THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: 'Hey, haven't we seen you somewhere before?'

In the small world department …

Obviously Lake City has never faced Owyhee, a first-year school in Meridian before.

But the Timberwolves did play against star Owyhee guard Jack Payne last year at state.

Payne (averaging 11.7 ppg, 6.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 2.7 steals and 2.3 blocks per game), who has verbally committed to Colorado State, played as a junior at Boise High, which lost 65-50 to Lake City in the semifinals.

Payne started and finished with five points, shooting 1 of 9 from the field (1 of 6 on 3-pointers), and had eight rebounds and two assists. He picked up his third foul midway through the second quarter.

Boise led by eight late in the third quarter when Payne picked up his fourth foul, and Lake City tied it by the end of the quarter. Payne fouled out with 5 ½ minutes left and Lake City up by a point, and the T-Wolves outscored the Brave 18-4 the rest of the way.

MAXPREPS RANKINGS for the state girls basketball tournaments held two weeks ago turned out to be fairly accurate, based on where teams finished.

Now we’ll see what happens in the boys tourneys.

Lake City boys basketball coach and athletic director Jim Winger has coached and overseen more than a few state tournaments in Idaho. In the past, brackets were pre-drawn, with say a champion from one district opening against a 2 or 3 seed from another in most cases. In some classifications, two district champs might meet in the first round, and they might be the best two teams in the state, which led to the grumbling.

Now, qualifying teams are ranked 1-8 for state based on their regular season performance. A league champ could stumble at districts, but as long as they still eventually qualified for state, they could still earn a high seed.

A few times, a league champ was upended at districts, qualified for state in a play-in game — then faced another district champ in the first round.

“I don’t know if there’s a perfect system out there, but they seem to be fairly accurate,” Winger said of the MaxPreps rankings. “I think from past experiences, when we had those teams in late '90s and early 2000s, you’d play the 2 seed out of the East, two or three years in a row, Pocatello’s like undefeated and Highland would beat them at regionals and we’ve got a 20-1 Pocatello team in the first round.

“I don’t know. I think it’s better than drawing them out of a hat,” Winger said.

Bryan Chase, coach of defending state 2A champion St. Maries, joked he liked the MaxPreps rankings better last year (before they were used to seed the state tourney) because the Lumberjacks were No. 1.

“I still think they’re better than what it was,” Chase said. “What could happen is, you could have a lot of league matchups in the first round. I don’t know where I would be a fan of that. Melba and Ambrose are slighted (in the rankings) because there are two terrible teams in their conference They’re ranked 4 and 5 and they’re probably two of the top three teams at state.”

COACHES SAY they never look ahead.

But we can.

Both teams obviously have to avoid stumbling in their first two games, but the state 5A title game most want to see is No. 1 Lake City vs. No. 2 Owyhee.

Owyhee appears to have several really good shooters, set up by the aforementioned Payne, who seems to be able to get his, too, whenever he wants it.

Lake City can score too, though some of that offense comes from its defense and transition game.

In fact, if these two teams do meet Saturday night at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa, it could very well come down to defense.

Lake City made life rough on Lewiston’s 3-point shooters, and it helped lead to a Timberwolves’ blowout in the regional title game.

In some other games, teams shot the 3 well against Lake City, and hung around — and in the Bengals’ case, led to Lake City’s only loss of the season.

Defense.

It’s not as sexy as running and dunking and shooting 3s.

But it might be what wins Lake City its first state title in program history.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.