A Grip on Sports: We interupt our college basketball thoughts this morning to bring everyone some breaking news – and yes, it has to do with the NFL

A GRIP ON SPORTS • It’s not often breaking news happens this early on a Monday morning. But today is the exception. Adam Schefter of ESPN is reporting the Seahawks and star receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba have reached agreement on a contract extension.

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• According to Schefter’s report on X, the four-year deal is for $168.6 million – wow – and makes Smith-Njigba the highest-paid receiver in football. That’s an average of $42.15 million per season. That per-season average is nearly $2 million more than what the second-highest paid receiver, the Bengals’ Ja’Marr Chase, receives ($40.25).

Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming. I’m sure there will be multiple stories to send your way tomorrow.

• It is spring. Or, if the season carries the same moniker at your abode as it does in mine, “the time to get off your back side and clean.” Might as well carry that request – command? – to this space too.

College basketball season is still going around the nation. But in these parts? It’s finished. Kaput. Over. No madness this March. Just sadness. No one in Washington, or the states that touch it, Idaho and Oregon, is still playing.

And there is still more than a week remaining in basketball’s best month.

As I’m sure everyone predicted in October, the University of Washington women’s team was the state’s last holdout, though that was more a scheduling circumstance than anything else.

The Huskies, along with the Ducks, fell Sunday in the NCAA’s second round, ensuring the Northwest could return to its favorite spring pastimes, filling up sand bags in case of a flood or clearing debris from the latest windstorm. Hoops? When Gonzaga’s men don’t make the Sweet 16, the season seems shorter than Jimmie Rogers’ Pullman tenure. Ya, that short.

• You know what else should have a short tenure? This whole challenge thing in college hoops. It’s just another example of when the NCAA decides to fix something, it ruins it.

There are two major problems. The idea and the execution. Other than that, it’s perfect.

Each team enters a game with two video challenges. Two chances to correct something that happens at least a dozen times every game. A bang-bang play that’s missed. A toe on an out-of-bounds line. A speeding ball grazing a fingernail.

Two chances to right a wrong. Even if they are obvious to everyone except the person who had to make the call. Get the first challenge right, you retain your right to challenge another one. Get the second right as well and you … well, you lose any more chances.

That’s right. The NCAA rules allow a coach to ask for a video review to correct two egregious missed calls, but if there is a third one that might just determine a winner or a loser, sorry. Thems the rules.

Overcoming ineptitude is preferred – unless it’s happened twice before. We have a TV schedule to keep.

I can’t wait until Duke is down one with 2.4 seconds left against Iowa State in the finals. Jon Scheyer has already used his two challenges to correct incorrect calls. Then the Cyclones’ Joshua Jefferson and Cayden Boozer fight for a loose ball under the Blue Devils’ basket. The whistle blows. Iowa State ball.

Oops. Jefferson’s hand was on the end line. The call is wrong. Sorry. Inbounds, foul, two made free throws, a failed desperation heave. Duke loses.

It’s quite possible the rule could be changed within an hour of the game ending. Maybe less.

• I have watched Dylan Darling play fearless basketball since he was in middle school. When he was, at times the smallest player on the court. The most aggressive one as well. Which tracks with his pedigree, as his dad James was a super-aggressive linebacker for Washington State. A legend at Kettle Falls High, James also played 10 years in the NFL.

And yes, in the time since Dylan was playing at the Warehouse through his time at Central Valley High and at Idaho State, I have seen him attack the basket with total disregard to the defense, as well as his health, just as he did Sunday in St. John’s 67-65 NCAA tourney win over Kansas in San Diego.

Darling’s driving layup as time expired was his only basket of the game. His. Only. Basket. Did we mention the word fearless?

By the way, we didn’t mention watching Darling do similar things for Washington State, where he began his college career. Mainly because he rarely played. Kyle Smith offered a scholarship in March, after Darling’s senior season at CV ended in 2022. Darling took it.

And played some his freshman year, appearing in 25 games and starting four times, the latter brought upon mainly by multiple Cougar injuries. But the next year, as Smith recruited over him, Darling checked in only three times. And needed a new start.

He got it in Pocatello, where Idaho State coach Ryan Looney, himself a CV grad, offered a chance to star. Darling did, averaging 23. 2 points and 5.9 assists in conference play last season. He was voted the Big Sky MVP and newcomer of the year.

That performance allowed for another shot at a major school. Darling took it.

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WSU: Darling’s one shining moment leads off Colton Clark’s look at the local players still producing in this year’s NCAA Tournament. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, I watched the entire evening’s slate of games. It was an exceptionally fun way to spend a few hours. … Jon Wilner has his winners and losers from Sunday in the Mercury News. One addition to the winners category I would have made? Us. There was a lot of high-level basketball. … The Sweet 16 should be great. … The Mountain West’s standard-bearer, and the final next-season-Pac-12 school playing, Utah State, made a second-half run at top-seed Arizona on Sunday. Seemed about to hand the Wildcats another heartbreak. But Jaden Bradley – or it is Fields, as analyst Stan Van Gundy called him? – and Mo Krivas wouldn’t let it happen. … California’s season is over after a home loss to Saint Joseph’s in the NIT. … The UConn game with UCLA was great. Until it wasn’t. Mick Cronin picked up a technical foul, seemingly for clapping. Too loudly perhaps? And the Bruins’ season is over. … As I mentioned above, the Washington women lost. But they gave third-seeded TCU a scare before falling in overtime. … I also mentioned Oregon’s loss. The Ducks did not give top-seed Texas any type of scare. … The USC women face always tough South Carolina today. … Top-seed UCLA has a test against Oklahoma State scheduled as well. … California and Stanford are still alive in the WBIT quarterfinals. … So is San Diego State. … In football news, the Aztecs begin spring practice today.

Gonzaga: The season’s post-mortem may have to wait. But the one concerning Saturday night’s 74-68 loss to Texas which ended it doesn’t. Theo Lawson has it in today’s S-R. … Did you happen to see the weird, is-it-time-to-move-on-from-Mark-Few post on X Sunday? Taylor Newquist did and has a few things to say about it.

EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, Montana State’s women moved on in the WNIT with a win over USF. … Northern Colorado did not, losing to South Dakota.

Preps: I can attest to the facts of this story from Elena Perry. Spokane played host to 100s of youth basketball teams from all over the state this weekend.

Chiefs: The final game of the WHL regular season ended without a goal. For the home team. Visiting Seattle scored four times and sent the Chiefs into playoff prep on a down note.

Sounders: A tired squad played another one Sunday in Minnesota. The result? A scoreless draw.

Mariners: The Seattle Times’ all-time M’s team I linked yesterday? The story is on the S-R site today. … Seattle has built a roster around two homegrown stars. … Bryan Woo is ready for the season to start. Who else will be with him? … Luke Raley will be and he’s looking forward to actually being healthy.

Kraken: An overseas game is in Seattle’s future. Next season, actually.

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• I believe the Seahawks had the highest-paid player in the NFL for a minute or two back in the day. Russell Wilson in 2019. Yes, that is right. Smith-Njigba isn’t earning that honor just yet, but for the franchise to pay a receiver more money than any other player at the position, well, that says something about their faith in him long-term. And if it doesn’t work out? They can always trade him to the Broncos for a trio of players and five draft picks. Until later …