Earl's finger, WSU's coach and leaked brackets
Believe it or not, the world of sports in these parts has not stopped as we await Gonzaga’s first game of the NCAA tournament.
A few other things are happening, so why don’t we take a peek?
Here are some notes and quotes on other topics as the Zag Nation bites fingernails while worrying about how many minutes Killian Tillie can contribute to the cause…
ITEM: It sure took a while, but newly minted Baltimore Ravens safety Earl Thomas finally has provided an explanation about why he made an obscene gesture toward the Seahawks sideline after breaking his leg in the fourth game last season.
You may recall that Thomas was holding out for a long-term contract, hoping to be the highest-paid safety in the NFL, when he suffered the injury against Arizona.
Thomas was well on his way to making a solid case, too, with three interceptions and 16 tackles before he got hurt.
Here’s what Thomas had to say during an interview on Peter King’s “Football Morning in America” show…
“A lot of frustration that day. I was in a battle with the team, and I chose to play, and I was betting on myself.
“So when it happened, it just added to my frustration, and I did what I did.
“I saw Pete Carroll, and I was just like, ‘You won, you won.’
“Just a very disappointing day.”
Not quite so disappointing for Thomas in the long run, though, as he scored a four-year, $55 million deal with the Ravens.
ITEM: You’ve no doubt heard by now that Washington State fired basketball coach Ernie Kent after five fairly miserable seasons.
Kent walks away with a $4.2 million buyout, a difficult pill to swallow for Wazzu AD Pat Chun when the overall program is running a significant deficit.
What’s just a tad ironic is that some media folks in the region have suggested that to win down in Pullman, Chun needs to find a coach like football guru Mike Leach — someone who can boost the school’s hoops fortunes by thinking “outside the box.”
First of all, nobody is as far outside the box in as many ways as Leach.
But Wazzu actually did have a shot at a coach who is remarkably different, and wins because of it.
Unfortunately, Mike Hopkins — former assistant at Syracuse and disciple of a stifling zone defense that’s pretty rare in college basketball these days — was hired over at U-Dub while Kent continued working on his third rollover contract granted by Bill Moos, the former athletic director.
Hopkins, who earlier had been a finalist for the Oregon State job, signed at Washington for a school-friendly $12.3 million over six years.
Meanwhile, Kent’s contract extension came after a season during which the Cougs went 9-22.
Hopkins, of course, has been the Pac-12 coach of the year in both of his first two seasons at Montlake, and now has guided the Huskies into the NCAA dance for the first time since 2011.
Ouch!
ITEM: It’s hard to imagine how ESPN could have made a worse screw-up than its fumble when attempting to reveal the NCAA women’s basketball tournament bracket on Monday.
The network had an announcement show scheduled for 5 p.m., an event much like the men’s program on Sunday.
Schools and teams expecting to be selected had watch parties ready to go, you know, the whole extravaganza.
Ah, but somebody goofed, and a significant share of the bracket appeared on-screen during a program earlier in the afternoon — thus letting many cats out of their bags.
Several hours before the NCAA planned its formal announcement, most teams knew if they were in, and where they were headed.
Gonzaga’s women, for instance, learned they would be a fifth seed and play their opener in Corvallis against Arkansas-Little Rock.
Nobody was happy about the programming goof, but it went down particularly poorly at the University of Oregon — where a team party was cancelled completely.
If you suspect heads will roll…
You’re probably right.
Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns for The Press appear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He also contributes the “Zags Tracker” package on Gonzaga basketball each Tuesday.
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