A Grip on Sports: When close friends compete, whether it be personal or in a broader context, fireworks usually ensue

A GRIP ON SPORTS • The college football last night was entertaining. The nation watched. The college basketball tonight will be entertaining as well. Though the national audience will be, more than likely, limited to folks with Inland Northwest ties of some sort. Or those without an Amazon Prime subscription.

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• Remember that person you roomed with your freshman year of college? I do. Tom Fenelon, though I’m not 100% sure of the spelling. After all, it was a long time ago and spelling wasn’t all that important to me back then – I was a social studies major.

Anyhow, I’m sure Tom never jumped on my back, stole my football and ran 83 yards through the quad. In fact, Tom may have never touched a football in his life, preferring to spend his time listening to Eric Clapton guitar riffs and luxuriating in a haze of smoke. Still, if I had run into him, say, three years later and we were competing for something, I would have wanted to kick his bong from there to Montebello.

I thought about ol’ Tom last night near the end of Ohio State’s 28-24 CFP semifinal win over Texas. Just after linebacker Jack Sawyer stripped Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers of the football, scooped it up and ran 83 years to a game-clinching touchdown. Or when I became aware Sawyer, the first recruit of the Ryan Day OSU era, shared a domicile with Ewers when both were freshmen in Columbus.

Friends back then? Sawyer said they were, though the way he jumped on Ewers’ back to knock the ball loose reminded me a lot of another former college roommate, John Kremer, who once did the same because he was ticked I neglected to clean my dishes again.

Turns out John and I still stay in touch. And I still try to meet up with him whenever I am in the Irvine area. Just as Sawyer and Ewers might a few decades down the road. If Ewers can forgive him for ruining what was about to be a career-defining comeback in the most important college football game either had ever played.

That’s sports, though, isn’t it? From the first time wanna-be athletes take a field or court or course, they compete with and against friends. Often times both.

• Such will happen tonight in McCarthey Athletic Center, I’m pretty sure. I would be 100% positive if Gonzaga’s Steele Venters were healthy, as the forward, dealing with another season-ending preseason injury, played at Eastern with a few of the Cougars who will invade the place.

The transfer portal is responsible in large part for the proliferation of the Cain-and-Abel-like meetings. They have occurred forever, sure, but they are more common in these days of athletic portability. Venters was a teammate of a trio of WSU players while in Cheney. Three players, LeJuan Watts, Ethan Price and Dane Erikstrup, are among those who followed their EWU coach David Riley to his new place of employment.

But there is another change in college athletics, conference realignment, which also made the reunion possible.

Gonzaga and Washington State haven’t played in a decade. The rivalry – and it has been one over the years – pause between Pac-12 and WCC schools meant many friends and friendly enemies missed out on renewing what was once a year-by-year battle. Now that they are both in the WCC before Gonzaga jumps to the WSU-rebuilt Pac-12, the two have to play.

Theo Lawson spent some time researching the best of the 150 games between the schools, tied together by more than just geography. He highlighted one game in each decade, starting with the first one in 1907. And, no, I didn’t attend that one.

But a few since 1983, sure. That’s when I moved to Spokane, back when John Stockton was Dan Fitzgerald’s point guard and Len Stevens was trying, and failing, to fill George Raveling’s iconic Cougar sweat suit. Great games at times, often with fewer people than could be expected in the stands.

But that wasn’t the case in December of 2007, the most iconic game of the century between the schools. It marked the high point of contrasting styles, Mark Few’s get-up-and-down offense, a big building block to his Hall of Fame-inevitable run of success, and Tony Bennett’s suffocating Pack defense, which not only powered back-to-back NCAA appearance in those years, but also helped him win a national title at Virginia.

In that 2007 matchup, at least, Bennett’s players and philosophy won out, as the Cougars handed Micah Downs, Austin Daye and the Zags a 51-47 loss in McCarthey. As far as we can tell, it is still the fewest points a Few team has ever scored.

Expect both teams to come close to doubling those totals tonight (6, KHQ) as the rivalry resumes for the first time since December of 2015.

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WSU: The preview of the men’s basketball game (the GU and Coug women also play this afternoon, in Pullman) is contained in the Gonzaga section below. However, Greg Woods does have this look at what the Cougars need to do to put the Pacific loss in their rearview mirror. … Greg has a lot of football news to pass along, as Jimmy Rogers is nearly finished filling out his coaching staff but nowhere near done adding players to the roster. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, the championship game participants are set and, just as everyone predicted after Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois, or after Ohio State’s no-show against Michigan, it will pit the Fighting Irish with the Buckeyes. … Jon Wilner has his weekly mailbag in the S-R this morning. … He also passes along this football recruiting summary in the Mercury News. … Oregon State is spending NIL funds like drunken sailors as the Beavers try to bounce back in the second year of the Pac-12 interregnum. … One incoming Washington player redshirted at a JC as he tried to improve. … Dan Lanning and Oregon have everything in place to sustain success. Though right now, all anyone is still dwelling on is the last game. … A couple former Ducks showed up on police blotters recently. … Is it possible Deion Sanders will abandon Colorado and head to Las Vegas to coach his eldest son? … An icon in Boulder, Bill McCartney, died Friday at 84. McCartney led Colorado to the 1990 football title. … How does UCLA look on the defensive line? … With the change of administrations in D.C., it looks as if the NLRB case against USC is going away. A lawsuit against the school, however, is just getting started. … Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham was really funny on yesterday’s Dan Patrick Show. … Former WSU assistant, and Arizona alum, Joe Salave’a is returning to Tucson as an assistant coach. … Among the future Pac-12 members in the Mountain West, a former Washington State assistant has joined the Colorado State staff. … Just how will Boise State look now that Ashton Jeanty is headed to the NFL? … Fresno State continues to add players from the portal in what looks to be a complete rebuild. … In basketball news, it took a while but Oregon State’s women have finally found their defensive identity. … It seems a bit ironic that UCLA men’s coach Mick Cronin was ejected in a loss at Maryland last night. Mainly because he was arguing his team was getting hacked to death. You don’t say? … Utah State and Boise State meet in Logan tonight. … The MWC’s top game today? That’s probably San Diego State facing New Mexico in the Pit.

Gonzaga: Theo not only has the history lesson we linked above but also has a preview of the game and the key matchup.

EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, yes, Montana State has lost players to the portal following their FCS-title-game loss to nemesis North Dakota State. But the Bobcats have retained many more. … In basketball news, Northern Colorado’s win Thursday at MSU included a rally from 20 points down. … Sacramento State’s new basketball facility should be ready for next season.

Whitworth: The Pirates hosted Willamette in a Fieldhouse doubleheader Friday. Whitworth won both games.

Preps: Dave Nichols traveled to U-Hi last night to cover the Titans’ Greater Spokane League doubleheader against Gonzaga Prep. The visiting Bullpups won both games. … Dave also has a roundup of GSL action as well as another one covering the area’s smaller schools.  

Chiefs: The fourth story Dave put together last night? A summary of Spokane’s 4-2 loss to WHL U.S. Division-leading Everett on the road.

Seahawks: The six wild card playoff games may come down to which team has the better quarterback. But that’s not always true. … We have been hate-watching the college football playoffs. That is also possible during the NFL’s next few games.

Storm: Free agency decisions loom but are contingent on a couple moves first.

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• I’m mad at myself. I told sports editor Ralph Walter yesterday I could write a TV Take from tonight’s showdown in the Kennel. I forgot what else was on. Mainly, UC Irvine’s trip to UC San Diego in a matchup of 14-2 teams. It starts at 7 p.m. on ESPNU. We’re also not going to be able to many peeks at Russell Wilson and the Steelers trying to handle Baltimore, since it is on Prime at 5. I guess I’ll just have to skip a lot of TV sports today. Until later …