Grip on Sports: Gonzaga is back in Portland for a rare back-to-back matchup

A GRIP ON SPORTS • The answer is: It’s the norm in baseball and professional basketball, at least in the playoffs. Football? Hardly ever. The same with college basketball. The question: How often do we see back-to-back games with the same opponent. Read on.

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• And yet here it is. Today the Zags are in Portland to face the Pilots some 48 hours after they last met in McCarthey. It’s an odd occurrence, a little out of the ordinary, but not unprecedented.

Gonzaga actually did it twice during the 2000 regular season, against Loyola-Marymount and Portland.

The Cougars had back-to-back games scheduled with their rival, Washington, in early February of 1987. (That was an odd season all around, with WSU opening Pac-10 play against UCLA and USC before Christmas.)

And it happens occasionally around the nation when a school finishes the regular season against one opponent and then opens the conference tournament against the same one, due to the (un)luck of the draw.

That happened to the Zags, actually, back in 2008.

But tonight’s game is an anomaly. It wasn’t supposed to happen. An ice storm in Portland on Jan. 7 forced a postponement, along with a Blazers game and one for the Winterhawks. (Though Portland State did play at home that night.)

This is the day the WCC chose. A Monday night in late January after the two teams had played on Saturday in Spokane.

Maybe it will turn out to be a good thing.

The college basketball season had one fewer week this year after Christmas. To avoid playing before the holidays, the WCC decided to jumble the schedule and do-away with travel partners. Instead of always playing the traditional two games at home each weekend, then on the road the next, the conference’s teams may travel on Thursday and play at home on Saturday.

A whole new schedule, all to avoid playing the travel partner in back-to-back games, as WSU and Washington did back in 1987.

But maybe back-to-back games won’t be all that bad. And, when the calendar forces some condensing, maybe the conference will look at it as an alternative to the muddle we face this season.

• The Falcons and the Patriots are in the Super Bowl. Who are you rooting for?

Me too.

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Gonzaga: Tonight’s game – it’s starts at 5 – may not feature the most potent guard for both teams. We know Portland’s Alec Wintering is out. He tore his ACL and his college career is over. But we don’t know the status of No. 4 Gonzaga’s Nigel Williams-Goss. Jim Meehan, in this advance, passes along the news Williams-Goss, who hurt his hip Saturday, traveled to Portland with the team. Jim also weighs how much UCLA’s Saturday loss to Arizona helps GU earn the West Region’s No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. … Michael Gulledge takes a quick look at the Zags’ history in back-to-back games. Since the turn of the century, they have won every one of the matchups. If the 3-pointers fall a little more often today, it should happen again. … In other WCC news, a win over lowly Pacific on the road is seen as a confidence booster in Provo. There was a time not long ago BYU wouldn’t have needed it. 

WSU: Jeremiah Allison hit a lot of people, literally, when he was playing defense for the Cougars. Now he plays defense in Olympia, figuratively, as a Senate aide. Jacob Thorpe traveled across the state and has this feature on Allison’s post-college career. Jacob also took some photos. … The eighth-ranked Husky women pounded beat-up Washington State on the glass and on the scoreboard yesterday, winning 87-44 in Pullman. … Around the Pac-12 yesterday, there was more drama in Eugene, with a new assistant coach arrested for driving under the influence overnight and then given his notice of firing during the day. Willie Taggart’s honeymoon is over. … Elijah Stewart and USC snapped a streak in their 82-79 home win over Arizona State. … Who will Arizona tab as its next athletic director? … Utah is hitting on all cylinders. … With all its pieces back in place, so is Arizona. … By not making noise, Oregon State is not making any noise in the Pac-12.

Chiefs: Spokane traveled across the mountains – not easy this time of year – and handed conference-leading Everett a shootout loss. That result also made it into Josh Horton’s notebook.

Preps: The Seattle Times’ state basketball polls still have Central Valley No. 1 in the 4A girls and Gonzaga Prep No. 2 in the boys.

Seahawks: Can the Hawks afford to re-sign Luke Willson? Can they afford not to? … And who the heck can they add to the offensive line? … John McGrath is actually in the Patriots’ camp.

Mariners: Jim Bouton never played for the M’s. He was a Seattle Pilot. And the author of the most seminal book of my life, “Ball Four.” It was my “Catcher in the Rye.” You want the notes he used? You can have them for a cool $400,000 or so.

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• Baseball lost another young talent this weekend when the Royals’ Yordano Ventura was killed in a car crash. This was a gifted young man who only needed time to mature. Now he’ll never have it. That’s sad, and another reminder tomorrow is promised to none of us. Until later …