COEUR d'ALENE - What's better than a boys high school basketball tournament during a holiday break?

How about two?

North Idaho College will hold its fifth annual Coeur d'Alene Inn-vitational and Lake City High will play host to an invitational, both starting on Thursday.

Championship games are scheduled for Saturday afternoon.

COEUR d'ALENE INN-VITATIONAL: "I think it's going to be pretty balanced," tournament director and North Idaho College athletic director Al Williams said. "Anacortes, Stanwood and Eisenhower all have balance and experience coming back from last year. Chief (Sealth) has a few guys coming back. I haven't heard of any of them being really loaded like in previous years."

Coeur d'Alene (5-1) and Post Falls (3-3) - which hasn't lost in the first four years of the tournament - are the local teams in the field, which also includes Glacier Peak (6-2) of Snohomish, Wash., and Kelowna (British Columbia) Secondary School (4-0).

Anacortes is 6-1, Chief Sealth 5-3 and Eisenhower 0-6.

"Coeur d'Alene's a scrappy team and presses a lot," Williams said. "Post Falls is playing well right now, but last year's quality was pretty good. Coeur d'Alene will be really good, but they just got a late start to the season."

Post Falls defeated Davis High of Yakima 59-57 to win the first boys tournament in 2011.

A girls tournament was held the last two years, but will be on hiatus this year. Williams is hoping to bring it back next year.

“The bad thing about it was when you have three teams from the same conference (Coeur d’Alene, Lake City, Post Falls),” Williams said. “It’s hard to get where they wouldn’t have to play each other. We’ll probably have it again next year. Post Falls should be good again next year, so we should be able to draw some teams in again.”

Coeur d’Alene and Lake City played in a girls semifinal last year, while Post Falls and Lake City played in a boys semifinal and Coeur d’Alene faced Lake City in the third-place game.

Coeur d’Alene’s girls opted not to return to seek other options this year, according to Williams.

Post Falls and Lake City are competing in separate tournaments in the Seattle area this week.

“Not having Coeur d’Alene’s girls took some of the attraction out for some schools,” Williams said. “Had we known how good Post Falls was going to be, they would’ve probably helped bring some teams in.”

Williams added that he’s already gaining interest for the 2013 tournament.

“We’ve already got a school from the Atlanta area that’s interested,” Williams said. “We’re hoping to get a team out of Seattle and even considering a team from Chicago and trying to get a little more national exposure to beef it up.”

On Friday, the 13th-ranked North Idaho College men’s basketball team will face Treasure Valley Community College at 8 p.m.

“It’s a good way for teams visiting our campus to see our level play basketball,” Williams said. “I think our fans want to see them play and when those teams are in town, we’ve had a good draw. Treasure Valley played us close down there.”

NIC won at Ontario, Ore., 97-77 on Nov. 16.

Games will be webcast on a pay-per-view basis on the school’s website by visiting www.nicathletics.com and following the link and can be watched for $5 per day, or $10 for the entire tournament.

“We’re doing it for the fans that can’t make it over here so they can watch it online,” Williams said. “Now, they can watch their team and the entire tournament.”

LAKE CITY INVITATIONAL: Wilson High of Tacoma (4-2) will face Lakeland (4-3) in the opening round of the Lake City Invitational at 5:15 p.m.

“We started putting this together last spring,” Lake City boys coach and athletic director Jim Winger said. “The NIC tournament has been great for us, but we’re losing two home games — along with the entry fee and paying workers, we needed to raise some money. We needed to get three more days of concessions and sell some T-shirts, so we got the Booster Club involved.”

Winger added that in an effort to avoid a conflict with the Inn-vitational, he wanted to schedule the tournament the week of New Year’s Jan. 3-5, but Washington schools return to classes that week.

Lakeland has won three of its last four games, all coming at home.

Wilson is young, according to coach Dave Alwert, and is led by 6-foot-6 wing Alphonso Anderson, 6-foot point guard David Jenkins and 6-foot guard Montre Brown — all of whom are freshmen.

Puyallup (2-5) faces Sandpoint (1-6) to open the tournament on Thursday at 1 p.m.

“We’re looking forward to bringing our team to Coeur d’Alene,” Puyallup coach Scott Campbell said, “and giving them a chance to experience a beautiful city and some great basketball competition over the Christmas holiday.”

“In the past, they’ve had a real good program,” Winger said. “Wilson is supposed to be really good, but have three young freshmen. In the past, South Kitsap has been really tough. We just tried to get it going and wanted to get some local teams involved. It’s the first year and we’ll see what happens, but I’m pretty pleased to see five Tacoma/Seattle area teams here.”

South Kitsap (5-2) of Port Orchard faces Garfield of Seattle (5-1) on Thursday at 3.

“Going out of town for tournaments is a great way to build team chemistry,” South Kitsap coach John Callaghan said. “It has always been a huge factor for us. The competition and different styles of play will make us better heading into the most important part of our schedule after Christmas break.”

Garfield’s Tucker Haymond is getting interest from Idaho State, Montana State, Western Michigan and Seattle U and teammate Trevaunte Williams from Western Oregon, Minot State and Post University in Waterbury, Conn.

“We have been to quite a few out-of-state tournaments over the years and this tournament sounds like Jim (Winger) has done a great job organizing and putting together a first-class tournament,” Callaghan said. “We’re looking forward to our visit to Coeur d’Alene.”

“Garfield’s one of the better programs anywhere,” Winger said. “We didn’t have them at first, but I was sending out emails and wasn’t getting anything back from Skyline (of Sammamish, Wash.) and found out they’d had a coaching change. Garfield heard it was going on, had something fall through and kind of fell in our laps.”

Tournament host Lake City (5-2) will face Auburn (4-2) in the final game of the day at 7.

A pre-tournament banquet for the Lake City Invitational will be held tonight at 6:30 at the Coeur d’Alene Resort. Tickets are available for $10 and the public is invited.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Winger said. “We’ve put a lot of work into it and I think it’s going to be pretty fun.”

COEUR d’ALENE INN-VITATIONAL

at North Idaho College

Thursday

Game 1 — Chief Sealth vs. Glacier Peak, 1:30 p.m.

Game 2 — Post Falls vs. Anacortes, 3:15

Game 3 — Stanwood vs. Eisenhower, 5

Game 4 — Coeur d’Alene vs. Kelowna Secondary Schoool, 6:45

Friday

Game 5 — Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2, 1 p.m.

Game 6 — Loser Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4, 2:45

Game 7 — Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2, 4

Game 8 — Winner Game 3 vs. Winner Game 4, 5:45

Saturday

Game 9 — Loser Game 5 vs. Loser Game 6, 1 p.m. (7th-8th place game)

Game 10 — Winner Game 5 vs. Winner Game 6, 2:45 (consolation championship)

Game 11 — Loser Game 7 vs. Loser Game 8, 4 (3rd place game)

Game 12 — Winner Game 7 vs. Winner Game 8, 5:30 (championship game)

LAKE CITY INVITATIONAL

At Lake City High

Thursday

Game 1 — Sandpoint vs. Puyallup, 2 p.m.

Game 2 — Garfield vs. South Kitsap, 3:30

Game 3 — Lakeland vs. Wilson, 5:15

Game 4 — Lake City vs. Auburn, 7

Friday

Game 5 — Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2, 2 p.m.

Game 6 — Loser Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4, 3:30

Game 7 — Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2, 5:15

Game 8 — Winner Game 3 vs. Winner Game 4, 7

Saturday

Game 9 — Loser Game 5 vs. Loser Game 6, noon (7th-8th place game)

Game 10 — Winner Game 5 vs. Winner Game 6, 1:30 p.m. (consolation championship)

Game 11 — Loser Game 7 vs. Loser Game 8, 3:15 (3rd place game)

Game 12 — Winner Game 7 vs. Winner Game 8, 5 (championship game)