A Grip on Sports: Distance and weight have a place in milestones but it’s still an odd word to use to celebrate an accomplishment

A GRIP ON SPORTS • The English language is funny. In the odd way. Take two words. Mile. Stone. Each means at least one thing alone. A distance. A rock. Put them together, though, and you get something different. An achievement. A celebration. A feat. And not the two holding up your body.

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• Though, it takes a good foundation to earn any milestone. Especially the ones earned Thursday night by the area’s college basketball teams and coaches.

On top the list is the 700 wins Mark Few’s teams have posted in his 25 years at Gonzaga. He hit that mark in Malibu, an appropriate spot in a couple ways.

Few’s teams have dominated the West Coast Conference forever. Well, at least since 2000, when the Waves used to be the primo program. And his guys have strung together 47 consecutive wins against Pepperdine, the third-longest win streak against another school in NCAA history.

Kudos to Few and all the players who have passed through Gonzaga in his tenure. It’s not easy winning one game, let alone 700 of them.

Or 250. That’s the milestone Few’s comrade-in-arms over at GU reached as well ast night. Lisa Fortier labors in relative anonymity compared to Few’s high-profile, but the Gonzaga women have won 80.4% of their games since she took over in 2014. That may not be as successful as Few – in the same time period, the men have won 88.2% of theirs – but it’s as good as anyone on the West Coast in that time frame.

Fortier picked up win No. 250 just down the road from Pepperdine last night, with the Zags defeating host Loyola Marymount 72-48 in another of this season’s many blowouts.

There were no special numbers attached to Washington State’s victory at Stanford, other than the final score – 89-75 in WSU’s favor, giving the Cougars a 4-3 Pac-12 mark – and 35. That’s how many points freshman Myles Rice scored, setting a standard for the school. His offensive explosion knocked Steve Puidokas’ 31 from atop the freshman single-game scoring list, where it’s stood since 1974. That’s 50 years ago.

We stand corrected. It was a milestone game of sorts, right?

So was the result out at Cheney, where the Eastern Washington women won for the eighth consecutive time, a school record. Thursday’s 56-38 win came at the expense of Weber State.

The men? They rallied from a 13-point first-half deficit to knock off Weber 80-78 in Ogden, Utah. Nope. Not a milestone in anyway. But it was a boulder of sorts, giving the Eagles a 4-0 Big Sky Conference mark and keeping them atop the standings.

• It’s another NFL playoff weekend, which means everything we schedule for Saturday and Sunday has to be checked against the game times. If you didn’t know, there are two games Saturday, headlined by the upset-minded Packers in Santa Clara to take on the NFC-best 49ers (Fox, 5:15 p.m.). That follows Houston’s visit to AFC No. 1 seed Baltimore (ABC, 1:30).

The games Sunday may be tighter, though the matchups don’t seem as compelling. First up is Tampa Bay at Detroit (noon, NBC), followed by Kansas City visiting Buffalo (3:30, CBS). Wait. We stand corrected. Again. That last one might be the most fun one of the weekend.

But not the most historic – unless a storm rolls in off Lake Erie. The milestone – there’s that word again – game of the weekend happens Friday night. Maybe.

The Stanford women host Oregon (Pac-12 Networks, 7). Tara VanDeveer will once again try to tie Mike Krzyzewski’s record of 1,203 NCAA Division I basketball wins. And, to think, her first official win came while head coach at Idaho. In 1978.

If the eighth-ranked Cardinal do it, VanDeveer will have a chance to set the record alone Sunday when Oregon State visits (Pac-12 Networks, 2 p.m.).  

On a weekend marked by milestones, that may just be the one that tops them all.

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WSU: Rice’s performance was accompanied by Isaac Jones’ inside play, as the Idaho transfer scored 24 points and battled the Cardinal bigs all night. Greg Woods was in the Bay Area and has this game story. … The women are in Pullman and will host Arizona State tonight (Pac-12 Washington, 7), trying to build off the momentum of their win over UW. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and the nation, Jon Wilner rates the Best in the West as we enter the weekend. … The Mountain West dominates and should be well-positioned come March. … Washington, not on Wilner’s list, received a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Portland-transfer Moses Wood and topped host California 77-75. … Oregon State was blasted 74-47 at Utah last night. … Colorado handed Oregon its first conference defeat, topping the Ducks 86-70 for the 10th UO loss in 11 Pac-12 visits to Boulder. … The UCLA/Arizona rivalry is ending. That’s too bad. There have been some great battles over the past almost 50 years. … Mick Cronin says he wants to stay at UCLA. … Is the conference’s basketball officiating on auto-pilot? John Canzano would like to know. … On the women’s side, the best game of the night is in Colorado, with the third-ranked Buffs hosting No. 5 UCLA. … Almost everyone in the conference, including Washington, is in the NCAA tourney mix. The Huskies host Arizona.  … Oregon State’s trip to the Bay Area could help its hopes. … Utah is getting healthier. … In football news, more Washington players have entered the portal. Wonder how many will end up at Alabama? … Former Oregon tight end Cam McCormick, now at Miami, will be back for his ninth season. If you are wondering how, it is injuries. Lots of them. … The Oregon State assistants that followed Jonathan Smith to Michigan State will make a lot more money. … So will Brent Brennan as Arizona’s coach.

Gonzaga: As Jim Meehan points out in his game story following the 86-61 win last night, the Zags put together a game-deciding spurt early in the second half. Those types of spurts have been a calling card for Gonzaga over the year but have been missing this season. … Theo Lawson, a little sluggish perhaps due to dining too often at In-N-Out, “only” adds two other stories, one of which is the difference makers. The big one, though, is documenting Few’s 700th victory. … Tyler Tjomsland was in Malibu and has a photo gallery that covers the pregame, game and postgame. … We watched from home and added some thoughts in this TV Take. Did you know the Zags jumped all the way to 35th in the NET rankings after the win? We did not. … There is also a recap with highlights from the folks in the office. … Greg Lee had the duty of documenting Fortier’s milestone win. … Former GU star Chet Holmgren may just fool around and make the playoffs with Oklahoma City. And win rookie of the year.

EWU: As we mentioned above, the men edged Weber State 80-78 in Ogden while the women rolled over the Wildcats in Cheney. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, we had a mistake yesterday. The Brawl for both men and women will be Saturday. … The Northern Arizona men won their first conference game, stopping Portland State in Flagstaff. … Northern Colorado swept Sacramento State in both games last night. … In football news, Idaho State is rebuilding its offensive line. … Northern Colorado has made changes to its staff.

Idaho: The men traveled to Pocatello, couldn’t stop a second-half Idaho State run and fell 64-59. Peter Harriman has the story. … The women hosted the Bengals and also lost, this one 61-56 after ISU led by eight entering the final quarter. … The women’s volleyball team began offseason practices yesterday under the cloud of an investigation of coach Chris Gonzalez. Thomas Clouse has the latest developments.

Whitworth: It’s a big weekend for the Pirates, one that was supposed to begin tonight. But the winter storm hitting the state caused the Northwest Conference to move tonight’s schedule to Sunday. Ethan Myers has all that and more in this preview.

Preps: Gonzaga Prep’s Noah Holman injured his wrist at a football practice more than a year ago. After two surgeries and a missed football season, Holman is back on the wrestling mat. Madison McCord explains in this feature story. … We can also pass along a roundup of Thursday’s wrestling action from Dave Nichols, as well as his notebook.

UFC: Terrance McKinney is back in action tonight, but in a different way. Charlotte McKinley explains in this story.

Seahawks: Will Seattle keep quarterback Geno Smith? We may not know for sure until Feb. 16. … On the coaching front, the Hawks are reportedly set to talk with Mike Vrabel after having interviewed others already.

Kraken: What is the value of a winning streak? Well, for one thing, it’s a lot better than a losing streak, which Seattle is now in the midst of after Thursday’s 4-2 loss in Edmonton.

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• We have some plans for today. They are sort of on hold as we wait and see if the ice storm forecast comes true. Hopefully not. Our car needs service. Until later …