Five and a half years gone from the daily business of sports talk radio, Mike Gastineau had a little apprehension about his three-month return Monday to the broadcast air of 950 KJR-AM. He's going to team with Jason Puckett from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. as part of a major makeover of the lineup for Seattle's longest-tenured sports format outlet.

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Despite a fade in the final six weeks, the Washington men's hoops turnaround under first-year head coach Mike Hopkins was a revelation. He took holdovers from the collapsed regime of Lorenzo Romar, added a local recruit he convinced to stay, Jaylen Nowell, instilled organization and inspiration, and went from nine wins to 21.

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When Maryland Baltimore County Credit Union Mini-Mart puts its stamp on the NCAA men's basketball tourney, the apocalypse is nigh. Then again, if the Cubs can win a World Series, the Eagles can win a Super Bowl and 44-year-old Ichiro can still be a starting outfielder in Seattle (well, wait: The last one is more pathetic than absurd), then . . . we all may be in the same Salvador Dali painting.

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Is it possible to fire a college basketball conference?

Perhaps that is a question for the experts at the White House, who have managed to disrupt entire institutions with mere tweets.

The Pac-12 Conference is certainly worthy of disruption. If the course remains steady, it will soon join LaVar Ball in Division III Lithuania.

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On the second day of NFL free agency, when TE Austin Seferian-Jenkins passed on interest from his hometown Seahawks to sign with Jacksonville, when WR Jordy Nelson signed with Oakland, and when DT Sheldon Richardson was being courted by Minnesota, the most intriguing Seattle news came via tweet about the future of Earl Thomas.

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Most of us in these parts can cope with sprinkles, showers and steady rain. But the deluges that accompany thunderstorms elsewhere? No. Too much nature all at once. Old Testament-style weather doesn't fit a tech city that naively assumes it's in control of some things.

At least, that's my analogy to explain how it seems at the moment to be a 12 after watching nine Seahawks shown the door over the past 10 days, including two longtime stalwarts for little to nothing in return: A dreary deluge.

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The vote is in from the guy who feels the Richard Sherman departure more than anyone in Seattle. Tweeted Seahawks WR Doug Baldwin Sunday morning:

"Well, this sucks."

Not only had a good friend and teammate blown town, Baldwin has to go up against Sherman, presuming a return to good health, twice next season as a member of the San Francisco 49ers.

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The football contributions of Richard Sherman to the Seahawks and Seattle were numerous, significant and memorable. In a day of sadness over the departure of a transcendent athlete, they are worth reflection and admiration for one of the greatest sports careers in our burg's history.

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Never is it dull around Richard Sherman. He is a bright, bold thinker and speaker. If he were no longer a part of the Seahawks, the Seattle sports scene would be notably poorer. He's also had some testy times, be it with coaches, teammates or media, even back to his Stanford days under then-coach Jim Harbaugh. The edginess added to the drama.

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From a historical perspective, it should surprise no longtime fan that the Mariners have hired yet another guy to fill the position of left field. The club over 41 years has hired "another guy" for the job so often that in any room with 30 male Seattleites over age 30, advanced metrics have established that at least one will have played left field for the Mariners.

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The Seahawks have traded Pro Bowl DE Michael Bennett and a seventh-round draft pick to the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles for WR receiver Marcus Johnson and a fifth-round pick, according to reports Wednesday from ESPN and the NFL Network.

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Remember the good old Mariners days when they had so many injuries to pitchers that they were working out grocery baggers from QFC? Now, it's the turn of the outfielders: The Mariners are considering bringing back Ichiro while LF Ben Gamel heals from an oblique strain that will keep him out four to six weeks.

At least the grocery baggers were kids. Ichiro is 44.

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For those who weren't playing attention, the MLS had its annual day off a while back. Nevertheless, it's easy to tell the new season is here: The Sounders are dorking around.

Knowing they were stuck playing three games in six days, they ran out a bit of an exhibition-game lineup Sunday afternoon that helped give an expansion franchise a first-game win at a place where road teams go to die.

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By the end of a remarkable, unexpected regular season, the Huskies did another unusual thing. For a nearly sold-out home game on a senior-day finale against a rival, with some stakes for the Pac-12 Conference tournament and potentially the NCAA tourney, they were flatter and drier than the Mojave Desert.

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John Schneider's view of fun may differ from the view held by many, unless you think that walking across the swamp on the backs of alligators is a hoot. On the other hand, the Seahawks general manager's multiple uses Friday of the phrase "fun," to describe the attempt to recover from 2017's plummet from the NFL summit, may signal a bit of  post-traumatic stress.

I'm guessing the latter.

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It is early in his career as a pro sports owner in Seattle -- actually, he hasn't officially donned the tinfoil hat yet -- but it was nevertheless important to understand the manner and fitness of Hollywood mogul Jerry Bruckheimer for the task. So the critical question had to be asked of the prospective co-owner of Seattle's pending bid to be the NHL's 32nd  franchise.

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What Nate Robinson said Monday about being offered $100,000 by a booster to keep playing football instead of basketball for the University of Washington was less of a revelation and more of a tradition. And we all know how big tradition is for college football.

Huskies boosters were doing this long before Robinson's father, UW running back Jacque Robinson, was born. Ask Hugh (The King) McElhenny.

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In a normal midwinter, news that America is the best in the Olympics world at men's curling would be enough to set off celebrations across the fruited plain, with thousands of newly minted fans heading to the rink for beer, curling and  . . . beer.

But so far in these parts, the celebration of conquest in the oddest sport is a little lost among the oddnesses rampant in our mainstream sports, specifically:

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What if they gave an NCAA men's basketball tournament, and only the University of Phoenix and Southeastern Western A&M showed up?

That isn't going to happen next month. But by the time federal prosecutors call to the witness stand John Calipari, Mike Krzyzewski, Tom Izzo, Roy Williams and other big-name coaches, the world outside college basketball may be ready to say that if baseball can call off a World Series, the NCAA can stop the party until the slime is hosed off the industry.

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In light of the University of Louisville's loss this week of its 2013 national men's basketball championship for being as crooked as a mountain switchback road, as well as the FBI's national investigation that produced charges of bribery and fraud against four programs, the notion of what constitutes college-sports disgrace has ratcheted up.

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