There have been times this year when it seemed as though attempting a season wasn’t worth the trouble. Week after week there is a COVID-related cancellation that keeps the conference in a perpetual state of uncertainty.

SEATTLE – When Jake Gustafson, the senior director of operations and development at Seattle Children’s Hospital, approached a cross-section of local celebrities about participating in a Topps trading-card project he had brainstormed, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive.

The sport's opening week has been part triumph, part train wreck. Prominent schools like Butler, Creighton and Utah, among others, have put their programs on pause. Prominent coaches like Jim Boeheim and Scott Drew have tested positive. And schedules are being ripped up and replaced by a roulette wheel.

No one would blame top-ranked Gonzaga if it suffered a bit of a Thanksgiving hangover Friday morning against overmatched Auburn. No, not the food type, though that might have been in play considering the holiday. But the intoxicant in question was Thursday’s impressive win over No. 6 Kansas. And some troubling news that occurred before the game.

Is there some place higher than No. 1 where the Bulldogs can be slotted in the next poll?

There aren’t many better ways to begin the college basketball season than a matchup of the top-ranked team in the nation and last year’s season-ending No. 1, ranked sixth to start this one. No matter who the teams are.

They are two of the most-respected programs in all of college athletics, yet Kansas and Gonzaga couldn’t be more different.

His statistics through two games don’t leap off the stat sheet so much as they hop. His deep balls often travel as though he is expecting DK Metcalf to track them down instead of a typical college receiver.

It came after a month of uncertainty, disappointment and downright ineptitude.

That asterisk we're putting next to the 2020 college football season? How about an exploding emoji instead?

Maybe sometimes you just need fresh eyes to see how good things really are. And to defensive end Carlos Dunlap, acquired midseason from Cincinnati, everything about the Seahawks is, in his words, “very lovely.”

On Thursday, the Seattle Seahawks announced that their new home would heretofore be known as Lumen Field, though the GPS will not change – good news for tailgaters, at least once tailgating can be a thing again.

PULLMAN – And now the victory is just getting the game in.

As Oregon began to slowly pull away from Washington State on Saturday night in Pullman, the Fox announcing crew of Tim Brando and Spencer Tillman began to discuss such subjects as playoff berths and matchups.

There is Pete Carroll, who has led the Seahawks to eight postseasons, two Super Bowls and one world championship.

That crash you heard was the glass ceiling being shattered in Major League Baseball.

We've learned a lot in eight months about what we can get along without. Here was Washington State's list on Saturday night.

The Pac-12 elected to start its football season behind all the other major conferences because it wanted to take the time to get it right. To figure out a way to prioritize the health of its players and still get games in – even if it was fewer games than everyone else, a mere seven in seven weeks.

If you need to put a date to it, then Jan. 4, 1976, might be as good as any.