A Grip on Sports: College basketball’s awards season begins to hit its stride as regular season comes to a close

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Every college athletic season is followed by the inevitable award season. It’s a tradition that’s grown like some sort of unstoppable kudzu, its tentacles reaching every aspect of sports. Even a pandemic hasn’t been able to bring the growth under control, as we will see once again today.

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• It’s been a ritual the past few months. The Naismith Award folks announce another group of semifinalists or finalists or the-honest-we-mean-it-this-time true finalists for their five or six – we lost count – subsidiary awards.

Point guard, power forward, center, coach, they all have their own award, named after a Hall of Fame player at that position. The only surprise is they haven’t put together a Neil Stover Manager of the Year Award list (the trophy could be just a wrinkled jersey – if you know, you know).

Just give them time.

The onslaught of basketball awards with Inland Northwest connections began Monday, when the Pac-12 announced its honors for the women’s side of things. Washington State’s Charlisse Leger-Walker was named the conference’s freshman of the year, Central Valley High graduate Lacie Hull sixth-player of the year and 15 players, including Leger-Walker and Stanford’s Lexie Hull, were named to the All-Pac-12 team.

But that’s only the beginning. Today the West Coast Conference will roll out its awards and the Gonzaga men are heavily favored to earn just about every piece of hardware. The women, who also won the conference regular season title, may not be as prolific but should pick up an award or two.

And there is a lot to choose from. Besides the usual MVP and coach of the year, there are 10 spots on the first team – the next time a basketball team rolls 10 players on to the court to play, let me know – and the Jalen Suggs’ Award, better known as the freshman of the year honor. Gonzaga may win everything, though the coaches may just honor Mark Pope instead of giving the coach award to Mark Few again.

Heck, if the conference gave an award to a newcomer, as some do, Andrew Nembhard would probably win that.

It’s gotten to the point if you are a starter in some conferences and don’t earn some sort of honor, you might want to place your name in the transfer portal. There’s always a chance to make the 25-person first team in the new place.

• The Athletic’s Dana O’Neil must have spent hours and hours researching this story on how the NCAA intends to pull of its tournament in Indiana. The in-depth piece is not only a great example of reporting but storytelling as well, as will any post-tournament piece will be.

Contained within O’Neil’s story is the nugget Gonzaga’s team has moved into a hotel as of this past Sunday. It’s just another precaution the top-ranked Zags are taking to ensure COVID-19 doesn’t derail their chance to win their first national title.

No matter how diminished the pandemic seems to be, one slip, say spending a lengthy amount of time among a large group of people not wearing masks, could easily derail what looks to be a national title train. Heck, even following precautions may not be enough, as many teams have found just the past few weeks.

Take Washington State for example. And with that, we segue into the links.

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WSU: The Cougars rescheduled game with Arizona State was about to tip yesterday when word leaked it would be postponed again. This time due to a coronavirus issue among the Cougs. Theo Lawson has more in this story. By the way, the 2021 football schedule will be revealed today. … Around the Pac-12 and college basketball, though UCLA is on top of Jon Wilner’s power rankings, the last week of the regular season will decide who actually wins the conference title. … Oregon ended Arizona’s season on a low note, winning 80-69 in Eugene last night. The Ducks pulled within a half-game of the league lead. The Wildcats open an offseason filled with more questions than answers, including subjects as related as NCAA infractions and Sean Miller’s future. … Colorado may be the hottest men’s team, though. … The hottest women’s team? That would be Oregon State. … Utah is expected to play in the women’s tournament, albeit without a few players. … UCLA’s men would rather not play in Las Vegas. … In football news, Utah fired its wide receiver coach, a couple of receivers have announced their intent to transfer and something ugly may just be brewing in Salt Lake City. … A former Oregon quarterback is headed to Northern Arizona.

Gonzaga: The WCC weekly awards were given to GU players Corey Kispert and Suggs once again. Jim Meehan has that story. … Jim also spent time yesterday talking with Larry Weir for the usual Monday Press Box podcast. … The Zags stayed No. 1 but the No. 2 team is different in the Associated Press poll this week. Of course, Jim has more. … The GU women rose in the AP poll and the Net rankings. Jim Allen has all that and more. … Former Zag guard Dan Dickau doesn’t just do local games. He also works for CBS providing analysis from his house. Yep, it’s 2021 and there is a pandemic. Justin Reed has more in this story. … Elsewhere in the WCC, BYU and Alex Barcello hope to have a long run in the NCAA Tournament.

EWU and Idaho: The Kibbie Dome. The scoreboard. A made field goal called incorrectly. It’s a story as old as, well, at least 2015. And John Blanchette tells it this morning in his column.

Whitworth: About a week ago, it looked as if the Pirates’ basketball season would be over by now. But the school has rescheduled some games postponed by its COVID-19 issues and added some more. Dan Thompson has more on a schedule that will now stretch into late March.

Preps: Dave Nichols has a roundup of local action from Monday.

Bowling: The local junior bowling tour is back in action as Chuck Stewart’s story tells us.

Soccer: The downtown stadium idea isn’t going to die anytime soon. Not when there is a minor league soccer franchise interested in the city. Jim Allen has more in this story.

Mariners: This is a year it would seem to behoove Seattle to televise more spring training games. When do the M’s do the right thing? … The M’s have been open to having spring’s non-roster players become summer’s team members.

Seahawks: Attention is power these days. Maybe it’s been that way forever, but it is more prominent now. And Russell Wilson is tapping into that power source. … The Hawks will need to develop more power up front as the NFC West added another great defensive lineman yesterday, J.J. Watt. … There is a recent parallel to draw between what’s happening in Seattle and another successful franchise.

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• Could the Zag men sweep the WCC awards? Quite possibly. We will have some thoughts on that tomorrow. Until then …