A Grip on Sports: It’s finally March and finally time to dance our way into spring’s championship glory

A GRIP ON SPORTS • It’s March. Finally. Is there anything at all to look forward to? Are you kidding?

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• Is March the best month in sports or what? We don’t think so – that award is usually reserved for April or October in our view – but it’s darn close. Mainly because we embrace the madness.

Not the madness going on in Florida on Monday night, as baseball’s power that be decided to finally get down to negotiating a new labor agreement. Who knows, by the time you read this there might even be a long-term deal in place. Or Max Scherzer may have thrown a high, hard one at Rob Manfred and everything fell apart.

If baseball season does begin before April showers arrive, so be it. If not? There are other things to keep us entertained.

First up are the conference basketball tournaments. So many conference tournaments. Men and women battling to earn a shot at the Holy Grail. Or the Holy Grail itself, depending on just making the NCAA’s tournaments is the goal, or, as is the case for Gonzaga’s men, winning it is.

A last-second shot that moves a team on is a wondrous event, sure. But too often we see the limp bodies on the hardwood and think of how much it must hurt to have a season – or a college career – come to an end in such an abrupt manner.

And that’s just the appetizer. The pièce de résistance is the NCAAs themselves. Is there a better spectacle in sports? The Olympics? The World Cup? The Wet Dog Fur Open (if you know, you know)? Nope.

The NCAA tournament is a seventh game of the World Series, the last seconds of tight Super Bowl, the final sprint in Daytona all rolled into one. Over and over.

One play can make a hero – or a goat. Forever.

If that was all March had to offer, it would be great in itself. But there is more. There are high school hoops championships. An almost-major golf tournament. World Cup qualifying. And, you know, the start of spring.

OK, we admit, there are a few things not so great about the next 31 days. Hail out of a clear-blue sky. The loss of an hour as Daylight Saving Time begins again. Weeds sprouting everywhere. That wind that seems to start in Yellowknife and end on the back of your neck.

All pains. But not enough to take the luster off what’s ahead. Enjoy.

• Baring an improbable run through the Pac-12 Tournament, we don’t believe the Washington State men will be part of March Madness. The top version anyway. There is something missing with the Cougars, though we can’t put our finger on it.

Oh, yes we can. Consistency. One game WSU is historically good on the defensive end – for proof, see: Dec. 1, 2021 in Tempe as the Cougars defeated Arizona State 51-29. The next they are incredibly efficient offensively. And then, poof. Such positives disappear in a hail of missed shots and lackluster transition.

For much of the season the defense has been, if not ASU good, at least more than passable. Until the last week. The inability to keep Washington players in front is one thing. The Huskies have some talented scorers. But last night’s debacle in Corvallis is quite another. Yes, Washington State won. However, the final score – 103-97 – in overtime against a team that has three wins all season has to be enough to turn Kyle Smith’s hair gray.

Rightfully so. Unless the Cougars find a way to lock down folks in March, whatever tournaments they play – Pac-12, NIT, NCAA – will not include a long run. It’s the consistent teams that continue to filter out the madness and advance in March.

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Gonzaga: Though the Zags lost at Saint Mary’s on Saturday, they remained atop the polls. Of course, six other members of the top 10 also lost that day. Jim Meehan has all the details in this story. … Jim also covers the news Andrew Nembhard is among the five finalists for the Cousy Award, given to the nation’s best point guard. … The women’s team, like the men, have a bye until the West Coast Conference tournament semifinals. Jim Allen tells us what they will be doing until then. … Jim also has this story about Courtney Vandersloot, who is among many American players in Russia possibly working to get out of the country. … Richard Fox joins Jim and John Blanchette for another edition of the Zags Basketball Insiders podcast. … Around the WCC, the BYU women didn’t win the WCC tournament last season, despite being the conference’s best team. Gonzaga got them at the buzzer of the title game. The Cougars want to ensure that doesn’t happen again. … The BYU men need some momentum going into a tournament that looks different this year. … Saint Mary’s is locked into an NCAA berth no matter what happens in Las Vegas.

WSU: Colton Clark watched the game last night, talked with Smith afterward and put together this story. … There is also coverage from the Oregon State side of things. … Mouhamed Gueye earned another Pac-12 freshman of the week award. Colton has that story as well. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and college basketball, there is a huge game tonight in Los Angeles. The Galen Center is sold out for the matchup with No. 2 Arizona and we’re not sure what surprises us more, that UA is ranked second this late in Tommy Lloyd’s first season in Tucson or USC has enough fans to fill its building. … Speaking of Lloyd, he did his recruiting thing and attracted one of the nation’s best point guards to UA. … There was another game last night – the virus forced a whole bunch of changes to what was supposed to be a quiet week – in Seattle, where UCLA found its offense – Jaime Jaquez – and rolled over Washington in the second half. … A walk-on has enjoyed his time at Colorado. … The women begin their tournament with some intrigue. … In football news, there is an opening on Colorado’s staff. … Spring practice is about to start at Oregon State. And at Washington as well. … We have another Oregon position preview to pass along. … Finally, there is more to name, image and likeness income than most might know. Greg Mason has this story explaining how athletes at Washington State and Gonzaga are learning.

EWU: Former Eastern player Bogdan Bliznyuk is out of harm’s way, as he was with the Ukrainian National Team in Spain when the Russians invade his home country. Dave Cook has all the details in this story. … Around the Big Sky, Portland State has three finalists to fill its athletic director spot. One of them, John Johnson, attended East Valley High, was once the AD at Eastern Washington and worked for years at Washington State.

Whitworth: Nope. The Pirates 23-4 mark wasn’t good enough for a host role in the NCAA Division III playoffs. At that level, cost (to the NCAA) is more important than fairness. So Whitworth will travel to Texas for the first rounds. Justin Reed has the Pirates’ reaction in this story.

Preps: John Drager, one of the more impactful North Idaho coaches of the last century, has died. Dave Nichols has his obituary. … We’re putting this here because Lexie Hull played her high school basketball at Central Valley. She is now the Pac-12’s scholar-athlete of the year in women’s hoop. That’s a big deal.

Horse racing: A couple of Playfair’s key players died recently. Jim Price has this story on their passing.

Mariners: Baseball’s negotiations went late into the night but no deal was forthcoming. The parties will try again today to reach an agreement.

Seahawks: Seattle may be playing one game overseas this season. Or in Mexico. … We forgot to add the NFL combine to our list of must-watch March events. Wait, no we didn’t.

Kraken: The bloom is off the expansion rose. There are dead petals all over the ice. What’s next?

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• Just for the heck of it, we went back this morning and read our TV Take from Gonzaga’s last-second win over UCLA in the NCAA semifinals. It was part of the S-R’s award-winning coverage. Our verdict on what we wrote? Eeh. So-so. We could have done better. It’s not like the ending was sudden or anything. By the way, we had two mistakes in the above column earlier today. Sorry about that. We did fix them. Until later …