Don’t let the clock control your life; let basketball do it
A GRIP ON SPORTS • OK, I get it. I am an hour behind this morning. But I'm passing the buck on this one. It's too early in the calendar year to begin Daylights Savings Time. Not with all the basketball going on until what seemed to be the wee hours of the morning. Read on.
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• I wanted to change the clocks last night, I really did. But the basketball action intervened. About 10 hours of basketball actually. From Arizona and Stanford through BYU and San Diego, from some early morning 1B trophy game without announcers through the 2B title game, I watched enough basketball on television yesterday to make my eyes bleed. They didn't, but my ears nearly did having to listen to Dick Vitale tie the English language in knots attempting to defend Jim Boeheim – note to Dicky V: just because Boeheim does a lot of charity work, and he does, doesn't mean he didn't break a bunch of NCAA rules. Actually, I was able to avoid the cacophony that is Vitale in the second half as we watched Louisville's improbable upset of Virginia in a restaurant bar while gorging on seafood. And yes, it was really early. Hey, that's what people of my age do. That and complain about stuff, especially the late finishes to basketball games. Heck, I wanted to stay up and see how the BYU/USD game finished, but there was no chance. I couldn't even get to the end of the 2B title game from the Arena. I had a huge task in front of me. I had to oversleep.
• Congratulations are in order this morning. The Gonzaga men had to scrap to get past USF in the WCC quarterfinals, but they did it. And Eastern needed to win to have any shot at earning a piece of the Big Sky's regular season title and the Eagles did that. Though it didn't look good for the longest time. I had the Gonzaga game on the TV with the sound down and the Eastern game on the radio, trying to stay up-to-date on both (talk about confusing; sometimes Tyler Harvey would be ringing up a 3 in my ear while Domantas Sabonis was making a post move in front of my eyes). One was back-and-forth, the other – Eastern's game with Weber State – was a rout. But only for a while. The shots began to fall for the Eagles and they clawed their way back into it. Finally, they forced overtime and pulled away. Though the Eagles share the conference title with Montana, they lose the tiebreaker. The men's tournament will be in Missoula next week. So will the women's tourney. Good luck finding a hotel room.
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• WSU: And congratulations to the Cougar seniors, who all played exceptional games yesterday, helping WSU to a 96-91 overtime victory over Colorado. Of course, a loss to the Buffs may have made the Cougars' Pac-12 tournament road a bit easier, but that's nit-picking. Jacob Thorpe was in Beasley – along with a measly crowd of 3,434 – and has this game story and more, including video interviews of Ernie Kent and players on the blog. He also posted the box score. ... Today Jacob has your Pac-12 links in this morning post.
• Gonzaga: It wasn't easy, but at least the Bulldogs didn't play passive. They attacked all night long. It's just that USF was doing the same thing – and hitting a lot of contested shots. Jim Meehan was at the Orleans in Las Vegas and has the game story and a blog post following the Zags' 81-72 WCC tournament win. ... John Blanchette was there too and has this column on their 30th win of the season. ... Colin Mulvany has a photo report from the battle with USF. ... There was one big upset yesterday, with Portland driving third-seeded St. Mary's from the tournament with a 69-52 victory. ... There was also almost another one, but Tyler Haws made a jumper as time wound down and BYU got past Santa Clara, 78-76. ... The Zags will play Pepperdine, which defeated USD 50-47. Bill Grier went into the game with this hanging over his head. ... The women get back in action Monday. The Missoulian had this feature on Gonzaga's Elle Tinkle. ... The baseball team upset a ranked opponent.
• EWU: It has been 11 years since the Eagles won the Big Sky so you can excuse them for being a little slow out of the gates yesterday. But when they got going, they were impossible to stop, defeating Weber State 79-71 in overtime. ... Elsewhere in the Big Sky, Montana raced past Montana State 70-54 to earn the host's role. ... Sacramento State lost both games on the weekend road trip and lost any chance of hosting. Saturday, it was a 70-68 loss to Northern Arizona in arguably the biggest game in school history. ... Portland State did Idaho a solid with an 86-73 win at Southern Utah. ... On the women's side, the Eagles picked up a 64-62 overtime win to secure the fourth seed in the Big Sky tournament, which will also be in Missoula.
• Idaho: The Vandals needed a win against Idaho State to ensure a spot in the Big Sky tournament but couldn't get it done, losing to the Bengals 67-65. However, thanks to other happenings in the conference, they still finished seventh and garnered a spot.
• Whitworth: Only one team can win an NCAA championship, no matter the division. If you aren't going to win, and the Pirates never have in men's basketball, then the hope is the loss won't be a heartbreaker. No such luck for the Whits this season. They lost to host Emory 85-84.
• Chiefs: The WHL's best team, Kelowna, cruised past Spokane 5-2 last night. ... Portland eased past Tri-City 6-2 in Portland while Everett also picked up a victory.
• Preps: A couple of local big schools won state basketball titles last night and both did it by winning tight games. Down in Nampa, Post Falls' boys pulled away in overtime to win, 67-62, and take the 5A title. And over in Tacoma, Gonzaga Prep's girls (pictured) had to use two extra periods to get past Inglemoor, winning 57-52 for their second consecutive 4A title. Greg Lee has the latter story. ... In the 2A ranks, Clarkston won its first state boys basketball title, defeating Anacortes 59-48. ... In the 1A, Lakeside's girls dropped the title game to Kings, 43-27. ... Over in the Arena, Morton-White Pass won its second consecutive boys title – Chris Derrick has the story – while Okanogan won the girls crown – Jim Allen has this story. ... Lummi Nation capped an undefeated season with a 1B boys title win while Colton won its seventh consecutive 1B girls title. All four champions at the Arena were undefeated during the season. ... Dan Pelle and Jesse Tinsley have a photo report on the championship games.
• Seahawks: Now that Marshawn Lynch has agreed to a new deal, the Hawks can move forward into free agency and the draft. ... Byron Maxwell is going to get paid by someone.
• Mariners: The M's split their squad and split a couple games yesterday, defeating the White Sox and losing to the Diamondbacks. ... Rickie Weeks showed there is a bit of pop left in his bat with a mammoth home run against Arizona. ... Felix Hernandez has some pop in his right arm as well.
• Sounders: Oops. I wrote yesterday the Sounders' season began Monday. It begins tonight against the Revolution. I forgot to take Daylight Savings Time into account – or something like that. ... Its first MLS title is not the only goal Seattle has this year. There are a lot of things on the line. ... There are a lot of things to watch tonight and a bunch to watch as the season unfolds. ... Soccer is a pretty darn diverse sport.
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• Yes, it's late. Yes, you are ticked at me. I can live with that. I have been for years. Until later ...
