Committee Treats Sgalio Very Unfairly

The Big Sky Conference’s next commissioner will not be Arnie Sgalio.

Whether that was or wasn’t a prudent decision, most concepts of professional decency were violated when Sgalio, who has dutifully served the Big Sky the last 16 years, was the last to learn he wasn’t a finalist.

That’s incredibly shabby treatment, and nobody, least of all the popular assistant commissioner, deserves such brazen disrespect.

Here’s hoping the new commissioner competently runs the conference. And if the theory of “What goes around, comes around,” is valid, commissioner search committee members may want to be on alert.

While on the topic of the new commissioner, it will either be Montana State A.D. Doug Fullerton, NCAA business executive Mike McNeely, or associate conference commissioners Kyle Kallander (Southwest) and Kevin Weiberg (Big Ten).

Outsiders aren’t privy to all the resumes or discussions, but it is obvious that McNeely is the brother of Idaho State football coach Brian McNeely.

In political circles, this unusual situation would amount to a conflict of interest. Should it be any different at the Big Sky Conference?

Heavy hearts

Understandably, Northern Arizona coach Ben Howland didn’t think much about basketball earlier this week.

NAU guard Brad Snyder, son of former NBA guard Dick Snyder, died early Sunday morning in a one-vehicle accident.

Snyder was an honor student, a fine player and a “great human being,” said Howland, whose club visits Idaho today at 4:30 at Memorial Gym. “It’s a tremendous loss, especially tough on our players.”

For obvious reasons, NAU didn’t practice on Sunday or Monday.

“We took a couple days off and Monday we got together with some professional counselors,” Howland said.

Howland said NAU will complete this week’s road trip against Eastern Washington on Saturday and fly back for Snyder’s memorial service on Sunday in Phoenix.

“It’s just really tough having to come back and play so quickly,” Howland said.

Sky lines

Boise State center John Coker, out for three weeks with a stress fracture in his foot, might return for limited minutes this week.

Minus Coker, BSU is 2-3 in Big Sky games and hasn’t scored more than 69 points. Prior to Coker’s injury, BSU averaged 76 points. As byproduct of Coker’s absence, BSU resorted to 31 3-point attempts against Weber State last week. The Broncos made 14…

BSU forward Bernard Walker, who has been charged with credit-card forgery, joined the team on its road trip to Northern Arizona last week. He didn’t play and was later suspended by BSU coach Bobby Dye.

Walker probably had a lot of explaining to do when his parents apparently drove from Southern California to Flagstaff, Ariz., to watch their son play.