Good day in sports.

I like the Cougars’ hire of Ken Bone as the next basketball coach. A guy with northwest ties, who probably already knows some of WSU’s recruits for this coming year, and has had success at Portland State…this was as good of a pick as we could hope for, I think. The next step is to keep our recruits in the fold, and especially to keep our freshmen like Klay Thompson and DeAngelo Casto from skipping town, but I’m glad that Jim Sterk acted quickly and decisively in getting us what appears to be a good pick for coach. Again, it’s imperative that we win pretty soon under Bone and keep the positive trend going in Cougar hoops.

The Mariners win on opening day, Griffey goes yard…that was nice. We should obviously be expecting to win when we throw Felix Hernandez against a subpar offense like Minnesota’s, but I’m happy about it regardless. If we’re going to see much success this year, it’s going to have to be on the backs of some great pitching by both Felix and Bedard, so here’s hoping that Bedard has a good outing tomorrow night.

Tony Bennett gone…

…absolutely devastating. The Cougs have some good young talent, and they’d better make a very good hire for next head coach, or this little run under Tony will be a forgotten footnote in a few years.

Best of luck to Tony in Virginia. Really surprised that UVA is the greener pasture he chose to bolt for after holding out from joining Indiana in the Big Ten last year, but so be it, I don’t hate the guy for moving on. He and his father made us relevant again, if only for a short time. Really disappointed that his time at Wazzu is already over, though.

This is the worst sports news I’ve received since the Sonics’ move to Oklahoma was made official.

I don’t care about the tourney.

I’ve always loved the NCAA Basketball Tournament. It’s the best non-football thing to happen in sports all year long, the excitement and drama is just fantastic. For years, my WSU Cougars were completely irrelevant, not even sniffing a winning season, let alone a tournament bid.

These last couple of years have obviously gone much better. To make the second round of the tourney two years ago, and the Sweet Sixteen last year…well, I got spoiled. This season wasn’t a bad one for WSU hoops, it was a somewhat expected down year as Coach Bennett had to play lots of youngsters; I’m confident that things are going to get better again in a hurry. Regardless, in just two years’ time, I got used to this “Cougs in the NCAA tournament” thing. Without them, I just don’t find myself caring. It makes it even worse that the Huskies are in the mix and entirely relevant; hopefully today will turn out to be their only win of the tournament. I sort of support the Zags in the tourney, but recent years have intensified the WSU-Gonzaga rivalry, and my venom for them increases with each passing matchup against them. I wish them well I guess, but I used to cheer for them much more before WSU became a relevant basketball school again.

I followed WSU all year, but their relative lack of success had me doing less scoreboard watching around the nation and even the conference, so I know less about the college basketball landscape than I’d like to. Part of that is all the time I’ve been spending prepping to move off to school, but if it was the NFL I’d be making time for it…with college hoops it hasn’t happened this year. I didn’t even bother to fill out a bracket, which is unheard of for me. That makes the whole thing less fun too. I didn’t have anyone offer to compete against me or anything, and I didn’t seek anyone out.

Oh well, no big deal, just surprised to feel total apathy toward a tournament I’ve often looked forward to in previous years.

Tony Bennett gets another well-deserved raise.

I think that Husky fans are going to have to come up with a better line than, “Just wait until Tony Bennett leaves.”

I think it’s fairly obvious by now that Tony likes it at WSU. Earlier in the offseason, he turned down an offer to become the head coach at Indiana. This offer was believed to be in the ballpark of $2.5 million, while his 2007-08 salary at Washington State was a mere $800,000. Cougar athletics did the right (and smart) thing yesterday, restructuring Bennett’s contract and giving him a raise that puts him at $1 million a year now. The contract was also extended by an additional year, through 2015.

Good news: Glenn Johnson released from hospital, will be fine.

Pullman Mayor Glenn Johnson has been released from the hospital after being admitted with stroke-like symptoms Sunday.

City Supervisor John Sherman said Johnson, 64, was released from Pullman Regional Hospital late afternoon Monday and is recovering at home.

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Good, good. Cougar athletics would not be the same without Glenn Johnson.

Hoping for a full recovery for the voice of the Cougs…

PULLMAN — Pullman Mayor Glenn Johnson is said to be recovering nicely from a spike in blood pressure that he suffered overnight Sunday.

It was initially reported that Johnson had possibly had a stroke, but the incident turned out to be less severe than initially feared.

Johnson has shown considerable improvement in the hours since the incident and will be monitored throughout the day, according to an official at City Hall. He remained in ICU at Gritman Medical Center in Moscow Monday morning, but the official – an administrative assistant in Johnson’s office – said the mayor will be transported to a Spokane hospital for further treatment and testing.

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Johnson (left) with Cougar hoops coach Tony Bennett