A Grip on Sports: Insomnia can lead to the mind wandering into dark areas that include thoughts about the local sports scene
A GRIP ON SPORTS • It’s hard to turn the mind off, even in the middle of the night. It is some of those 2 a.m. sports thoughts I’m sharing today. The ones about the Super Bowl that popped in between 3 and 4? Those will stay under lock and key. After all, I don’t want to move the line on the game too much.
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• It’s always strange when Gonzaga’s men have a game on a Tuesday night. But if that’s what ESPN wants, that’s what it gets, I guess. But the Tuesday-Saturday nature of the Zags’ most-important week of the century, 2025 edition, does play in their favor some.
Yes, there is the annual trip to the sweatbox known as, well, whatever McKeon Pavilion is known as these days. This season’s visit is slated for 8 p.m. Saturday. It’s always worth one or two or even three iCalendar reminders, right?
Maybe the extra couple days between tonight’s Kennel rematch with Oregon State (8, ESPN2) will lessen the chance of any the look-ahead-itis college teams suffer from occasionally.
The Bulldogs can’t afford it. Not with a 15-6 overall record and 10 West Coast Conference games left. For once, and for a variety of reasons, they need as high a regular-season finish as possible.
The weird stair-step nature of the WCC’s tournament was designed to facilitate the top two seeds – assured a semifinal berth – meeting in the title game. Smart move by the conference. But this year the Zags don’t seem to be guaranteed one of them – a seeming birthright the last decade or so.
With the addition of the States, Washington and Oregon, along with a resurgence by Santa Clara and USF, avoiding the quarterfinals – and a possible way-too-early upset – seems essential to ensuring an NCAA at-large berth – if that’s only what ends up being available.
Taking care of business tonight is crucial. Then start worrying about Saturday.
• It’s always around 2:30 in the morning when the worries about the mortgage or the kids’ happiness or the soundness of the basement pipes start creeping in.
The best way to cleanse the mind and fall back asleep is to close the eyes and count sheep. Or at least that’s what a Bugs Bunny cartoon decades ago taught me. But when each of the sheep wear a Mariners’ uniform? Sleep is elusive.
It doesn’t help that our buddy Ryan Divish invested lots of time this week examining rosters throughout Major League Baseball, trying to find players that might be available to the M’s between now and next month’s start of spring training. The list he came up with is underwhelming. At best.
You can read it yourself. It is available on the same website as this column. The names read like a who’s-who of mediocrity. Or my last-place Rotisserie league team, circa 1995.
The M’s foundation, aka the starting staff and their two youngsters in the middle of the diamond, is solid. The rest of it? If the Riddler owned a baseball team, he would own the Mariners. After all, questions marks are everywhere. Trying to determine who is at fault is not what you want to be doing at zero dark thirty.
Not if you don’t want an ulcer. Wait for the clear light of a late June day. When you can pop the top of adult beverage in the shade of a backyard maple tree.
And catch up on your missing sleep as the M’s go down to another 1-0 defeat.
• It’s hard to be optimistic at 4 in the morning in the middle of winter. Especially when the dog got his hair cut off the day before. What’s that again? Simple. He was cold. Decided the best way to warm up was to burrow his way into the covers on my legs. The cascading effect of his twisting and turning forced my legs into weird spots – and led to weird pains. And weird thoughts.
Jimmy Rogers. WSU football. The past. A repeat of the dark times? Look, it was 4 a.m., OK? Thinking Rogers might be making a mistake another former FCS coach made when he moved to Pullman can be excused, right?
Rogers’ Cougar staff includes more than a handful of guys who coached with him at South Dakota State. Just like Paul Wulff’s first staff included a few of his former Eastern Washington coaches. It took Wulff a couple years to realize his mistake. By then it was too late.
Then again, 2025 isn’t 2008. The Cougars are not playing in what was then the best the Pac-10 would be. Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh and Jeff Tedford-coached teams are not on the schedule. Besides, Wulff told me once there were at least a half-dozen EWU players who were as good or better than anyone on his first Wazzu roster. Guys that could have helped the Cougs win a few more games. But he had to leave them behind.
Rogers probably had even more at SDSU. These days, they can follow. Many of them did. That knowledge helped wash the dread away. And brought on sleep.
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WSU: The Oregon State women hosted the Cougars last night (fixed from earlier). The visitors from Pullman played well, with the Cougars building a 25-point lead and holding on, 65-57. … We mentioned Rogers above. The Times’ Scott Hanson has this story about him today. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, Jon Wilner has his predictions for 2025 college sports in the Mercury News this morning. … John Canzano has his weekly mailbag on his website. … Washington’s football season may have turned on these 10 plays. …There has been a change in the Oregon State 2025 football schedule. … Colorado’s football fortunes can’t afford the loss of Deion Sanders. … Another Utah cornerback has left through the portal. … A Stanford walk-on is challenging the House settlement’s roster limits. … Among the future Pac-12 members in the Mountain West, of course there are coaches with Boise State ties headed to the Super Bowl. … The Seahawks’ new OC has deep Colorado State ties. … A San Diego State player keeps giving. … In basketball news, the Washington women fell at home to Indiana. … Oregon is starting to gain notice as an NCAA tourney team. … A former OSU player returned to Corvallis as Pepperdine’s coach recently. … On the men’s side, Oregon stayed in the top 25 even after losing at Minnesota. … We’ve avoided a lot of stories about former Pac-12 schools in other conferences this season. But two games last night deserve mention. In Tucson, Arizona’s Caleb Love’s 2/3-court buzzer beater – making him 2-for-12 beyond the arc at the time – allowed the Wildcats to take No. 3 Iowa State to overtime. UA rolled from there. … In Los Angeles, host USC made UCLA teeter but just couldn’t get the Bruins to fall over. Both games were fun to watch. … San Diego State is happy to be back home. … Air Force almost toppled the Aztecs. The Falcons get a shot at Colorado State.
Gonzaga: It sounds as if the Zags have revenge on their mind. That’s what I got out of Theo Lawson’s preview of tonight’s game with Oregon State. … Theo also has the key matchup, based upon the game won by OSU in Corvallis two weeks ago. … The A.P. Top 25 did not contain the Bulldogs for a second consecutive week. But their NET ranking is still darn stellar, as Theo tells us. … As is their spot in Wilner’s Best of the West rankings. … Julian Strawther is having a major impact with Denver. He credits his rise, in part, to his time at GU. … The Zags have fallen dangerously close to bubble status.
Preps: This is probably the least surprising piece of prep news Dave Nichols has shared in a while. But that doesn’t make it any less impressive. Brynn McGaughy, who transferred to Central Valley this year after growing up and playing in Colfax, became only the second Greater Spokane League player to be named to the McDonald’s All-American team. The other? Angie Bjorkland in 2007.
Kraken: A fast start did not lead to victory last night. Seattle fell 4-2 in Edmonton.
Seahawks: Klint Kubiak is the guy we will all be blaming when the first fourth-and-one play fails next season. Bob Condotta has his thoughts on the hire. And others do as well. … Leonard Williams was named to the Pro Bowl as a replacement pick. Too little. Too late. … The Chiefs’ dynasty has made life miserable for the Bills. … The Raiders hiring Pete Carroll sure seems to be being met with universal praise. Am I missing something? Didn’t he seem a bit over his skis the last couple seasons in Seattle?
Storm: The Jewell Loyd trade? It will turn out for the best for Seattle.
Mariners: That Divish story we mentioned above? We link it here again. … Bryan Woo is intriguing to some.
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• The long interlude of no sleep over night finally ended. Made me sleep too late. I’m not happy about it. If I was still punching a clock, I might have done it with a fist today. Until later …