A Grip on Sports: College basketball road trips are tough enough without scary weather thrown in as well

A GRIP ON SPORTS • This seems normal. An early Thursday in January. Cold. Windy. Snow on the ground. And a full college basketball schedule, with games up and down the coast. Plus, a storm in California threatening to make the road trips even tougher.

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• Did you know there is a state of emergency in the Golden State? An atmospheric river can do that, what with high winds, high tides and high water just about everywhere. A lack of power is an issue throughout the Bay Area, including on the San Francisco Peninsula, exactly where the Gonzaga men are headed for a showdown with the up-and-down USF Dons.

It’s hard to wash away a conference game like this one, though, so expect the Zags and Dons to power through, if you forgive the pun.

Powering through is what everyone has to do this time of year on the road. Fourth-ranked UConn couldn’t last night at Providence. Neither could Miami, Duke nor Auburn. Those were the four Associated Press top 25 schools that lost on the road Wednesday night, illustrating once again how tough it is to play in hostile arenas this time of year.

It’s not just the Bulldogs facing that assignment tonight. Washington State is in the Valley of the Sun, where the weather is better than predicted for the Bay Area but the reception from Arizona State will probably be just as stormy. The Sun Devils (11-3) started the season quickly but have slowed down some recently. After fifth-ranked Arizona traveled up Interstate 10 and won last week, ASU needs to hold home court. That’s where the Cougars, with a 1-7 record outside the state of Washington, come in.

Fun, huh?

The other Division I men’s programs in our area, Eastern Washington and Idaho, welcome Portland State and Sacramento State, respectively, both at 6 p.m. Getting from there to here probably wasn’t as tough a road, but you never know. Not in early January.

We do know, however, the road to winning is made harder by the potholes of being the visiting team.

• When we arrived in the Inland Northwest almost four decades ago, there were two high school wrestling coaches that towered above all others. All you have to do to know who they were is look at the IMDB entry for the 1984 movie “Vision Quest.”

You’ll see Mead High’s Cash Stone listed as the technical advisor. And the opponent’s coach, as Matthew Modine faced his climactic match? That would be Rogers High’s Ken Pelo.

Last night the Pirates honored the 91-year-old Pelo, long retired from the school’s mat room but not forgotten. And now his picture will be part of the Pirates’ Wall of Fame.

It’s a well-deserved honor. The coach spent almost four decades at Rogers, developing top-notch wrestlers, sure, but also helping them develop into to-notch people as well. That’s what mean’s the most. And earned him the school’s highest honor.

• It wasn’t too many years after we arrived that Jeff Smulyan bought the Seattle Mariners. The sports talk radio pioneer promised big things ahead back in 1989. And delivered … well, very little. It wasn’t all Smulyan’s fault, though you would have a tough time convincing M’s fans from that era of that.

We got to thinking about Smulyan this morning due to a story we found while scanning the Net. It brought back memories of a time when our boys were just becoming baseball fans.

In the two years Smulyan owned the team, he went from being considered a savior – he bought the team from George Argyros, who was always threatening to move or sell – to something of a pariah – the M’s just didn’t have the resources to compete. And he looked into moving the franchise to Tampa.

Instead he made one incredible decision. He sold to Hiroshi Yamauchi, owner of Nintendo Co. and a group of investors. That one move helped keep baseball in Seattle.

And led, indirectly, to the mid-1990s success that lifted a franchise into a position in which it seems these days as much a part of the city as the Space Needle.

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WSU: Colton Clark delves into the Cougars’ trip to Tempe today as part of this notebook. There is reason for optimism. … To no one’s surprise, all-Pac-12 linebacker Daiyan Henley will be headed to the NFL’s scouting combine. Colton has that story as well. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and college basketball, Jon Wilner has his women’s basketball power rankings in the Mercury News. … The Huskies head to Tucson to face Kerr Kriisa, Azuolas Tubelis and Arizona. … Potential is a great thing if you can tap into it, as one Washington players has begun doing. … Oregon heads to Colorado with both teams searching for some redemption. … A couple freshmen have taken bigger roles as Oregon State hits the road to face conference-leading Utah. … USC and No. 10 UCLA square off tonight. The Bruins’ offense has been on the upswing. … In football news, we passed along Wilner’s season grades recently. Here they are in the S-R. … Dylan Morris may stay at Washington as he contemplates a career in coaching. … There are a lot of transfers who will play large roles for Colorado. … Utah is losing one of its leaders to the transfer portal. … UCLA has dipped into the portal for a running back. … Arizona passed on Sonny Dykes a couple times.

Gonzaga: Theo Lawson is in the Bay Area this weekend and has this preview of tonight’s game at USF. He also has the key matchup. … The Wooden Award list has been winnowed some and Drew Timme is still on it. Jim Meehan has more in this story. … The 20th-ranked women host USF tonight. Jim Allen has a preview. … Elsewhere in the WCC, BYU’s men have won seven consecutive games. They play at Loyola Marymount tonight. … Pepperdine is at Santa Clara.

EWU: Wonder how the Eagles have rebounded from a slow start to the season? By rebounding. Dan Thompson delves into that as he previews tonight’s game in Cheney between Eastern and Portland State. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, Montana heads out for its first conference road trip. First stop in snowy Flagstaff where Northern Arizona awaits. … In football news, Weber State’s new coach received a four-year contract.

Preps: Dave Nichols was at Pelo’s induction ceremony last night. We linked his story above and do it again here. … Dave also has a roundup of Wednesday night’s action, highlighted by GSL wrestling matches. That piece also includes the news on Lake City’s new football coach. We’re pretty confident you will recognize the name.

Seahawks: The NFL played favorites in this week’s scheduling. Get over it. … Bobby Wagner is back in Seattle. It’s a bit different homecoming than Russell Wilson had. … As is the case with all NFL teams, the Hawks are being helped to get through the emotional toll of what happened to Damar Hamlin. If they need it.

Mariners: What are the M’s still searching for this offseason? According to former general manager Jim Bowden, writing in The Athletic, “they are going hard after an impact left fielder, such as Bryan Reynolds, or a right-handed-hitting platoon left fielder, like free agent Andrew McCutchen, as well as another hitter with strong splits against righty pitching. The Mariners are using starting pitchers Chris Flexen and/or Marco Gonzales as their main trade bait, but they’re open to trading more of their top prospects in the right deal.” … We linked the Smulyan story above but it’s here again if you missed it.

Kraken: Inconsistency in the pipes has haunted Seattle some this season.

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• The bad weather has seemed to have slipped south of this area. Though warmer, rainy weather is expected this weekend. It’s a fine line we walk this time of year. We need the precipitation. That’s understood. But we hate all the issues heavy snow brings with it. The perfect compromise is rain to about 3,000 feet and snow above. Makes it OK to get around Spokane and builds snowpack for the spring and summer in the mountains. A win-win. Yet, Mother Nature rarely sends that our way. It’s almost as if she doesn’t exist. We’ll have to check social media to see what everyone else believes. Until later …