A Grip on Sports: It’s Saturday and you know what that means. This time of year it means college basketball from sunup to beyond sundown

A GRIP ON SPORTS • It’s Saturday. The weekend. Sports on TV. Sports in person. A good day. The best day of the week? Maybe.

•••••••

• It’s hard to say. Sundays are always good. Fridays, especially Fridays when work ends a bit early, have its supporters. And Taco Tuesdays have been coming up fast on the outside.

But Saturday is probably the best. Just look what we have going on around here today. Both Gonzaga teams are playing at home, one in the afternoon, one in the evening. Eastern and Idaho both have home conference games. Whitworth is in town and playing a doubleheader. Heck, if the Cougars and Chiefs happened to be scheduled in the area – WSU is at Utah and Spokane plays hockey this evening in the Tri-Cities – it would be an impossible-to-beat day.

Add in all the warm-weather sports you could ever want to watch on the TV, from tennis in Australia to golf in San Diego, and it’s a pretty perfect day.

Heck, maybe even Florida will upset Baylor tonight – you can watch at 5:15 on ESPN – and give the Zags a chance to ascend back atop the polls again.

• Are you more of a college football or basketball fan? As much as I love the pageantry and tradition of football, I lean toward being more of a hoops guy. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the Los Angeles area when UCLA was winning the national title every year. But I would rather watch a good college basketball game any day.

But I also am self-aware enough to know I am in the minority on this one. The weekly college football experience is king. And maybe queen too.

Not that there needs to be any evidence of this other than the ratings and attendance numbers, but let’s exam something that is happening today – and something that happened in early December.

The latter first. Army plays Navy every year in football. The two service academies have played, it seems, every year since the Space Force was only an idea in H.G. Wells’ imagination. It’s such a big deal – the football game, not the new branch of the service – it attracts politicians from both sides of the aisle and has a reserved time slot on CBS. The big network. The ratings are routinely among the best of the regular season.

Army and Navy are playing a basketball doubleheader today. In Annapolis. The women will tip off first, at 8 a.m. our time. The men at 10. Both games will be on TV. The CBS Sports Network – a cable outlet that also carries college hockey and professional rodeo. You know, “big time” sports.

The ratings for the basketball games today will be so small you’ll need a magnifying glass and a flashlight to read them.

It’s just another example of football’s dominance.

•••

WSU: There are a couple of players with local connections playing in today’s Senior Bowl – broadcast on the NFL Network starting at 11:30 a.m. Theo Lawson checked in with experts to find out how former WSU quarterback Anthony Gordon and Evan Weaver, the former California linebacker who attended Gonzaga Prep, did in their week of practice. … The women’s basketball team lost to USC in Los Angeles. … The men are in Salt Lake City to face Utah. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12, Washington is in the conference cellar heading into today’s game at Colorado. … Oregon State is also struggling. Now the Beavers face a USC team needed to bounce back. … Coach Bobby Hurley is quieter this season for Arizona State. The Sun Devils face Arizona today. … Oregon won the first showdown with Oregon State in a matchup of two of top teams in women’s basketball. … In football news, Colorado’s strength was player development. … UCLA is running a deficit. And more problems.

Gonzaga: Pacific will make face the Zags just one time this season. Whether that will include facing center Filip Petrusev tonight is still unknown. Jim Meehan tells us Petrusev, who sprained his ankle last Saturday against BYU, is a game-time decision. … No matter if Petrusev plays or not, the Bulldogs will have their hands full with Pacific’s Jahlil Tripp. That’s Jim’s choice for the key matchup. We’ll keep our eyes on him and have some thoughts when we post our TV Take around 9 p.m. … The women host Loyola Marymount this afternoon, which means there will be a quick turnaround for the McCarthey cleanup crew before the men’s game. (If I weren’t so lazy, and so old, it might make for a fun story to follow them around.) Jim Allen has a preview. … Around the WCC, not only is one of BYU’s guard a player, he’s also an EMT. … As the losses pile up for San Diego, one player is puzzled.

EWU: Ryan Collingwood looked ahead to the Eagles’ weekend with Larry Weir. It’s on the latest Press Box pod.

Whitworth: The Pirates had to rally at home to get past Linfield at the Fieldhouse last night. Dan Thompson was there and has this game story.

CCS: There hasn’t been a more successful college athletic program in the area the past couple years than the Sasquatch volleyball team. Two conference titles, one undefeated season and a .975 winning percentage. Now coach Jenni Hull is stepping away to spend more time with her family. Jim Meehan has the story.

Preps: Dave Nichols drove up to Gonzaga Prep last night and covered the girls and boys contests with Central Valley. The Bears won both to solidify their hold on the top 4A spot in the GSL standings. … We also have a roundup of action around the area in boys and girls play. … Jared Brown has this story about Ferris High graduate Kellen Erickson, who was killed Thursday in a one-car accident.

Shock: Training camp starts in March, but the Shock are already getting into gear. The key? Head coach Billy Back. Ryan introduces the team’s leader, and whole bunch of other stuff, in this in-depth story.

Mariners: The M’s picked up a left-handed pitcher from the Padres’ organization. He may be part of the starting rotation.

•••       

• When you are (semi) retired like some people we know, your Saturdays can be the most crowded work day of the week. Seems fair actually. As other spend Monday through Friday slaving away in a cubicle or assembly line somewhere, the (semi) retired take naps. Saturdays come and the naps disappear. It’s actually a fair trade. … By the way, I like to give you folks a heads up when I can. There will not be a Grip on Sports on Monday. We have an early appointment. We’ll be here tomorrow, but not Monday. Until later …