NORTHWEST NOTES: Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016
Zags part of loaded
16-team tourney in 2017
The creation of PK80 — Phil Knight Invitational, a 16-team, early-season men’s college basketball tournament honoring Nike co-founder and 2012 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Phil Knight in advance of his 80th birthday, will take place over Thanksgiving week in 2017 in Portland.
One of the largest regular-season tournaments in college basketball history, sporting a field featuring some of the top schools in the nation, will be played Thursday, Nov. 23, Friday, Nov. 24 and Sunday, Nov. 26, from the Rose Quarter’s Moda Center and Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
Participating schools include Arkansas, Butler, Connecticut, Duke, Florida, Georgetown, Gonzaga, Michigan State, North Carolina, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oregon, Portland, Portland State, Stanford and Texas.
Two eight-team events — consisting of three games per team — will run simultaneously in the two buildings with the crowning of two bracket champions. All games from Portland will be televised on ESPN networks.
“This going to be an awesome event,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. “It’s an honor for us at Gonzaga to be part of this tournament and an honor for me to be in it. Nike has been a huge part of my life since I was in the second grade and got my first basketball shoes. It’s cool that this tournament is in the Northwest, and the teams that are in the field are going to make it a first-class event.”
Swen Nater featured speaker at
Lewis-Clark State
lecture series
LEWISTON — Basketball great Swen Nater, the only player in history lead both the NBA and ABA in rebounding, will be the featured speaker at the annual Dr. Bob Frederick Sports Leadership Lecture Series, to be held at Lewis-Clark State College in October.
Nater, who won two NCAA titles with UCLA in the early 1970s as the backup to Bill Walton, was the ABA Rookie of the Year in 1974. He played with three teams in the ABA — Virginia, San Antonio and the New York Nets — then with four teams in the NBA, including Milwaukee, Buffalo, San Diego and the Los Angeles Lakers.
Nater will speak on Oct. 24, first on “Rebounding to Success” from noon to 1 p.m. at the Lewis-Clark Silverthorne Theatre, and then on “Play Post Like the Pros: Getting Open, Scoring and Rebounding” at 7-8:30 p.m. at the Lewis-Clark State Activity Center.
The lecture series honors former University of Kansas athletic director Bob Frederick for his life-long commitment to teaching, coaching and athletic administration. The lecture series is sponsored by the LCSC Sport Administration program and the Sport Leadership Club. LCSC offers a B.A. and B.S. in Sport Administration as a co-curricular degree between the Business Division and the Education and Kinesiology Division.
In all, there will be 19 presentations/panel discussions during the lecture series, all free and open to the public. The series kicks off on Oct. 4 with a panel discussion on Career Opportunities for Women in Sports. Other topics include personal health, career tips, leadership ideas, Rio Olympics, financing athletics and college athletics.
Among the presenters are Josh Kuntz, founder/owner of Recreation and Event Services, Inc., Uri Farkas, Chris Connolly, and Simon Licen from Washington State University, Jordan Bass from the University of Kansas, Ann Brown and Jessica Atkins from the University of Idaho, Gayle See, executive director of SHAPE America Northwest District, and Kelsey Oswalt from Duke University.
Information: Pete Van Mullen, (208) 792-2467 or [email protected]