By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN

A meeting of college basketball’s two Coaches K’s– Duke’s Kryzewski and Utah’s Kryskowiak. The two coaches have something beyond their heritage in common. Both Coach K’s lost their first ever NCAA tournament game to the Washington Huskies. Duke lost in the second round to UW in Pullman in 1984, and Krysko’s Griz lost to the Huskies in 2005.

The Oregon State women are now 0-11 against the Tinkle sisters, Sunday’s loss to Gonzaga is less of a pain as the OSU mens team will be able to count a Tinkle of their own when Tres enrolls this summer.  For the record Lisa Tinkle was not on the Lady Griz team that beat the Beavers in the 1984 tournament.

The Sentinel Spartans girls didn’t “four peat” but neither did Jordan’s Bulls. Coach Karen Deden was part of the 1983 AA tournament when Great Falls went for 4 titles in a row In 1983 Sentinel never got a chance to face the reigning champs Great Falls High as the Spartans were knocked off by Helena– a team that included future First Lady of Montana Lisa Downs-Bullock.

The AA boy’s title game between West and Skyview marked the first All-Billings title game since 1967, when Billings Senior won over Billings West where six of the starters would either go on to play pro baseball or pro football.

Fifty years ago this week the Houston Astrodome opened becoming the first indoor sports stadium in North America. The first season in the dome the Astros tried to maintain natural grass. That piece of real estate is now a massive parking gargage.

Here’s this week’s Grizzly Planner:

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Chris Walterskirchen has been an observer of Montana sports for nearly half a century. A Kalispell native, Chris has worked in various capacities for professional and college sports organization of at various times: ranging from announcing and statistical work to the concessions and even a stint as a costumed mascot.

Chris has academic degrees in communications and elementary education. His style of sports trivia involves more than just who won and who lost, but also focuses on the obscure or human side of sports. In this blog you will learn things like the Grizzly football team has won 210 games over the 19 seasons since they have had Monte as their mascot or that UNLV is the only school that both the Griz and Lady Griz have both faced in the NCAA basketball tournament

When not following sports Chris enjoys taking care of animals of all kinds (a peacock rescue?) and reading to pre-schoolers.