THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Saturday, January 30, 2016

It’s very rare to see a high school basketball team compete with six players on its roster.

Even more so, that one is in the eighth grade.

Even though the Mullan Tigers boys basketball team lost in a North Star League game on Thursday night, you can’t fault the team and effort.

THE SCHOOL had to petition the Idaho High School Activities Association just to get the clearance to play this season, but had to forfeit December league games against Lakeside, Genesis Prep and Clark Fork due to not being able to field a team until after Christmas break.

Even still, the team fights on, unable to do some things that schools with a larger enrollment might take for granted.

Using practices as a way to scrimmage — no can do.

Being able to run a full-court press — not that either.

As the roster stands now, Mullan has two seniors, two sophomores, one freshman and one eighth-grader to round out the roster.

And the future is looking good as far as getting a football team back on the field for the 2016 team after not being able to field one in 2015.

They might have taken a loss against rival Wallace on Thursday, but those days could soon be a thing of the past.

CHANCES ARE that if you were picking Tyronn Lue to coach against Luke Walton in the upcoming NBA All-Star Game against each other at the start of the year, you’d likely be dreaming.

While it won’t happen, it should have became a reality.

Lue replaced Cleveland coach David Blatt, who was fired after leading the Cavaliers to a 30-11 record at the cutoff point for the selection of the Eastern Conference coach. Lue had only won one game when he was named coach earlier this week.

Walton coached the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors to a 40-4 record before the return of head coach Steve Kerr two weeks ago following offseason back surgery.

Walton is ineligible because Kerr coached the Western Conference team last year — like it really matters.

It’s an All-Star Game, and there shouldn’t be anything wrong with an assistant coaching a group of guys that are playing in a game that doesn’t count anyway.

And for three quarters, don’t really care what the score is.

IT HAS already been a special season for the North Idaho College men’s basketball team, climbing all the way from being unranked in the preseason poll to sitting in third in this week’s NJCAA poll.

But the bounces haven’t always gone the way of the Cardinals against Salt Lake, especially in Salt Lake City.

Thursday’s 98-94 come-from-behind win over the Bruins, ranked 16th this week, was only the third by the NIC men at Salt Lake since athletic director Al Williams arrived in Coeur d’Alene in 2003.

Strange things happen to NIC in Utah, but Thursday looked like it finally turned the way of the Cardinal men.

The 2010-11 NIC women’s basketball team, which finished 32-3 with a national title, went 0-2 in its first trip to Utah that year.

Basketballs bounce a funny way sometimes, I guess.

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.