INSIDE: COMICS, OPINIONS & CLASSIFIEDS
B
S PORTS
THE BULLETIN • SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 2021
bendbulletin.com/sports
NFL
Bend’s Hollister
signs with Bills
Jacob Hollister will
reunite with his college
quarterback.
The former Seattle
Seahawks tight end has
signed a one-year con-
tract to join the Buffalo
Bills in 2021, according to
a report.
Hollister and Bills quar-
terback Josh Allen were
teammates at the Univer-
sity of Wyoming for two
seasons (2015-2016).
Hollister, the former
prep star at Mountain
View High School in
Bend, may have known
his days could be num-
bered in Seattle after the
Seahawks signed free
agent tight end Gerald
Everett on Wednesday.
The addition of Everett
increased the number of
tight ends on the roster
to three — Everett, Will
Dissly, Colby Parkinson
— with Hollister an unre-
stricted free agent.
Hollister, 27, is coming
off a solid season in 2020.
Hollister had 25 catches
for 209 yards and three
touchdown receptions.
Those numbers
marked a decrease com-
pared to his breakout
season in 2019, when he
posted 41 catches for 349
yards and another three
touchdown catches in 11
games.
MEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL | NCAA TOURNAMENT
Oregon State continues to roll
— The Oregonian
COLLEGE
SPORTS
OSU to allow fans
at outdoor games
Oregon State’s spring
sports will enjoy a wel-
comed sight starting
tonight at some of its
games: fans.
Thanks to new Oregon
Health Authority guide-
lines released earlier this
week, Oregon State has
been cleared to allow fans
— up to 15% of venue
capacity — to attend
Beavers outdoor games.
The school is prioritizing
player families and guests
for ticket allocation, then,
depending on the sport,
opening venues up to
season-ticket holders.
The OHA on Wednes-
day updated its guide-
lines for attendance at
outdoor sporting events,
increasing capacity limits
based on a county’s risk
level, ranging from lower
risk (50% capacity) to ex-
treme risk (50 people).
Benton County, where
Corvallis is located, is cur-
rently a high-risk county,
which the OHA has
capped at 15%.
So when the Ore-
gon State baseball team
opened its Pac-12 slate
against Washington
State on Friday night,
Goss Stadium allowed
nearly 500 fans. It’s the
first time since the coro-
navirus pandemic shut-
tered sports last spring
that OSU will host fans at
sporting events.
OSU officials set aside
tickets for player fami-
lies and guests for the
Beavers-Cougars base-
ball game and allocated
others to season-ticket
holders, based on “Beaver
points.”
Meanwhile, games in-
volving softball and men’s
and women’s soccer
will be limited to player
guests and families at this
time, according to the
university.
— The Oregonian
MEN’S NCAA
TOURNAMENT
Ducks prep for VCU —
Oregon has a plan to deal
with Rams’ star Nah’Shon
Hyland. Details, B3.
Paul Sancya/AP
Oregon State’s Ethan Thompson (5) drives on Tennessee’s Jaden Springer (11) during the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Indianapolis on Friday. Thompson had 13 points,
10 rebounds and six assists in the Beavers’ upset victory over the fifth-seeded Volunteers.
Beavers, seeded 12th, continue to ride underdog wave to upset victories, oust 5th-seeded Tennessee 70-56 in 1st round
“We know there was some doubt and we had to
ignore all that. We never threw in the towel, we
never doubted ourselves, we just do what we do.”
BY JOHN MARSHALL
AP Basketball Writer
INDIANAPOLIS —
O
regon State opened the season picked
— Wayne Tinkle, Oregon State men’s basketball coach
to finish 12th in its conference
Roman Silva scored 16 points and Oregon State
took advantage of Tennessee’s icy perimeter shooting
to become the latest No. 12 seed to win its opening
NCAA Tournament game, beating the fifth-seeded
Vols 70-56 in the Midwest Region Friday night.
“In the preseason, when we saw we were picked
12, it really lit a fire under us,” said Silva, who made
all eight of his shots.
Oregon State (18-12) was the first Pac-10/12
school to win the conference tournament after being
picked to finish last. After another upset, the Beavers
are the 51st 12th-seed to take down a fifth-seed since
the NCAA Tournament bracket expanded in 1985.
but instead won its first Pac-12
Tournament title. The Beavers faced another
No. 12 hurdle in the NCAA Tournament and
pulled off the upset.
They’re certainly enjoying this underdog
role.
WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL | NCAA TOURNAMENT
The 7-foot-1 Silva bulled his way through the Vols
after struggling in the Pac-12 Tournament to help
Oregon State build a 14-point halftime lead. The
Beavers then hit seven 3s in the second half to hold
off a late charge and win their first NCAA Tourna-
ment game since reaching the 1982 Elite Eight.
Oregon State moves on to face Oklahoma State on
Sunday.
It is quite the run for a team that struggled with in-
juries early and lost by 34 to Arizona in mid January.
“We know there was some doubt and we had to
ignore all that,” Oregon State coach Wayne Tinkle
said. “We never threw in the towel, we never doubted
ourselves, we just do what we do.”
The Vols (18-9) opened their third straight NCAA
Tournament shorthanded.
John Fulkerson was out with a facial fracture and
concussion caused by a pair of elbows by Florida’s
Omar Payne in the SEC Tournament.
See Oregon State / B3
NFL
NCAA apologizes to women’s
Free-agent RB Chris Carson
teams for weight room inequities agrees to return to Seahawks
BY DOUG FEINBERG
AP Basketball Writer
SAN ANTONIO — NCAA
basketball administrators
apologized to the women’s
basketball players and coaches
after inequities between the
men’s and women’s tourna-
ment went viral on social me-
dia and vowed to do better.
NCAA Senior Vice Presi-
dent of Basketball Dan Gavitt
vowed to do better during a
Zoom call Friday morning, a
day after photos showed the
difference between the weight
rooms at the two tourna-
ments.
“I apologize to the wom-
en’s student-athletes, coaches
and committee for dropping
the ball on the weight room
issue in San Antonio, we’ll get
it fixed as soon as possible,”
Gavitt said.
During the call, other dif-
ferences were raised: There are
68 teams in the men’s field, 64
in the women; and the NCAA
pays for the men’s National
Invitational Tournament, but
not the women’s NIT.
“We fell short this year in what we have been doing to
prepare in the last 60 days for 64 teams to be in San
Antonio. We acknowledge that.”
— Lynn Holzman, NCAA senior vice president of women’s basketball
an a former college basketball player
“The field size and NIT,
those would be decisions
made in conjunction with
membership,” Gavitt said.
“Those are not decisions we
could make independently.
They are good questions and
it’s timely to raise those issues
again.”
In a step to solve the weight
room issue, the NCAA mod-
ified space in the convention
center to turn it into a usable
workout facility. That work
should be completed Satur-
day. The NCAA had offered to
put a weight-lifting area in the
open space next to the prac-
tice courts, but coaches didn’t
want that because then other
teams would be in the vicinity
when they were practicing.
Oregon State coach Scott
Rueck, who met with the me-
dia on Zoom prior to the Bea-
vers’ first-round game against
Florida State on Sunday, was
asked about his thought on
the discrepancy.
“Of course it’s not okay,” he
said. “It’s not what anybody
would want. You know those
things should be absolutely
equal.”
Rueck has been a coach or
head coach of a women’s bas-
ketball team for 28 years and
said in most situations over
that time things have been
equal. And when they weren’t
he spoke out about it.
“So obviously there was a
miss there somewhere. Where
it is, I don’t exactly know,” he
said. “Obviously it’s being ad-
dressed and it will be in the
future for sure.”
See Inequities / B3
BY BOB CONDOTTA
The Seattle Times
SEATTLE — Coach Pete
Carroll said after the 2020 sea-
son that he wanted the Sea-
hawks to run it more and better
in 2021.
And on Friday, Seahawks
fans learned it will be a famil-
iar face heading up that task —
Chris Carson.
The Seahawks and Carson
agreed to a new contract Fri-
day. It is a three-year deal worth
up to $24.625 million but voids
to two years at $14.625 million.
So it’s best viewed as a two-year
deal, with the void year a way
for the team to spread out more
of the salary-cap hit.
The deal is reportedly back-
loaded financially, with Carson
reported to have $5.5 million
guaranteed in 2021 and the
chance to earn up to $6.9 mil-
lion overall next season.
Carson has been the heart
and soul of Seattle’s running
game since being taken in the
seventh round of the 2017 NFL
draft out of Oklahoma State.
He has rushed for 3,270
yards in four years, topping the
1,000-yard mark in both 2018
(1,151) and 2019 (1,230). He
missed four games last season,
contributing to him dropping
to 681 yards, but he averaged a
career-high 4.8 yards per carry .
The contract Carson will re-
ceive rivals the one the Raiders
gave Kenyan Drake on Thurs-
day — a two-year deal worth
$14.5 million.
That contract may have
helped jump-start talks be-
tween Carson and the Sea-
hawks, with running back
having been a market slow to
develop in the early days of free
agency.
With Carson back, that
leaves linebacker K.J. Wright
as the most significant Seattle
free agent still unaccounted for.
Cornerback Shaquill Griffin
signed a deal with Jacksonville
this week.
Carson is the fourth Sea-
hawks free agent to agree to re-
sign, joining defensive tackle
Poona Ford, center Ethan Pocic
and fullback Nick Bellore.
See Carson / B2