Blog
02-11-20
For Gonzaga basketball fans, it was an unusually enlightening Saturday. The Zags learned all sorts of things, starting with the morning’s annual basketball-committee bracket top-16 reveal, and ending ...
02-05-20
We’ve been hearing for years about what it’s like on the road for Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference. So I decided to find out for myself. Well, myself and my wife. We spent part of a long weekend i...
01-28-20
A pro scout I’ve known for a long time lamented the other day the state of the college game in 2020 – the mediocrity of it. He said he wasn’t viewing it from the lens of pro prospects available, but m...
01-09-20
Several years back, an athletic director at a Pac-12 school surveyed Washington State’s hire of Mike Leach as football coach and told me the guy had a reputation in the business as somebody who didn’t...
12-23-19
So Gonzaga is No. 1? Again? Meh. (If this website had a "facetious" emoji, right now I’d insert it.) I tweeted this earlier Monday: Honk, if back in 1980; or 1993; or 2012 even, you’d believed by the ...
12-17-19
The word on the street in college basketball, 2019-20, is that there are no great teams, only some good ones. It’s not breaking news that Gonzaga seems to be one of those, but it is slightly startling...
12-09-19
On KJR 950 in Seattle this morning, host Chuck Powell weighed in on the Gonzaga-Washington game Sunday, and the progress Washington’s young team will likely make. “If they played later in the season,”...
12-07-19
So I was rooting through a disorganized bookcase recently and happened upon a Seattle newspaper from October, 2009. A piece had to do with the then-truncated Gonzaga-Washington basketball series, and ...
12-05-19
Or, you could title this: “Now The Lifting Gets Really Heavy.” Spokane Arena in March plays host for the sixth time to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament first and second rounds, and although nobody...
11-25-19
Gonzaga may or may not play Oregon this week in the Battle 4 Atlantis. It depends on whether the Zags can vanquish Southern Miss (2-3), which seems likely, and whether 11th-ranked Oregon has an answer...
11-16-19
With about seven minutes gone in Gonzaga’s game at Texas A&M Friday night, I got a text message that had frown wrinkles. The Zags had come out flat, it said. The chemistry wasn’t quite there yet. ...
10-31-19
So awhile back, I ran across an item related to University of Arizona hoops. Shockingly, it had nothing to do with indictments, depositions or taped phone conversations. It was a Wildcats all-villain ...
10-10-19
Already, on the subject of college athletics’ percolating name-image-and-likeness issue, Gonzaga occupied a position in the sporting landscape that was distinct, perhaps unique (much more on that late...
10-05-19
Oumar Ballo, Gonzaga's 6-foot-10, 245-pound freshman center from Mali -- nicknamed "Baby Shaq" -- hasn't yet been declared eligible for the 2019-20 season, as the Zags and the NCAA assess his academic...
08-06-19
A longtime friend has expressed to me his angst over the here-today-gone-tomorrow nature of college athletes, compared to, you know, the good old days. He’s a Cal guy who long ago appreciated the stab...
07-23-19
I was there at KeyArena for the “launch” of Gonzaga basketball in 1999. Sat courtside in Lahaina for the triple-overtime screamer against Michigan State in ’05, probably the best game I ever covered. ...
06-18-19
This blog is coming to you courtesy of the mysteries of computer technology, 2019. Specifically, you’re reading it now after (a) I lost some computerized notes awhile back, and (b) I found them the ot...
06-05-19
Only the most degenerate among us know this is possible, but it’s true: A college-football fan can, if he’s a risk-taker, get down a bet this summer in some Nevada casinos on any game on his favorite ...
05-14-19
On the Saturday morning of Bloomsday weekend, with the spring sun glorious, we breakfasted at Chaps, Celeste Shaw’s terrific hangout off State Rt. 195 just south of Spokane. Farmhouse feel, pastries t...
04-01-19
When Gonzaga and Texas Tech advanced to the Elite Eight the other night, my mind turned to, of all people, Erroll Knight. The Zags were going to be facing a rangy, slashing off-guard in Jarrett Culver...
03-29-19
My late father had an expression for those drivers who didn’t meet his standards, who were going too fast or who made an ill-advised turn. “All the idiots are out today,” he would say. Decades later, ...
03-20-19
On the occasion of another NCAA tournament, I decided to take a dive into the NCAA Final Four record book, which is full of great information (you can find it on www.ncaa.org, go to statistics and fol...
03-19-19
However Gonzaga’s basketball season ends – raining confetti or forever lamenting a shot that wouldn’t drop – this much is certain: The Zags have taken their fans on a hell of a ride. Only part of has ...
03-14-19
So … might it happen this March? Might the Gonzaga-Washington series, previously truncated and occasionally tortured, resume in the NCAA tournament? And would Gonzaga want that? OK, I get it: It’s way...
03-13-19
Actually, no, it isn't, although a lot of Gonzaga fans could swear they heard some ominous rumbling above them Tuesday night. They never would have believed that the Zags, a huge 14.5-15-point favorit...