The madness isn't limited to Eastern Washington, Washington State and Gonzaga. This March, there's plenty of NCAA basketball to go around for several players and coaches with local ties.
Dozens gathered for a Selection Sunday watch party at the Spokane Arena, holding their breath to find out which eight NCAA men’s basketball teams will visit Spokane – the result of a yearslong effort to lure the NCAA back to Spokane as a March Madness host city.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • In a college basketball season dominated by disruption, there has been no greater disruptors than the Washington State Cougars. That didn’t stop Thursday night just because WSU was playing in the final Pac-12 tournament. If anything, the agents of chaos brought even more.
BOISE – At the red-eyed hour of 12:45 a.m. MDT, last call for the Montana State Bobcats – the happy inquisition in the interview room – was complete. As he stood to leave, Tyler Patterson saw his name on a piece of cardboard at the microphone and brightened.
Jacinta Buckley posted a double-double and Eastern Washington regrouped on defense after a shaky first quarter to beat Northern Arizona 73-64 in the Big Sky Tournament Championship. The win secured Eastern Washington's first berth in the NCAA Tournament since 1987.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • This time of year we really try to look forward. To the weekend, where the temps are supposed to be in the, gasp, high 60s. To next month, with all that April offers, from showers to flowers to Masters. To the summer, with the lake and sun tans and long walks. But today we are forced to look back about 24 hours before we can cast our gaze ahead. Darn it.
Former East Valley standout Brie Holecek capped an impressive season on the Eastern Oregon University basketball team with a pair of conference honors.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • It all seemed familiar, didn’t it, in a Thanksgiving-feast sort of way? Monday’s West Coast Conference tournament semifinals, we mean. And tonight’s title games won’t be much different either.
BOISE – During a third-quarter timeout Sunday, an Eastern Washington cheerleader appeared to fumble a catch of his female partner and she tumbled to the floor as a few spectators gasped. No harm, no foul – she picked herself up and was back to waving her pompom immediately.
Degenhart is on his way to another honor-filled season after earning MWC Freshman of the Year honors in 2021-22 and first-team all-conference a year ago.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • We usually have a night each week in which dinner is devoted to leftovers. Which is a nice way of saying we clean out whatever is left in the fridge and go to bed with a full, if occasionally gurgling, stomach. Today seems like a good day to clean out the fridge, A Grip on Sports style.
Eastern Washington finds itself in a familiar spot entering this weekend’s Big Sky Tournament as the No. 1 seed – so familiar that David Riley is choosing not to shy away from talking about last season’s first-round exit.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • What are we excited about watching this weekend? Of course we have our list. How about you? It’s March and March means college basketball is high-stepping toward its much-anticipated finales. We’re guessing hoops is high on your list as well.
Four Eastern Washington men’s basketball players and head coach David Riley received All-Big Sky recognition Thursday when the conference announced awards for the 2023-24 season.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • This is it. The final Pac-12 (AWKI) basketball showdown between Washington State and Washington. In Pullman. With, possibly for the Cougs, a conference title at stake. At the least, NCAA seeding, again only for WSU. Oh, and maybe the final Mike Hopkins’ coached game in the state.
The Eastern Washington women played championship-level basketball the last 10 games of the regular season – and all were wins. It’s been a record-setting season for EWU.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • We know a couple Eastern Washington men’s basketball season ticket holders. They sit down near the court and quietly express their joy in watching their alma mater race past Big Sky Conference foes that once used to consider a stop in Cheney a respite. It may be cold outside but the dish of red-hot revenge must taste better than even the excellent concession-stand popcorn.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • We’re a bit tired. Not sleepy, mind you. The other type of tired. The type that weighs you down, slows your mind, keeps you from enjoying each day. All because of what is outside. Can spring show up already?
The late Latah County magistrate William C. Hamlett first laid eyes on the University of Idaho and the law school from which he graduated in the early 1970s. Ever after, he said Moscow and UI reminded him of Wainwright College from Mickey Rooney’s Andy Hardy comedies of the 1940s.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • We thought a long time about hardly touching Saturday’s college basketball results in today’s column. Maybe write about the Sounders’ inability to score and how it’s undermining years of goodwill. Or how we didn’t win any writing awards again. Or maybe we would take a look at the NFL Combine’s quarterback day. But, nah. It’s the best time of year. And we’re obligated to deal with it.
Montana’s 80-57 win against Idaho on Saturday in Moscow, Idaho, was lopsided, but at key points in the second half, the Vandals had some opportunities to somewhat slow the Grizzlies.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Not sure we were ready for the view outside the window this morning. A perfect tableau … for Dec. 25. Snow more than an inch deep. Stuck on trees. Car windows. Light poles. We look forward to days like this around the holidays but not on the second of March. We guess it’s good the basketball schedule at every level is so deep.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • It wasn’t March in Pullman. Nor San Francisco. And certainly not Cheney. Not yet anyway, though it was only minutes away. Instead, all we had was the madness. And Thursday night, that was more than enough.
More than two years after a shooting in Tacoma's Salishan neighborhood claimed four lives, why the alleged gunman, a young man with practically no connection to the victims, would have done it remains a mystery.
Midway through the first half Saturday against Northern Colorado, Eastern Washington’s hold on first place in the Big Sky Conference standings looked tenuous.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • What were you doing in 2008? Were you in school, maybe in an elementary classroom somewhere, dreaming of the day you would be golfing with Tiger Woods weekly on the revered PGA Tour? Or were you this close to retirement, hoping to spend at least half the year in someplace warm? Some place in the wide in-between?
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Where were we? Oh, right. In the midst of the biggest weekend of upsets around these parts. OK, that’s a little much. Hyperbole aside, though, it was kind of interesting how many upsets there were over the weekend.