Ol’ Doc Frankenstein – movie Frankenstein, anyway – had it easy.

Stop us if you’ve read this before, like, one year ago practically to the date: Gonzaga’s outlook is bright, even with Killian Tillie battling an injury leading into the season.

They’ve already raised their game. Now Katie Campbell and Jessie Loera are raising their voices.

Did Gonzaga really lose three starters from last year?

The script is dog-eared, tattered and coffee-stained from two decades of re-use, as if plucked from the read-through table on the set of “Law & Order” or “Home Improvement.”

The first year of the Kyle Smith era at Washington State won’t be as telling as the second or third, but a program that averaged 11 wins per season under Ernie Kent and never won more than 13 should expect to be more competitive, and more capable on defense, than it has in the past.

Well, the NCAA still hasn’t gone nuclear on Arizona and USC for transgressions that landed their assistant coaches in front of a judge. One of its teams even reached the second weekend of March Madness last spring.

At the end of a tough season, Washington State women’s basketball coach Kamie Ethridge was ready turn the page.

Coaches around the Big Sky Conference believe experienced, talent-stocked Eastern Washington has the means to clear a hurdle that’s tripped the Eagles the last two seasons: The Big Sky Tournament championship game.

Gone is Violet Kapri-Morrow, who led EWU in scoring (18 ppg) and rebounding (6.4 rpg), and starters Alissa Sealby and Uriah Howard.

Interim coach Zac Claus says the team he stitched together from four key returners plus Wilson and 10 newcomers is talented and fully invested in playing for the Vandals.

It’s time for someone else to make a splash in Moscow, and it probably will be Gina Marxen.

Having established a foundation of excellence, the Whitworth Pirates are doing their best to maintain it.

The Northwest Athletic Conference’s East Region flexed its muscle on the 34-team junior college athletic association in March.

Whitworth was a hair short of reaching the Northwest Conference Tournament in coach Joial Griffith’s first year, a transitional season with a relatively young squad.

Falcons’ Dan Quinn may be coaching to save his job – just in time for visit from Seattle’s Pete Carroll, his former boss.

The bye week, as boring as Eastern Washington football players say it is, presents two gifts: Time to heal and two weeks to hone in one particular team.

The Loggers are a game behind Whitworth, which is tied with Linfield atop the NWC with five games to play.

Anthony Gordon would’ve been a few bad injuries away from seeing the field the previous time Washington State visited Oregon. So, because the quarterback never had to worry about strapping on a helmet, he was able to take in the ambience of one of the game’s most revered venues.