Bill Drozdiak could always fill it up — in basketball and on foreign affairs
Once upon a time, Bill Drozdiak was a sweet-shooting guard for the Oregon Ducks.
Pros vs. Joes No. 19: Think you’re a sports fan? You don’t match up with Rob Closs
Do you want to know how seriously Rob Closs is taking his participation in the “Pros vs. Joes” Bracket Challenge on kerryeggers.com?
Talking All-Star Game to Portland (nope), Geoff Petrie and Jerry West, Gary Payton and Lester Conner, The Kamikaze Kids … and more
Items on my mind during the chilly final days of February …
• Thought for the day provided by Frank “The Flake” Peters, at 78 still a juvenile at heart:
Kents pair together for historic broadcast: ‘It was a very emotional couple of hours’
Ernie and Jordan Kent made a little history Tuesday at Matt Knight Arena, and had some fun while doing it.
The Kents broadcast Oregon’s season-opening 83-66 win over Texas Southern — Ernie providing analysis, Jordan handling play-by-play duties for the men’s contest carried by Pac-12 Network/Oregon.
Has there ever before been a father-son team work a major-college basketball game on TV together?
Thoughts on the Portland Diamond Project, Kevin Love and Payton Pritchard, Bill Schonely, Jermar Jefferson, Hamilcar Rashed and a new book by Ben Golliver …
Questions on your mind, for which I have answers …
• What’s going on with the Portland Diamond Project? It’s been a long time since we’ve heard anything about the bid for major league baseball in the city.
A: A lot, says PDP managing partner Mike Barrett.
“We’ve been crazy busy,” Barrett tells me. “I can’t give you any specifics. Hopefully, we’ll be in position to be able to speak publicly on it soon, but we’re in a sensitive time right now.
Ex-Beaver greats weigh in on Tinkle, 2020-21 Beavers …
We asked a collection of names familiar to Beaver Nation — most of them former players — for their opinion of this year’s Oregon State team, which faces Loyola of Chicago at 11:40 a.m. PDT in a Sweet Sixteen showdown of underdogs. Their responses, in alphabetical order:
JIMMY ANDERSON (player from 1957-59, assistant coach from 1961-90, head coach from 1990-95):
“I haven’t missed a practice all year, so I have a pretty good handle on why the season has gone like it has. They brought in five new and (coach Wayne Tinkle’s) defensive system is a little complicated.
Cool Hand Luke, the ultimate underdog: ‘We like shocking people’
If anyone on Oregon State’s basketball roster can identify with the underdog, it’s Jared Lucas.
After scoring points at a prodigious rate — almost beyond comprehension — in four years at Los Altos High in Hacienda Heights, Calif., the sharpshooting guard was largely overlooked by Pac-12 schools.
When the media forecast OSU to finish 12th in the Pac-12 before the season, Lucas developed a chip on his shoulder the size of the Rock of Gibraltar.
“Cool Hand Luke” was as big a reason as any why the Beavers came from nowhere to claim the Pac-12 Tournament
Tinkle: ‘It’s the most rewarding season I’ve had, for sure’
I believe it was Cinderella who once famously observed, “A dream is a wish your heart makes.”
That and, I would add, hard work. And perseverance. And dedication in working toward a common goal.
Oregon State wound up wearing the glass slipper for all of those reasons Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena.
Pondering what’s happening with Damian Lillard, Ethan Thompson, Chris Duarte and Terry Porter …
Ruminations on roundball heading into the weekend …
• There is plenty of consternation in Rip City over the NBA’s “snub” of Damian Lillard as a starter in the upcoming All-Star Game. You fans who are up in arms: Sit down right now. You still have a chance to win the “Biofreeze Hoop With Dame” contest, where you can shoot it out with Lillard and win up to $100,000. (Personally, I’d rather have it out with Brooke Olzendam in ping pong.).
Something new: A weekly menu of sports book reviews
As a service to our readers — the ones who enjoy sports books — we’ll critique an offering a week from now until Christmas.
The first one is a book written by one of my favorite writers and a great guy familiar to sports fans in this area. Bud Withers worked for a long time for the Seattle Times and P-I, but before that was with the Register-Guard in Eugene, where he came across one of the most polarizing figures ever to hit the Northwest college basketball scene.
