Fast Break
Four corners
Area teams in action today
Four teams with completely different agendas take to the hardcourt today with the regular season coming to a close.
Gonzaga wrapped up the regular-season WCC title Thursday against Loyola and can cap a perfect WCC home season with a win against Pepperdine tonight. Game time is 8:30.
Washington State is 13-13 overall and needs to stay above .500 for a shot at a postseason tournament. The Cougars are at UCLA at noon.
Eastern is trying to wiggle its way into a spot in the Big Sky tournament, which takes the top six teams. The Eagles are in seventh place and must beat Northern Colorado tonight at Reese Court at 7:05 to stay in contention.
Idaho is coming off its first season sweep of Boise State since the 1998-99 season. The Vandals get a day off from WAC play and play host to Cal State Northridge in a bracket-buster game at Cowan Spectrum at 7.
College football
EWU will appeal postseason ban
Eastern Washington University has notified the NCAA that it will appeal the one-year ban on postseason play that was imposed on its football team last week as the result of numerous infractions that occurred within the program between the 2003-04 and 2006-07 academic years.
According to EWU athletic director Bill Chaves, the school sent the necessary paperwork to the NCAA on Friday and will eventually submit a formal appeal once it hears back from the NCAA.
Chaves said the postseason ban for 2009 is the only penalty the school will appeal, leaving in place all of the others – some of them self-imposed – that resulted from the infractions.
“Process-wise, you could appeal the findings and you could appeal the penalties, and we chose to appeal just the one penalty,” Chaves said.
Chaves said he doesn’t know how long the process will take.
NBA
Diabetes takes Jazz owner
Larry H. Miller, the car sales mogul who turned the Utah Jazz into one of the NBA’s most stable teams, died from complications of Type 2 diabetes. He was 64.
Miller had a heart attack in June 2008, then spent nearly two months in the hospital for complications from diabetes. His legs were amputated 6 inches below the knee in January.
A tireless worker, Miller started his career in an auto parts shop, then built a car dealership empire that made him one of Utah’s most recognized and influential people. Miller expanded his realm in 1985 when he bought a 50 percent share of the Jazz.
Miller bought the rest of the team a year later and the team in the smallest media market in the NBA flourished. The Jazz, led by forward Karl Malone and guard John Stockton (Gonzaga University/Gonzaga Prep) made appearances in the NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998.