The Front Row with Mark Nelke March 6, 2011

Coming into this week's state high school boys basketball tournaments, there was talk - hope? - that two teams from the same conference would collide Saturday night at the Idaho Center in Nampa with the 5A title on the line.

As it turned out, that's what happened - only it was a different conference.

Centennial of Boise and Mountain View of Meridian - both from the 5A Southern Idaho Conference - squared off for the state title.

Meanwhile, Coeur d'Alene, coached by Kent Leiss, and Post Falls, coached by Leiss' former assistant Mike McLean, came up short in their bid to meet for the state title, both playing for the third-place and consolation trophies, respectively, Saturday morning at Columbia High in Nampa.

• There was the brief thought that Thursday night's entertaining first-round matchup, won by second-ranked Borah over top-ranked Post Falls in overtime, was in fact the title game.

But Borah lost the next night by 14 points to conference foe Mountain View in the semifinals.

• Unlike the state girls basketball tournament two weeks ago, where seven of the 12 finalists were North Idaho teams, and three of the games were all-North Idaho matchups, only three North Idaho boys teams made the finals - all from District 2.

• Isaiah Wright wasn't even born the last time a point guard made a mad dash through the Treasure Valley with the game on the line.

Wright, a 14-year-old freshman, went coast to coast in the final 6.7 seconds and scored a layup for Borah to force overtime against Post Falls.

In 1995, roughly 20 miles away in what was then called the BSU Pavilion, Tyus Edney of UCLA went coast-to-coast in 4.8 seconds to beat Missouri in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Moments earlier, Missouri had scored to take a one-point lead. UCLA went on to win its first national title in 20 years.

I was there in the BSU arena that day. It was probably the most thriling moment I've witnessed in more than a quarter century of attending NCAA tournament games.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via e-mail at mnelke@cdapress.com.