A Grip on Sports: College basketball needs to play out this season, so all signs point to NCAA, others examining bubble concept

A GRIP ON SPORTS • When do you truly know the NCAA is interested in a breakthrough idea? When the organization applies for a trademark for something related to it. Hence, The Battle in the Bubble.

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• Last week, the NCAA asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to allow it exclusive use of the term “Battle in the Bubble.” Why would it do that, one may ask? It’s simple.

Let’s fast-forward to yesterday. Gonzaga’s Mark Few was on a video conference with Andy Katz, who works for NCAA.com, and two other prominent college basketball coaches, Kentucky’s John Calipari and Tom Izzo of Michigan State.

As Jim Meehan reports in today’s paper, the three coaches and Katz talked about possible bubbles in college hoops this upcoming season.

Not as in “on the bubble,” the longstanding term for teams on the edge of an NCAA Tournament berth. Nope. As in a potentially COVID-19-free bubble, a la the NBA, WNBA, NHL, MLS and others.

Yep, college basketball programs around the country, as well as the organization that oversees the sport, are talking about taking, ahem, student/athletes and sequestering them somewhere for a few days. All so they can get their games in.

Let that sink in. The other organizations that have built bubbles have all been pro-active about it. And pro-fessional. To allow amateurs (the NCAA’s definition, not mine) to play, schools are talking about, and planning for, days away from campus focused on hoops.

Fine with me. But let’s make a pact to never again consider college basketball programs, heck, college athletic programs, as anything less than small professional franchises. Can we agree on that?

Look, building bubbles around the country in which the players are tested consistently – more on that in a moment – is fine, especially when schools, to a large degree, are doing their schooling through the magic of the Internet. Players can attend their virtual classes just as well in a L.A. or Seattle bubble as well as they could in their apartment in the Logan neighborhood. Maybe even better.

But if this pandemic has accomplished anything concerning college sports, it’s brought the long-submerged professional reality of the endeavor to the surface. Now everyone can see it, even those who have been lost in a fog their entire life.

• I’m all for college sports (and in-person classes) to return. But only when it’s safe, not just for the athletes (and students), but for everyone connected to the schools. In a college town, even a big college town like Spokane or Seattle or Portland, that doesn’t just mean the students and athletes themselves, but the support staff and the instructors as well. In other words, the community.

To do such things safely takes testing. Lots and lots of testing. Find any outbreak early and limit it. We can all agree on that. Even the Power 5 conferences agree on it. The three that are still playing football, the SEC, ACC and Big 12, believe it is possible to handle it, despite many of their schools closing to students due to outbreaks. The Pac-12 and Big Ten, who postponed their seasons, disagree.

Now comes the President, reportedly offering the Big Ten access to a national stockpile of rapid-response testing if it will start playing football again quickly.

Thousands of Americans are out of work. Huge sectors of the economy are closed down. Other areas are open but only at grave risk to those working in them. Tests, needed to get our economy back up to speed, are not as readily available as they should be. Yet the big professional sports, with unlimited financial resources, have found a way to access enough of them to keep their enterprises going.

And now that ability might be made available to the Big Ten just so that it’s players – students, according to those in charge – can return to the football field sooner, all the while farm workers and factory employees venture into harm’s way every day so we can eat and live? Not to mention health care workers who keep us safe and help us survive a disease that has led to more than 180,00 deaths in the U.S.

From where we sit, it doesn’t seem to be the right priority.

• You know the press box also contains TV and radio types, right? So it should come as no surprise Larry Weir’s latest Press Box podcast features KXLY sports director Keith Osso. When I was a fill-in for sports talk on 700 ESPN radio, Keith was always one of my favorite folks to work with. He laughed at my jokes.

Unless they concerned Super Bowl prop bets.

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WSU: Around the Pac-12, the conference seems to hire a lot of consultants. … The football season’s postponement might actually help a few Washington players. … A couple of former Oregon State stars are headed to the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame. … Two Beaver football players are eligible to play when the season starts. … In basketball news, an Arizona transfer who was scheduled to be eligible in the second semester is available now. But that only matters if the season’s start date is moved up. … Colorado’s team is talking a lot these days. The subject? Social justice.

Gonzaga: Jim’s story on the bubbles also covers other college basketball thoughts from the coaching trio on the conference call.

Chiefs: Spokane didn’t have to look far for its new coach. After Manny Viveros took a new minor league job in the Las Vegas area, the Chiefs just turned to his assistant yesterday. Dan Thompson has the story on Adam Maglio’s ascension to the top spot.

Mariners: The entire series with the A’s was canceled yesterday. The M’s will be off through Friday. And now have two doubleheaders scheduled for this month. … No matter what happens over the next month, the Mariners are still building for the future.

Seahawks: Though Chris Carson has been the Hawks’ go-to running back the past couple years, the chance of his earning a lucrative contract extension is low. … Tre Flowers and Quinton Dunbar are in a huge battle for a starting corner spot. … Jarran Reed has some unfinished business. … As cuts loom, some players’ stock is rising and others have seen it fall.

Sounders: Seattle is back on the pitch tonight, traveling to face a Real Salt Lake team that has dealt with franchise upheaval lately. 

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• Hey, the Kentucky Derby is Saturday. Post positions were picked yesterday. The favorite – and Belmont Stakes winner, something I’ve never been able to write prior to the Derby before – Tiz the Law will start on the far outside. Yep, 17th. That makes the Run for the Roses a longer one. Until later …