A reason to hit the gym for holidays
One holiday down.
Here comes a rather sizable hoops feast this week.
No matter if your game is the high school or college ranks, chances are you’ll find it starting today in Coeur d’Alene.
IT WON’T be the typical bracketed tournament for this year’s Lake City Holiday Classic, featuring boys teams from Post Falls, Coeur d’Alene, and of course Lake City High.
Timberline High of Boise will join forces — kind of — with the area 5A Inland Empire Schools as Idaho takes on Washington schools South Kitsap of Port Orchard, Peninsula of Gig Harbor, Columbia River of Vancouver and Mead High of Spokane.
Timberline opens the three-day tournament today at 2 p.m. against Peninsula, with games concluding with Mead and host Lake City at 7.
The Wolves went 2-1 here in 2015, losing 51-50 to Post Falls and went 2-1 in 2016.
“We continue to come up here because it’s part of the state that some of us don’t get to experience very often,” Timberline coach Bruce Logsdon said. “We get to face teams from another state. Also, our experience at the (Coeur d’Alene) Resort is something special. We are going to enjoy ourselves and have a team bonding experience. Getting to play against new faces is always exciting, refreshing, and a challenge that we embrace.”
Some teams might shy away from a tournament that could wind up featuring teams they could meet in the state tournament, let alone a win-or-go-home play-in game in Grangeville.
Not Timberline.
“We are excited about this format, and we want to represent Idaho basketball to the best of our capabilities,” Logsdon said. “I selfishly think we are a good fit for this tournament because of this incredible opportunity that Lake City High and the Coeur d’Alene Resort gives us. We are honored to be here. We hope that we can represent the Southern Idaho Conference and Boise well.”
MEANWHILE IN downtown Coeur d’Alene, the North Idaho College men’s basketball team hosts the sixth annual Coeur d’Alene Inn-vitational on its campus starting on Thursday. The six team, three-day tournament features teams from Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Canada.
Maybe more importantly to Cardinal fans, the tournament will feature Blue Mountain and Wenatchee Valley, both of which play in the Northwest Athletic Conference’s East Region, same as NIC.
Those three won’t play each other, as games are predetermined against Everett, a North Region program in the NWAC, as well as Medicine Hat and a team from Fairchild Air Force Base.
NIC’s women’s basketball will visit Lower Columbia College for its annual Holiday Classic in Longview, Wash., also starting on Thursday. The Cardinals open that tournament against Highline, a team they beat in the Bellevue Holiday Classic on Dec. 2.
In recent trips, NIC has ran the table three times, going 3-0 in 2012, 2013 and 2015 and losing in the title game in 2014. NIC is 13-2 in the tournament since 2012.
IF RECENT history is any indication, the games will be a good measuring stick of where teams are heading into 2018.
And with conference play starting for most, if not all teams next week, there might be no better time than this week to take a few minutes and see what to expect next.
Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at (208) 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JECdAPress.