John Blanchette

So what does a basketball coach owe you, exactly? Does he owe it to you to stay three years? Five years? Ten?

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Gonzaga bumped its head on a familiar ceiling Friday night. One more Bulldogs season ends at what for the next few days will linger as the Bittersweet 16, surely far from the worst thing that can be said but never easy to accept in the glare of opportunity that is the NCAA basketball tournament.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – In the 10 years since Gonzaga crashed the national basketball party, the Bulldogs have made four marches to within a game of their own meridian, the latest a date tonight with North Carolina. Each of the previous three has been a moment of truth – hard truth, alas.

Thank heavens for Meech Madness. Because March Madness is on life support.

PORTLAND – If Mark Few heard it once since Sunday, he heard it a dozen times. “Everybody’s talking to me and our guys saying, ‘I won’t be down Thursday, but I’ll be down Saturday,’ ” Few said, shaking his head. “They just don’t get it.”

PORTLAND – Keith Dambrot isn’t kidding himself. “I wouldn’t be the coach here,” said the University of Akron’s fifth-year head man, “if not for LeBron.”

Zips? There’s a basketball team named after our favorite hamburger stand?

Time to say a few words over a dear departed friend. Here lies … well, what do we call him?

A widespread case of food poisoning has forced the postponement of two Spokane Chiefs hockey games - including the regular-season home finale originally scheduled for Sunday.

LAS VEGAS – Perhaps now the Cult of Patty Mills can take five. The statue can be decommissioned. The hosannas can be cranked down from tabernacle pitch to a respectful hum. Everybody can reclaim their brains.

LAS VEGAS – Wrong city, we know, but there is something about the West Coast Conference basketball tournament being here that gives off a strong “Sister Act” vibe. You just keep expecting Sister Mary Clarence and a murmuration of nuns to come sweeping through the casino at the Orleans and into the adjacent basketball arena, possibly to throw a little soul into the national anthem.

If school administrators did indeed fix what wasn’t broken when they split the State B basketball tournament in half, just wait until they try to reconstruct Humpty Dumpty. Someone is going to wind up with his forehead epoxied to center court, or the backboard.

So what would “Hoosiers” look like set in 2009? Well, in 50-plus years, basketball has evolved into a “city” game, so it has to have an urban setting, and yet the school must still be small, overlooked, an underdog. The basketball team isn’t necessarily the social focal point anymore and academics are no longer simply the three traditional R’s, so hoops must compete for a kid’s attention with the steel band and drama. Instead of Myra Fleener looking after Jimmy Chitwood, there’s a family support worker on staff. Economic pressures are blowing up budgets, so perhaps the school is being closed by a cold-hearted board of education. Naturally, to round out the plot the basketball team has to endure its own adversity – say a 1-7 start to the season, and come February it dawns on the players that each game could be their last.

Try this: pile the Spokane Chiefs and Tri-City Americans on separate buses, have them meet halfway in Lind, herd them into the high school gym and lock the doors. Pair them up by size and age and have at it. Coaches and general managers, too. Heck, maybe coaches and GMs first.