Blog matters: Zags make it 13 out of 14, Deone Bucannon, Stephen Madison

A sampling from the past week of entries in The Spokesman-Review blog SportsLink at spokesman.com/ sportslink.

Bulldogs

Jim Meehan

It’s been an interesting ride for the Gonzaga Bulldogs, who throttled Pacific 70-53 on Thursday to claim an outright WCC championship. That’s 13 titles in 14 years. That’s 13 titles in Mark Few’s 15 seasons as head coach.

That’s particularly impressive given that this season was, as one GU staffer put it back in October, something of a bridge year, one that fell between last year’s loaded squad, arguably the best in school history, and what figures to be another talented crew next year.

Gonzaga solved several issues that contributed to last week’s 0-2 road trip.

One, the starting guards were aggressive and highly productive.

Two, the Bulldogs didn’t settle for those runners/floaters that haunted them in last week’s loss to San Diego.

Three, Gonzaga had dreadful starts to the second half against BYU and San Diego, falling behind and never being able to completely catch up. Gonzaga led Pacific 40-28 at half and went to work early in the second half with a 13-3 run.

Cougars

Jacob Thorpe

Deone Bucannon is in Indianapolis preparing to participate in the NFL Combine.

Bucannon measured in at 6-foot-1, 211 pounds, 4 pounds lighter than his listed weight this past season. That may indicate that Bucannon is trying to get faster. Bucannon’s strengths lie in defending the run and in using his size to punish smaller offensive players, but he may need to reassure scouts of coverage abilities.

In the video (posted on Sportslink) he talks about his love for the game, how former WSU football players Jason David, and the Abdullah brothers are helping him prepare for the NFL, and how players like him and Kam Chancellor still have a place in the NFL.

Vandals

Josh Wright

Fresh off  a 34-point performance in the final home game of his senior year, Idaho senior Stephen Madison was named WAC Player of the Week for a record fifth time this season on Monday.

No other WAC player has won the award that many times during a season, according to the Idaho media relations department. Madison leads the WAC in scoring (19.8 ppg) and is fourth all-time in scoring at Idaho.

With 1,495 points (prior to Saturday’s game), Madison needs 91 more to become UI’s second-leading career scorer.