857) in the SEC Tournament, including 7-of-8 in the championship game and was named to the all-tournament team. The seven three’s versus Kentucky on Sunday tied an SEC Tournament single game record and tied her own career-best. She made seven threes in a game three times as a  freshman. In six games since returning from a foot sprain ( missing six games), she’s shooting 77.3 percent from three (17-22) and averaging 10.3 ppg, with limited time in several blowouts.

The latest ESPN bracketology has Gonzaga facing Oklahoma in the Philadelphia regional with Michigan State vs. Oral Roberts in the other game at McCarthey and Stanford, Texas A&M, Notre Dame and Green Bay as the top four seeds in the Spokane Regional.

Lewis-Clark State hosts the Frontier Conference championship tonight, a good chance to see local products Kirsi Voshell (Pullman), Loree Hill (Central Valley) and Nichole Miller (Curlew) go against upstart Carroll College and Alyssa Green (Mead).

My weekly vote:

1. UConn
2. Stanford
3. Baylor
4. Tennessee
5. Xavier
6. UCLA
7. Duke
8. Texas A&M
9. DePaul
10. Notre Dame
11. Michigan State
12. Miami
13. Florida State
14. North Carolina
15. Green Bay
16. Gonzaga
17. Maryland
18. Kentucky
19. Ohio State
20. Marist
21. Marquette
22. Houston
23. Northern Iowa
24. Bowling Green
25. Louisiana Tech


SportsLink is your portal into sports news around the Inland Northwest and beyond. You'll find updates, notes and opinions, and plenty of reader feedback.






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Vince Grippi's daily take on all things regional sports has been moved to our main sports section online. You can find a collection of these columns here.