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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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College basketball news pushes into the late-April scene

Junior Kyle Wiltjer will return to Gonzaga for his senior season. (Colin Mulvany)
Junior Kyle Wiltjer will return to Gonzaga for his senior season. (Colin Mulvany)

A GRIP ON SPORTS • A lot of big roster news happened yesterday for our local college basketball teams. Which means a bunch of links. Read on.

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• With lots of news comes the temptation to comment upon it, but I'll have to resist this morning. Not because I don't want to but because I am physically incapable of doing so. Yep, a little virus laid me low last night, bringing with it chills, hot flashes, high temps and other things. So we're going to power through the links here this morning thanks to a box of tissues and a hi-tech medicine and leave the rest up to your imagination.

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• WSU: The Cougars will be holding the Pac-12 men's golf championships at Palouse Ridge next week and they are ready. Well, the course is ready as it's playing tough and fast. We'll have more later in the week. ... Jacob Thorpe will have a live chat today, so don't miss that. ... ESPN.com's Pac-12 blog has a summary of the Cougars' scrimmage. ... The Oregon quarterback battle seems to be in its early stages.

• Gonzaga: Kyle Wiltjer decided yesterday to not turn professional and to return for his senior season at Gonzaga. Jim Meehan put together this story and blog post on the news, interrupting some important business to get it done. ... Others had the Wiltjer news as well. ... BYU is losing a couple of reserve players.

• EWU: The Eagles' do-everything point guard Drew Brandon graduated so Eastern had needs at the position. Enter one Austin McBroom, who took to Twitter yesterday to say he was transferring from St. Louis to Eastern for his senior season. Jim Allen has the story. ... Jim also has the seventh part of his spring position series, covering the secondary.

• Idaho: Dezmon Epps is fast. But he has to make sure he catches the football. That's the thrust of Sean Kramer's story this morning. ... Idaho's women have a shot at the Big Sky golf title.

• Chiefs: Portland will meet Kelowna for the WHL's Western Conference title.

• Preps: It's Tuesday so Jim Allen has his soccer notebook.

• Seahawks: The Hawks began their voluntary workouts yesterday which means there was a lot of news out of Seattle. The biggest might be Michael Bennett wasn't there. Speculation abounds on what that might mean. ... Pete Carroll and John Schneider have a plan for draft day. ... Speaking of Schneider, the Times has a nice story on his family's day-to-day dealings with autism. ... The best name on the Hawk roster returned yesterday as they signed center Lemuel Jeanpierre to a free agent contract. ... Back to the draft, we can pass along pre-draft previews of the running back and receiver positions.

• Mariners: OK, we're to the Mariners. Maybe this is what made me sick. (I actually know who made me sick and I will be getting back at him someday.)  The M's pitching recently is making their fans sick, I do know that. Last night it was, to some degree, Hisashi Iwakuma, though he pitched well enough to win, and, to a greater degree, the bullpen, which lost the lead and the game, 7-5, to the Astros. ... Nelson Cruz won the American League player of the week award.

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• That's it for today. It's all I've got. Until later ...



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