A Grip on Sports: As the buildup to Sunday’s Super Bowl continues, we salute a baseball legend’s decision and wonder about a college hoops game

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Wednesdays are not usually like this one. Nope, not at all. But who are we to complain? After all, there is college hoops tonight nearby and the usual pre-Super Bowl banter. Besides, every day brings us closer to spring – and spring training.

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• That last one can’t come soon enough. Before we get there, though, a lot has to happen. More news like what occurred Tuesday, highlighted by Clayton Kershaw reaching agreement with Los Angeles to let him finish his career with the Dodgers.

That doesn’t happen as much as it should anymore. We’re thankful it did in this case. And hope it may as well with a certain Seattle Mariner centerfielder.

But that’s the future. Today we get a present of a Gonzaga home basketball game. Yes, on a Wednesday. Thanks BYU.

What’s that, you say. Well, thanks to the Cougars for bailing out of the West Coast Conference and opting for the Big 12, where they are just as big a threat to win the conference title as they were in the WCC – and yes, you can take that any way you want, good or bad. That defection left the league with nine members – next year there will be 11, with the odd addition of Washington State and Oregon State. And meant there will always be a couple weeks with one game.

In this one, the Zags decided to play two, with the second being Saturday’s intersectional – there’s a word that is pretty much headed for a definition change in college sports – showdown at Kentucky. Playing the lone WCC game a day earlier than normal just made sense.

For once, tonight’s matchup wasn’t driven by TV. Completely by TV, we mean. Sure, the game is on CBS Sports at 5, the once-yearly WCC matchup with that entity we’ll experience here. But it’s not as if the big boys of broadcast were clamoring for the Portland-GU battle to be on a less crowded night so they could feature it. Fox is more interested in Villanova at Xavier (4 p.m. tip on FS1) to grab the Eastern time zone eyeballs, while ESPN has No. 16 Alabama at No. 12 Auburn (also 4 p.m. on ESPN2) to keep their SEC partners satisfied.  

TV may have dictated the weekly two Pac-12 Wednesday night games we have experienced recently – the L.A. schools play in the Bay Area tonight – but being both are on the Pac-12 Networks, we’re not convinced it was a great idea.

Anyhow, we don’t need all that. Our days, and nights, are filled with Super Bowl hype. As the big guy upstairs always intended it.

You don’t think lions worry about what’s happening among schools of sardines, do you? Of course not. And the Super Bowl is the king of the TV savanna. Everything else is just a bunch of nondescript fish swimming in a nondescript ocean, with only an occasional Regal Blue Tang moseying past.

Mixed metaphors aside, for some reason America seems to love the run-up to the game as much as the competition itself. You can’t turn on the Food Channel or any network talk show without being bombarded with Super Bowl chatter, a statement that’s been true even before Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce met cute last July. The game just dominates America every year.

We’re not going to fight it. But we want to turn your eyes away for just a second so we can point them toward a small announcement made yesterday from ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery.

The three sports entities are teaming up. Launching a streaming service this fall that will include, for one large price, every sports-related offering they have, from ESPN to Fox Sports 2, from TBS shows to ESPN News.

You know, like cable. But without the cable. Unless you use cable for your Internet access.

OK, it’s another step in the long road back to the old days, when we used to be able to just make one call, hire one company, pay one bill and get all the TV channels we wanted. A small step, sure. After all, the Super Bowl isn’t a part of this. Or something like it. Yet. But it’s inevitable.

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WSU: If you’ve watched the last couple Cougar men’s basketball games you might have noticed veteran assistant Jim Shaw wasn’t on the bench. Greg Woods shares the news he’s been out due to an undisclosed medical issue. He’s expected back soon, probably even this weekend. … Jon Wilner believes the men have every opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament. He seems, understandably, a tad shocked. If you want to see what he has to say about the rest of the conference teams in his weekly Mercury News power rankings, we have you covered. … Klay Thompson’s new normal isn’t what we’ve become accustomed to. Or what he is used to either. … Before we move away from Washington State-related news, we wanted to pass along this story on the changes coming to downtown Pullman. Expect to have trouble navigating the area for a while. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and the nation, there are some good basketball games around the country this week. … What the heck are the Big Ten and SEC up to? … And why the heck is this conference falling apart? … Can Oregon fix its leaky defense before the postseason begins? … Colorado is asking the same question. … Utah’s success has been a family affair in some ways. … UCLA opens the weekend with a game at Stanford tonight. … USC heads to California. … Tommy Lloyd has deep connections in Lithuania he has used to his advantage for Arizona. … The Oregon State women are surging. … In football news, Washington’s recent coaching and roster moves show a program moving forward. … Trent Bray is marking a new path for Oregon State. … What is going on at Arizona? … There are new titles at UCLA.

Gonzaga: If we had been a little more focused this morning, we might have looked at Saint Mary’s whomping Pacific 84-43 last night and written about the gap at the top of the conference. Maybe tomorrow. For today we pinpoint Jim Meehan’s preview of Portland’s visit to the Kennel. And the key matchup. … Jalen Suggs is healthy and playing well. …  Gonzaga and Eastern Washington cross country teams won academic awards recently. That news leads of the S-R’s latest local briefs column. … Elsewhere in the WCC, Santa Clara (and Stanford from the Pac-12) have been lifted by players from France.

EWU: You can watch Ellis Magnuson warm up before a basketball game and kind of wonder just what it is he does for the Eagle men. His stature isn’t one that wows before the contest. Or in the airport, for that matter. But when the ball tips, his skills begin to show. And they are a big part of why Eastern has been successful in Big Sky play. Dan Thompson delves into all that in this story. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, Montana football has added another assistant coach. … Montana State is adding a player from Texas. … Weber State’s Dillon Jones has added another weekly basketball award.

Preps: It’s a busy Wednesday, that’s for sure. We start with this Luke Pickett feature on the Oakesdale basketball coaches. In the B ranks, the Crider name means something. A lot actually. … Dave Nichols was out at Ridgeline last night for the GSL’s final regular season games. … He also put together a roundup of all the other basketball action, including some district playoff games.

Mariners: As we said, spring training draw nigh. We can’t wait. For stories like this one from Ryan Divish. It’s about the starting rotation, the M’s strength. … The M’s announced the spring games you can watch on TV. … Even the mayor of Las Vegas doesn’t think the A’s stadium plans are going to work. We pass along this story because it fills in a lot of blanks we were unaware of. The whole thing is a fiasco. … One last note. FanGraphs has its 2024 projections available. The Mariners are projected to have the fourth-best chance to make the playoffs in the American League. That is something we did not expect.

Seahawks: Could it be true? Could former Oregon and Eagle coach Chip Kelly leave UCLA and become the Hawks’ offensive coordinator? Maybe. We would welcome it just for the sheer number of great stories the hire would spawn.

Sounders: There is grass on the way for Lumen Field. In time for the 2026 World Cup. Our question: Will it stay after the Cup is over or will the turf field return?

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• We also can’t wait for the Big Game, as advertisers like to refer to it, to be here. Partly because we have a decent menu planned around the two cities and partly because we want all the hullabaloo to end. That way we never have to use the word hullabaloo again. Well, until March Madness begins. Until later …