THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Saturday, January 24, 2016

If you needed any indication of just how good the state of girls basketball might be in Idaho, just remember back to the state 5A title game in 2013.

Two area teams — Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene — taking center stage on that night at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa, if only we knew then what we know now about those teams.

AS AMAZING as that game was, consider that it was played with an amazing 10 athletes that later continued their careers at the college level.

Of the seven that played in the game for Coeur d’Alene, four of them (Caelyn Orlandi and Brittany Tackett at Lewis-Clark State, Kendalyn Brainard at Great Falls and Sara Chalich at Carroll) are at the NAIA level, and Sydney Williams is in her second year at NCAA Division I University of San Diego. Kayli Matheson (Columbia Basin) and Tabitha Wellsandt (Walla Walla) — who later transferred to Kamiakin — are currently playing in the Northwest Athletic Conference.

For Post Falls, on the night when the Trojans won 46-44 in overtime, they had two future Division I players — Danielle Failor (Army) and Hallie Gennett (San Jose State) — in addition to Brooke Litalien, who is in her third year at Lewis-Clark State. Katie King (North Idaho College) and Lexi Smith (Eastern Oregon, NIC soccer) also contributed on that team, which finished 24-1. Even Brenna Meehan, who didn’t play her final two years as a Trojan, went on to a successful college career as a member of the NIC volleyball team, which finished 10th in the NJCAA tournament last fall.

In the weeks leading up to the game, the teams played some close games, but nothing like the one between the two on that February night in Nampa.

What else might you expect from two teams that had seen so much of each other throughout the season that they basically knew what the other was going to do?

Keep in mind that in that season, the Trojans had to get through a Mountain View team that had a freshman named Destiny Slocum starting at point guard.

AFTER THE run of state championships from teams in the 5A IEL came to an end with Mountain View in 2015 (Coeur d’Alene beat Rocky Mountain for the title in 2014), led by Slocum, won its first state title in program history by beating Boise in the 2015 title game. And in case you’ve missed it, Slocum was recently named to the McDonald’s All-American Game, scheduled for March 30 at the United Center in Chicago.

Chances are that at least one area team will advance to the state tournament this season after Lewiston was the lone team to advance from Region 1 tournament from last year.

There’s a good chance that two teams will move on to the Idaho Center for this year’s tournament as well.

Is there a chance that the same magic from 2013 could be repeated in 2016? Possibly.

Will it have the same depth on display on that particular night in 2013? Probably not.

No disrespect to the current rosters of those teams, but those teams were just, well, special.

Those teams featured athletes that have since excelled at the next level in most cases.

That’s not to say these teams won’t, don’t and can’t be just as good.

THE GAME isn’t so bad on the men’s/boys side of things either.

The awards continue to roll in for men’s basketball coaches from the Scenic West Athletic Conference, with three being named among the Top 25 Junior College Head Coaches, according to coachstat.net.

Salt Lake’s Todd Phillips is 23rd, with NIC coach Corey Symons 15th in his second year at the helm of the Cardinals. They’re currently fourth in the NJCAA poll and continuing to climb the rankings after being unranked at the start of the season.

The No. 1 coach in the poll, you might ask, is CSI coach Jared Phay, who coached at NIC until his departure following the 2013-14 season after 10 seasons.

Votes were made on factors of winning percentage, graduation rates, success of former student-athletes at the four-year level, lifetime achievements, current success, building/rebuilding projects, affability and more.

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.