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Seattle Seahawks

Grip on Sports: Today’s NFL playoff games feature Northwest’s favorite teams – to dislike

Aaron Rodgers has quarterbacked Green Bay to seven consecutive victories. (Jeffrey Phelps / Associated Press)

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Villains are good too. Maybe not in every way, but good to have available to root against. That’s seems to be the case for most Northwest fans today, as the NFL playoffs reach its final four. And the Seahawks are nowhere to be found. Read on.

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• Remember the kids’ movie of a few years back, “Wreck-It Ralph?” There was a character in the animated film who spoke up at a Bad-Anon meeting named Zangief. He had it all figured out.

“If Zangief is good guy, who will crush man’s skull like sparrow’s eggs between thighs,” he wonders. “And I say, Zangief, you are bad guy, but this does not mean you are bad guy.”

In other words, the world needs bad guys. And today, as the NFL figures out its Super Bowl teams, there are four bad guys in the running.

OK, that’s the Seahawk fan’s perspective, but now that the Hawks have also assumed a national mantle as “bad guys,” we might as well look at today’s games through their eyes.

What do they see?

Pittsburgh: Super Bowl XL. Bill Leavy. A 21-10 loss. Need I say more?

New England: Super Bowl XLIX. The pass. A 28-24 loss. Need I say more?

And that’s just the AFC title game. The NFC title game is worse.

Green Bay: Aaron (insert any adjective you use at the neighborhood saloon here) Rodgers. The overtime loss in the 2003 NFC wild card game. The Fail Mary. The NFC championship comeback win. Two consecutive regular-season losses in Lambeau. The Packers have become the Hawks’ nemesis these days.

Atlanta: Two divisional-round losses in the past five years. A former defensive coordinator building a mirror-image squad that knocks the Hawks out of the playoffs this season.

Each of today’s four contestants have done enough to break Seattle fans’ hearts to earn multiple bad-guy badges.

Which means today’s game aren’t about who they are rooting for, but against.

And that’s OK too.

• The college basketball season is long. Not as long as the NBA’s season, sure, but long enough to stress the participants’ bodies. Injuries happen. And three key ones may have happened in the West Coast Conference this week.

Portland lost its heart and soul Thursday night when senior guard Alec Wintering went down with a knee injury. It turned out to be a season-ending ACL tear.

Then Saturday night, when the Pilots were playing Gonzaga, the Zags’ leading scorer, Nigel Williams-Goss, was knocked to the floor and had to leave with a hip injury. Later he told our Jim Meehan it wasn’t that serious, which must have been a relief to Bulldog fans.

No such relief has been granted to BYU fans just yet. Guard Nick Emery limped off with a knee injury against Pacific last night. The extent is still unknown. But the Cougars do know one thing: They have already lost one player to a major knee injury and it would seem like piling on to lose another.

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Gonzaga: The Zags didn’t play their best game. They lost Williams-Goss late. But they still rolled over the Pilots, 73-52. Jim Meehan has how it happened in this game story as well as stories about Williams-Goss and Wintering and the game keys. … John Blanchette has a column about the Big Three of the WCC. … Whitney Ogden has two stories from the Kennel, one on the game itself and one on some new T-shirts GU is selling (pictured). … Michael Gulledge writes about Portland’s problems. … The numbers tell their own story. … Dan Pelle and Colin Mulvany combined on the photo report. … And I added a piece on the television coverage. … The Gonzaga women smothered Portland on the road. … Elsewhere in the WCC, there were no upsets, though BYU was probably a little upset after losing Emery in an easy 62-47 win over Pacific. … No. 23 Saint Mary’s had no trouble with last-place Pepperdine, 85-65. … Host Santa Clara held off Loyola-Marymount 64-63. … USD was shorthanded in a 60-43 loss to visiting USF.

WSU: The Cougars’ up-and-down basketball season continued yesterday in Beasley, with Charles Callison’s career day lifting them to a 91-89 win over Colorado. Jacob Thorpe was there and chronicles the overtime victory with this game story and videos of postgame interviews with players and coach Ernie Kent. … Former WSU great Carlos Daniel will be inducted into the Pac-12 men’s basketball Hall of Honor. … Around the Pac-12 yesterday, the big game was at packed Pauley Pavilion, where Arizona and Allonzo Trier delivered a gut punch to the third-ranked Bruins, 96-85. … Oregon got good news and then extended its longest winning streak with a 69-52 win over Stanford. … Washington couldn’t guard yesterday and Utah took advantage for a 94-72 win. The Huskies are 2-5 in Pac-12 play. … Oregon State is still looking for its first conference win after losing at home 69-58 to California. … USC hopes it can find the basket against ASU today. … In football coaching news, California is making another addition to Beau Baldwin’s offensive staff. … Former Eastern Washington assistant Troy Taylor is a person of interest in Utah. … Arizona State is losing its offensive coordinator to Auburn. … Oregon’s recent workout incident is a warning for everyone.

EWU: The Eagles picked their new football coach yesterday, choosing a familiar face to replace Baldwin. That would be Aaron Best, who has been the offensive line coach for years. Jim Allen has the story and we also have a few pictures of the Eagles’ new head coach. … The basketball team swept the home weekend, racing past Southern Utah 83-68. Jim also has that story. … Montana is struggling on the road, losing to lowly Sacramento State 92-83 last night. … Weber State isn’t struggling anywhere and earned a 74-69 win at Northern Colorado. … North Dakota stayed hot, rolling past Idaho State 89-64 at home. … Montana State upset Portland State on the road, 71-65. … The women rebounded on the road, getting past Southern Utah.

Idaho: The Vandals had a nice weekend, topped by Saturday’s 65-49 win over visiting Northern Arizona. Josh Wright was there and has this game story. … Mikayla Ferenz scored a school-record 41 points as the Vandal women got past Northern Arizona.

Whitworth: The Pirate men won at George Fox but the women lost.

Chiefs: Spokane scored three times in the third period and defeated Kootenay 5-2 last night at the Arena. Josh Horton has the game story.

Preps: We can pass along roundups from boys and girls basketball in the area. … Coeur d’Alene’s Colson Yankoff is becoming quite popular with college coaches.

Seahawks: The Hawks need another go-to receiver. If they can get one cheap.

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• Always remember the Ban-Anon pledge: “I’m bad, and that’s good. I will never be good, and that’s not bad. There’s no one I’d rather be than me.” Until later …