Basketball Diaries

Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while, or a blind pig a truffle. Even the Hail Mary throw at the end of a game gets caught on occasion. And sometimes, even a well-past-his-prime sportswriter can close his eyes, let it fly, and get lucky with a half court heave.

Arnie Rains, who owns Payless Gas & Mini Mart in Kootenai, offered a $100 gift certificate to anyone who could hit a half-court shot at half time of the Bulldog basketball games at Les Rogers Court. Recently, former Bulldog football and basketball standout Mat Lawrence and myself were picked by Tye Barlow, of Bulldog Bench, to attempt the half-court shot.

After Lawrence’s shot, which was perfectly on-line but flew just over the back board, it was my turn. Not even able to remember the last time I’d shot a basketball, I was just hoping to hit something — anything but an air-ball in front of a packed house. As considerable luck would have it, that something turned out to be the net.

Rains donated the prize to help get more people to attend the basketball games, thereby helping to raise more money for Bulldog Bench and SHS athletics. He was asked afterward if he really thought someone would eventually make the shot.

“Yeah, I thought so,” he said with a wide smile. “All of the athletes running around this town.”

Rains’ generous donation was part of a local groundswell of support that has helped to increase attendance tremendously as the season has progressed.

Earlier this year, Litehouse donated a free jar of salad dressing to every fan as part of “Fill they Gym Night.”

Area residents Mike Cain and Daren Parsons donated their tickets to the Gonzaga vs. Pepperdine game, which were raffled off at one of the games. Aside from the spike in attendance from the allure of hot tickets, more than $370 dollars was raised for the SHS cross country team.

At the district playoff opener against Lakeland, any student that wore red saved the $5 entry fee and got in free, courtesy of Jack Dyck and Mountain West Bank.

Such community efforts are part of the reason Sandpoint has the rich sports history that it does. 

Yin and Yang, Gonzaga style

When Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrill sang “ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough” they obviously weren’t singing about Gonzaga basketball, although from my limited experience, they sure could have.

I’ve been lucky enough to attend two Gonzaga men’s basketball games in my life, and an argument could be made that I’ve actually witnessed their best game ever, and their worst ever. Feast and famine.

The good news first: I was in visiting Phoenix in 1999 and was lucky enough to score tickets and bear witness to the Zags’ national coming out party. When the ‘99 NCAA tournament started, the No. 10 seeded Zags had never won a tournament game. As announcers continued to butcher the pronunciation of the relatively unknown Jesuit school, the Zags shocked Minnesota and Stanford to reach the Sweet 16 and become the nation’s Cinderella team.

I had a primo seat at America West Arena as the Zags, led by Casey Calvary, Matt Santangelo, Richie Frahm and Quentin Hall, slayed another big conference power by downing Florida 73-72 to advance to the Elite Eight. Two nights later (I couldn’t get tickets) they would lose to UConn, ending an improbable run and officially putting the Spokane school on the map.

Now the bad news: I was also in attendance last Saturday at the Spokane Arena, along with Bobby Knight and the ESPN Game Day crew, having lucked into tickets for the Zags’ nationally-televised debacle against Memphis. While it might not qualify as their worst loss ever, it would certainly crack most fans’ top-five lists, as expectations have never been higher.

Alas, the loss wasn’t in the NCAA tournament. Who knows, maybe this could be the year the Zags finally make the Final Four, but they’ll have to play a heck of a lot better than they did against Memphis.

Growing by leaps and bounds

Strange as it may sound when talking about a team that finished 2-20, the quality coaching job done this year by Bulldog girls head coach Lance Bruce and assistant Chris Chatburn must be mentioned.

The deck was stacked against them from the beginning. Three of their top returning players from the previous year did not come out this season, leaving the team with only two players with varsity experience. Their schedule did them no favors, opening against three of the best teams in the entire state in the brutally-tough Inland Empire League.

As expected, the young team took some serious shots to the chin early in the season, finding themselves on the wrong end of some ugly scoreboards.

Yet never once did I see a player give less than her all, regardless of the score. Never once did I see a hung head, when they had every right to. What I did see was Bruce and Chatburn coaching, teaching, encouraging and remaining positive.

Then a funny thing began to happen. Freshmen became less tentative, sophomores began making a bigger impact and the young Bulldogs kept improving, noticeably, perhaps more so than any team in the league.

Former Marquette coaching legend Al McGuire once said “the best thing about freshman is they become sophomores.” While they took some lumps this year, anyone who watched the Bulldog girls team knows that better days are coming.

Eric Plummer is the sports editor of the Daily Bee. For comments, suggestions or story ideas, he can be reached at 263-9534, ext. 226, or via E-mail at “eplummer@cdapress.com.”