Blog
06-23-17
Two minutes, that’s all it was. Actually, it was less than two minutes. With 1:52 remaining, Nigel Williams-Goss backed down Theo Pinson smartly, banked in a 12-footer and Gonzaga had a 65-63 lead. In...
06-01-17
In the extravagant tradition of Nike itself, the PK80-Phil Knight Invitational in Portland over Thanksgiving weekend is taking shape, such as a 16-team, two-arena, college hoops mega-monstrous gala ta...
05-24-17
Johnathan Williams III dispersed some hope around an anxious Zag Nation Wednesday, announcing he’s going to return to Gonzaga for his senior year after submitting his name into the NBA draft. Some Zag...
05-19-17
Last week, I tossed out for debate a provocative topic, completely subjective and indefinable: Who belongs on Gonzaga’s men’s basketball Mount Rushmore? Judging by message-board reaction, there are a ...
05-12-17
Not so long ago, when the absolute dog days afflicted a sports-talk radio station -- no buzz, no hot topic, crickets -- the host inevitably would drag out this old standby and ask for input from liste...
05-01-17
Last week’s purge at ESPN was so staggering, so pervasive, as to make you wonder where to assign the cause. Was it a simple (though cruel) case of course correction, a business shifting assets? Or was...
04-19-17
The NCAA announced future NCAA subregional and regional sites Tuesday, and it was good news for Northwest college hoops fans -- Seattle (2019), Spokane (2020), Boise (2021) and Portland (2022) all got...
04-13-17
Well, Zag fans, you’ve hit the big-time. You’re now part of the “in” crowd in college basketball, part of a high-rolling, high-wire act just like Kentucky and Duke. Congratulations, I guess. When Zach...
04-06-17
I can’t tell you a lot about the Naismith Hall of Fame selection process; only by describing its renderings can we begin to interpret its thinking. But I would suggest that with Gonzaga’s recent run t...
04-05-17
Gonzaga’s longest basketball season -- its best one -- ended Monday night in the desert, leaving its fans, well, leaving them a lot of things: Proud, devastated, redeemed, delivered, conflicted. That ...
04-05-17
Gonzaga’s longest basketball season -- its best one -- ended Monday night in the desert, leaving its fans, well, leaving them a lot of things: Proud, devastated, redeemed, delivered, conflicted. That ...
03-29-17
If you’re the average Gonzaga basketball fan, this Final Four is either about preparing for that long-awaited trip to Phoenix, or perhaps just figuring out where the TV is that you’ll be wedded to Sat...
03-26-17
Saturday was the most momentous day for Northwest college basketball since, well, when? The afternoon in 1958 at Louisville’s Freedom Hall when Kentucky won the national title over Elgin Baylor-led Se...
03-26-17
Final Four. Gonzaga’s Final Four. It seems so incongruous, such a non sequitur. But there they were late Saturday afternoon in San Jose, the Zags body-bumping, slipping on celebratory T-shirts and bal...
03-24-17
So this is it for Gonzaga: A stone-cold, straight-up golden opportunity to get to the Final Four. Awaiting the Zags Saturday at 3:09 Pacific is 11th-seeded Xavier, which took down Arizona Thursday nig...
03-22-17
A few days before Christmas, on a mostly deserted Gonzaga campus, I ran into Ken Bone, the former Seattle Pacific, Portland State and Washington State head coach. In a brief chat having to do with his...
03-20-17
So the University of Washington has hired longtime Syracuse assistant Mike Hopkins, which is, at the very least, a provocative hire. Among other things, it tells me that UW athletic director Jennifer ...
03-15-17
Ah, it's that time of year. Brackets, buzzer-beaters, chaos. And of course, hating on Gonzaga. Now, everybody who finds his name on the 68-team bracket can talk himself into a perceived slight. There’...
03-13-17
So I was listening to a Seattle sports-talk radio show a couple of weeks ago, and the host posed a hypothetical question to his audience about Gonzaga men's basketball and the NCAA tournament. Two opt...
03-06-17
A stony silence has emanated from the athletic offices at the University of Washington regarding the future of basketball coach Lorenzo Romar, and we can only assume that shortly, a puff of white or b...
02-27-17
Have to admit, I didn’t recognize that Gonzaga team out there Saturday night against BYU. It was simply a confusing performance. As much as it was an inspired, all-in effort by BYU, it was also a slug...
02-25-17
Saturday night, Brigham Young comes to the Kennel, party to a coronation. At least that’s what the script says. Gonzaga has a chance to become one of college basketball’s rarities, a team negotiating ...
02-22-17
Watching Saint Mary’s take apart Brigham Young the other night, I was struck by a strange question: Is it possible we’re undervaluing Saint Mary’s? Consider: The Gaels are now 24-3, against what most ...
02-16-17
Ray Giacoletti never envisioned a January like this one: Vacationing in Fort Lauderdale, cruising to the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Cozumel and Key West. “It was good to get away and decompress a little...
02-09-17
Caught up with Gonzaga coach Mark Few in an early-February conversation this week, and he addressed a wide range of topics, mostly on his roster. The top-ranked Zags are now 24-0, and as of Wednesday,...