Fast Break
College basketball
Cougars home for Portland St.
Coach Tony Bennett and his eighth-ranked Washington State Cougars are home against Portland State this evening at 5:30, coming off a road win over rival Gonzaga Wednesday night.
The Vikings of Portland State are 6-3 and have won three consecutive games.
College basketball
Vandals host to Eagles
Victories have been hard to come by for Eastern Washington and Idaho, but one of those teams will come out with a win today when the two teams match up in Cowan Spectrum in Moscow, Idaho, at 3:05 p.m.
The host Vandals have lost six in a row after a win in their regular- season opener. EWU’s Eagles (3-7) are coming off a loss to No. 3 Kansas.
Real estate
Vick’s house now tourist attraction
Sherry Walker descended the polished hardwood stairs and joined husband Ben in what used to be Michael Vick’s den.
“The bathroom – oh my God! – has a fireplace. It’s beautiful,” the woman said, describing what she had seen upstairs during her tour of the 4,600-square-foot white brick house in Surry, Va., that was headquarters for Vick’s dogfighting operation.
Out back, beyond the deck and the full-size basketball court, the scene was grim.
“You can tell something was going on here,” James Thomas muttered to no one in particular as he looked over a sturdy metal pole with a rusty chain and four weightlifting plates at its base – equipment presumably used to restrain pit bulls.
The Walkers and Thomas were among the visitors at an open house conducted Saturday, a week before a planned auction of property that likely will forever be associated with the downfall of the NFL’s highest-paid and most electrifying player. Vick sold the property to a real estate developer.
Vick faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced Monday in a federal courtroom in Richmond for his role in the “Bad Newz Kennels” dogfighting enterprise.
Most of the scores of people who wandered through the house and the rugged area behind the house with dog houses, kennels and four flat black outbuildings were just looking – not looking to buy.