John Blanchette

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Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: Despite their collegiate accomplishments, the toughest challenges still await this bunch of Bulldogs

UPDATED: Thu., June 20, 2019

Both players, Hachimura in particular, will have to endure the modern blather that suggests that any first-rounder who falls short of All-Pro status is somehow a bust.

Sports >  Idaho basketball

John Blanchette: Firing Don Verlin puts Idaho in contention as college basketball’s No. 1 laughing stock

Fri., June 14, 2019

This may be Idaho doing the most Idaho thing ever. So far.

Sports >  Area sports

John Blanchette: Heart-and-soul Spokanite Randy Burkhart truly whistled while he worked

Tue., May 21, 2019

During summers at Priest Lake, Randy Burkhart was known to drag his son Jackson down to the boat before breakfast, motor offshore of Kalispell Island, bring a megaphone to his lips and holler, “Arise and shine, everyone!”

Sports >  NBA

Craig Ehlo turned around his life after one night of public embarrassment

Sun., May 5, 2019

Fourteen years in professional basketball taught Craig Ehlo all about any day-to-day public humiliations that are the inevitable flipside of athletic glory.

Sports >  NBA

John Blanchette: Michael Jordan made The Shot, but Craig Ehlo made it necessary

Sun., May 5, 2019

It was the summer that Austin Ehlo – then a fifth-grader – was a camper at Michael Jordan’s Flight School in Santa Barbara, which should have been irony enough given the braided history of the camp’s namesake and Austin’s father.

News >  Spokane

John Blanchette: For 43 years, Bloomsday’s Don Kardong has been Spokane’s Running Man

Sun., April 28, 2019

Don Kardong found his calling when he founded something Spokane could call its own – Bloomsday.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: There’s no debating Rui Hachimura’s legacy at Gonzaga

UPDATED: Tue., April 16, 2019

And now begins the debate over what Rui Hachimura might become.

Sports >  Area sports

John Blanchette: Even before Title IX, women’s sports had true pioneers such as Nancy Monroe

Thu., April 11, 2019

Having never been on an airplane or out of the state of California before her 17th birthday, Nancy Monroe can only explain away her decision to enroll at the University of Idaho as one of those random bursts of pioneer spirit. Who knew she’d be an actual pioneer?

Sports >  Spokane Chiefs

John Blanchette: Spokane Chiefs’ depth makes powerful statement in postseason

Tue., April 9, 2019

The consensus is that for drama, hockey’s playoffs have it all over basketball – the big-league, best-of-7 kind, anyway – despite all those tension-filled advanced-the-ball timeouts in the NBA’s DNA.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: View of future appears cloudy through Gonzaga’s window

UPDATED: Sat., April 6, 2019

They’ll settle college basketball’s national championship on Monday night in Minneapolis, and it’s entirely possible the winner will score more than 60 points.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: Every Gonzaga season has ended in hurt, but none match the pain felt right now

UPDATED: Sat., March 30, 2019

For all the ways Gonzaga basketball has changed the very face of Spokane in these past two decades, every Bulldogs season has still ended in hurt.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

Pair of Gonzaga fans with Texas Tech diplomas had reason to smile, regardless of final score

UPDATED: Sat., March 30, 2019

The diplomas say Texas Tech. The devotion was all Gonzaga.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: Gonzaga, Texas Tech building hearty appetites as spot at Final Four table is up for grabs

UPDATED: Fri., March 29, 2019

There aren’t six words more sodden with anticipation and angst in sports. Forty minutes from the Final Four.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: Gonzaga’s grit on full display in hard-fought Sweet 16 win over Florida State

UPDATED: Thu., March 28, 2019

If you couldn’t get one of Gonzaga’s players to admit before Thursday’s game that this hangover of shame was prominent in their thinking, you simply had to go to the next locker to get another Zag to confirm it.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: Zach Norvell Jr.’s transformation into complete player has been key to Gonzaga’s success

UPDATED: Wed., March 27, 2019

As a freshman experiencing his very first NCAA Tournament game, Zach Norvell Jr. was accorded an honor that really isn’t an honor but still kind of is. A trip to the postgame interview room and a seat at a microphone.

Sports >  WSU basketball

John Blanchette: Washington State’s hiring of Kyle Smith suggests determination more than desperation

UPDATED: Wed., March 27, 2019

If you look at the history – the raw numbers of history, at least – the easy conclusion to lunge at is that Washington State mixed some unconventional thinking in its search for a new basketball coach with a dash of desperation.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: Who are you and what have you done with March Madness?

UPDATED: Tue., March 26, 2019

Look, excellence is swell and should be rewarded. Merit? Merit is the cream that makes the coffee taste like something a little better than acrid hot water. Merit rules. But throw us a little candy here. A couple M&Ms. A Skittle.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

Five years in a row: Gonzaga’s Sweet feat

UPDATED: Sun., March 24, 2019

With the first weekend of the tournament now over, fewer than five percent of college basketball’s teams 353 teams are still playing. Kansas and Kansas State, both No. 4 seeds this year, aren’t. It’s hard to win two games in the NCAA Tournament, regardless of your seed number. Yet Gonzaga, with its victories in Salt Lake City over Fairleigh Dickinson and Baylor this past weekend, has done it five years in a row.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: Brandon Clarke leaves everyone in Salt Lake City starstruck after dominating performance against Baylor

UPDATED: Sat., March 23, 2019

All those “watch lists” for college basketball’s many awards that managed to miss on Brandon Clarke altogether this year, or scramble to include him at midseason, or leave him off the final cut? Well, Gonzaga’s vicar of vertical wrote his own on Saturday afternoon. The “Watch Me” list.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: Baylor’s Rem Bakamus, John Jakus know their dancing partner far too well ahead of Gonzaga showdown

UPDATED: Fri., March 22, 2019

At the edge of a merry Baylor locker room after the Bears bounced Syracuse from the NCAA Tournament on Thursday night, John Jakus pinned himself against a wall and weighed Fate’s idea of the perfect martini.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: With WCC clunker left in the past, Gonzaga returns to high-flying form in rout of Fairleigh Dickinson

UPDATED: Thu., March 21, 2019

We took their temperature, over and over. We wondered if the Gonzaga Bulldogs had really kicked that bad case of influenza WCC that laid them low in Las Vegas.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: Fairleigh Dickinson coach Greg Herenda knows what it takes to beat the odds

UPDATED: Thu., March 21, 2019

If Greg Herenda makes it to the Final Four this April with his Fairleigh Dickinson Knights it would be … well, it would be a damned miracle, OK?

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: Geno Crandall knows all about dogged determination at NCAA Tournament

UPDATED: Tue., March 19, 2019

Though they all seem to get lumped together as happy Cinderellas, there are subtle degrees of underdog baked into March Madness.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: Doc Ball answers all your First Four questions

Mon., March 18, 2019

Learned and wise about college basketball as he is, Charles Barkley can’t cover everything, especially when it comes to all that’s complicating Gonzaga’s merge from the on-ramp to the fast lane of the NCAA Basketball Tournament this March. Good thing, then, that ol’ Doc Ball is here to answer your many questions and craft a primer to get you through this First Four chicane. So fire away.

Sports >  Gonzaga basketball

John Blanchette: Depth and defense against offense and athleticism makes for tough choice in fictional battle between Gonzaga’s best

Mon., March 18, 2019

Picked up those inseparable buddies and Zags fans, Hysteria and Horse Sense, hitchhiking back from Las Vegas after cashing in their return flight tickets to put everything on Gonzaga to win against Saint Mary’s.