Joining friendly forces

For a group of North Idaho College men’s basketball players that had never shared the court at the same time, the team of Showtime PTA sure made quite an impression on the Elite Division of the 30th annual Hoopfest 3-on-3 tournament on the streets of downtown Spokane on Saturday.

Not only did the team — comprised of Chris Sarbaugh, Shi Blake and Scott Turner of NIC, as well as former Idaho football player Deon Watson — win in its opener, they did it again to advance in the winner’s bracket today at 9 a.m.

“I got a text from Deon saying ‘let’s come and play,” said Blake, who played at NIC during the 2013-14 season. “When he asked what bracket (I wanted to play in), I told him the Elite Division, and here we are.”

Turner was a late add after Kris Olugbode, a teammate of Watson’s at Idaho, was unable to make it.

“Scott and I see each other a lot as (boys basketball) coaches at Genesis Prep,” Blake said. “Scotty’s a good dude.”

For Blake and Sarbaugh, it was the first time they’d met as Sarbaugh was at NIC during the 2012-13 season before moving on to the University of San Diego, and then to Idaho.

“I knew he went to Idaho, but didn’t meet him until last week,” Blake said. “He’s a good dude, and we appreciate what he’s doing for us by playing with us.”

For Sarbaugh, who grew up in Spokane, played at Gonzaga Prep and initially redshirted at Gonzaga, it was a bit of a homecoming of sorts.

“This was my first Hoopfest in quite a while,” Sarbaugh said. “I played in a rec league, and it wasn’t very competitive last year. I was definitely nervous about my first game, and was my first time seeing an Elite game in a while. It was definitely physical.”

As for how Sarbaugh felt he played ...

“Our team did well,” Sarbaugh said. “We’ve got some guys that are physical and some guys that can shoot the ball. Now, it all has to fall together. But I’ve definitely got some rust that I need to knock off.”

Sarbaugh and Blake have both turned to the athletic training business after their playing days have slowed down.

“I’m just enjoying giving back to the game,” Blake said. “I’ve done a lot in the basketball world, so it’s time to give back a little bit.”

“After Idaho, I went to Colorado for a few years and worked in tech sales, and found I didn’t like it,” Sarbaugh said. “So I decided to come back home and work at a physical therapy office and debated whether I wanted to go back to school, and didn’t want to do that either. So I’m doing part physical therapy and sports training in Spokane, where I’m doing marketing half the time and training athletes the other time and really enjoying that.”

COMING FROM a small town such as Wallace, kids often stick with their friends through everything.

Sports are no different.

After winning in the Male Youth Division last year, the team of Hank Larson, Cooper Miller, Lennox Radford and Blake Rose — who make up Capparelli Espresso — are taking another shot at a title this weekend.

“I like playing with my friends,” Miller said. “We’re really good friends and play Fortnite together a lot. That’s what we like to do, and it’s really fun. If we win back to back, that would be really cool to do with my friends.”

“We do a lot of different things together,” Radford said. “It’s just fun to have them around all the time.”

While some teams might have a lot of plays, this one doesn’t have too many.

“Last year, we had some,” Larson said. “This year, we really don’t have a lot that we go through. We just have to pass the ball, shoot, and get lay-ins and that stuff.”

“It’s really fun to compete with them,” Rose said. “It’s not like we’ve got to learn what we need to do, because we’ve known each other a long time and know what each other is going to do.”

The team is coached by Wallace boys varsity basketball coach Corey Miller.

“It’s kind of hard sometimes to have (my dad) as a coach, but I like it,” Cooper Miller said. “At times, we can talk about the game at home and what we’re going to do.”

AT FIRST, the members of Big Banks didn’t think much of what division they were placed in.

They were just looking forward to the challenge.

After a setback in the opening round, the team of Tori Younker, Kendall Pickford, Madi Symons and Skylar Burke won their next two games to advance in the consolation bracket of the Girls Varsity Elite Division.

“When we signed up, we didn’t think anything of it,” said Younker, a rising junior at Coeur d’Alene High. “Then we kind of started thinking about it, and it’s really the top of the top kids.”

“I honestly think it’s kind of cool,” said Burke, a sophomore at Coeur d’Alene. “It’s going to be another challenge for us, but we’re ready for it. We just need to play tougher since it’s street ball.”

Pickford will be a sophomore at Lake City this fall. Symons will be a freshman at Coeur d’Alene.

“It’s really fun to get to play with our friends,” Pickford said. “We just need to keep playing smart.”

Younker, Burke and Symons will have a new coach next season, with Madi’s mom — Nicole — taking the reins of the Viking girls basketball program.

“It’s definitely cool to have her,” Younker said of Nicole Symons. “We didn’t really know where (Madi) was going to go next year, but now that Nicole has the head coaching job, it just made sense. She already spent a lot of time with us, and we’ve kind of became a team without being a team quite yet.”

AFTER HIS professional career in Belgium ended two years ago, Marcus Colbert — now 24 — made a return to the court on Saturday as part of the RNU Alumni Elite Division team.

“It was my first Hoopfest since I was 15 years old,” said Colbert, the Post Falls High product who went on to play at Montana State. “I went and played in Belgium and then blew out my (left) ankle and came home and started working.”

Of the experience with Liege, in the Belgian league ...

“It was awesome,” Colbert said. “Getting to experience a different culture and learn a new language, it was awesome. Getting a chance to learn a different style of basketball was a lot of fun as well.”

RNU Alumni went 0-2 on the tournament’s first day, playing its first game in front of packed bleachers at Nike Center Court.

“It was fun,” Colbert said. “I’m out of shape, though.”