The Front Row with MARK NELKE Jan. 13, 2013

This 'n that as that team with the 12th man tries to keep the momentum going today:

* Hard to find anything wrong with spirit basketball games.

Just about everybody in North Idaho has one these days - Battle for the Prairie Pig (Post Falls vs. Lakeland), Fight for the Fish (Lake City vs. Coeur d'Alene), Moose Madness (Sandpoint vs. Bonners Ferry), Battle of the Buck (Priest River vs. Timberlake), Brawl for the Ball (Kellogg vs. St. Maries), to name a few.

All of them pretty much pack the gym in an era when gyms are seldom packed. Yeah, sometimes there's crowd noise when there shouldn't be noise, and vice versa, but that's an OK tradeoff for the adrenaline rush the games give to the players and coaches.

Bryan Kelly formerly coached in the Prairie Pig games as a boys assistant coach at Post Falls. Now in his first season as head girls coach at Lake City, he was smiling after his first Fight for the Fish game - even though the Timberwolves lost, his team played well.

"This is a great atmosphere; it's for the kids," Kelly said. "I wish every game was like this atmosphere - it'd be great."

Not a bad sentiment - though I don't know if our ears could handle that every night.

* Funny to hear how excited people are getting about the possibility of an NBA team returning to Seattle. Wasn't fan apathy part of the reason - along with a mean owner - the Sonics left for Oklahoma City in 2008 in the first place?

* If Boise State isn't careful, the Broncos are going to let the rest of the nation know they field other teams as well - not just the football squad that has captured America's hearts over the past decade.

We know around here that Boise State has a softball program because Lela Work, the former Lake City High standout, is on the team.

But for many, knowledge of Boise State begins and ends with its football program — no matter what conference it’s in.

Many will be surprised to learn that Boise State also fields a men’s basketball team — and a pretty good one at that. The Broncos already won at Creighton earlier this year, and beat LSU at home.

Then on Wednesday, even with four players suspended, Boise State went into Laramie and handed Wyoming its first loss.

If this keeps up, Boise State-Gonzaga could become a nice regional rivalry — though since former Zag assistant coach Leon Rice is leading the resurgence at BSU, those two teams probably wouldn’t schedule each other.

But that wouldn’t prevent the NCAA from pitting the two teams against each other in its little dance. Playing in a Mountain West Conference that might be tougher than the Pac-12 (three MWC teams are in the AP Top 25 this week, compared to one Pac-12 team), the road to March Madness is a difficult one for the Broncos.

But if they made it, Boise State-Gonzaga would make for a nice little second-round matchup.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.