THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Wednesday, January 6, 2016

If moral victories counted, the final score doesn’t matter.

They don’t — unless you’re playing in a parks and recreation league — in which case, then learning is the biggest key to those games.

What some coaches and fans learned over the holiday break is that although some teams are a month into the schedule, the most difficult work is beginning.

IN AN effort to prepare themselves for a playoff run, the Coeur d’Alene Vikings boys basketball team headed south for the WinCo tournament, hosted by Centennial High of Boise on the campus of the College of Idaho in Caldwell.

Coeur d’Alene — with the help of last-second shots on back-to-back-nights — won the tournament championship, beating Centennial 59-57 on Saturday.

“Tough, competitive games,” Coeur d’Alene coach Kurt Lundblad said. “That’s what we wanted to get out of it. We wanted to play good competition and learn from it.”

Coeur d’Alene beat Middleton 63-38 in the opening round, then edged Columbia River High of Vancouver, Wash., 53-51 on a late jumper by Bryce Bronson in the semifinals.

“Our effort all weekend was sensational,” said Lunblad, whose team will play its fifth game in the last week, traveling to Moses Lake on Thursday. “We’ve got a long week ahead of us and need to get refocused (against Lake City on Tuesday).

Lake City, since starting its own invitational four years ago, has always found the toughest teams in the Northwest and brought them here.

Although the Timberwolves went 0-3 in the tournament, the team — comprised of only one senior and a handful of underclassmen — grew up a little in a 65-39 loss to Kentwood (Wash.).

“Playing a team like this only helps us in the long run,” said Lake City coach Jim Winger, whose team trailed 27-24 at halftime. “But when you’re up or down by four points with three or four minutes to go, we’ve got to keep doing the little things all four quarters. And I think we’re getting it, but you can’t just sit there and be happy with three quarters and hanging your hat on moral victories.”

CALL IT a confidence builder or just one team rolling over, but the outcome of the Seattle-Arizona football game last Sunday didn’t wind up meaning too much of anything to either team.

Arizona didn’t wind up moving anywhere after a 36-6 loss at the hands of the Seahawks, and will sit at home this weekend instead of taking the field at the start of the playoffs.

Seattle meanwhile, will travel to Minnesota to open the playoffs on Sunday morning on what is expected to be a frigid day in Minneapolis.

No more games at CenturyLink Field this year as long as Seattle remains in the playoffs, so that home-field advantage that has helped them move onto the Super Bowl the last two years, no matter how many games the team wins from here on out, is gone.

In the past, just getting to the playoffs, let alone winning a game on the road in the postseason was a moral victory for the franchise.

Those days are long gone.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JEPressSports.