So much for that.

If the ending of the basketball season for many of the area basketball teams left you a little disappointed, don't worry.

There's always next year.

GRANTED THAT it might be more difficult for the men's and women's basketball teams at North Idaho College, who have a handful of sophomores graduating and moving onto other schools next year.

For the NIC women, which advanced to a fourth national tournament in five years this year, they were in the same position after winning a national title in 2011. They would go on to win the Scenic West Athletic Conference championship, but were upset in the Region 18 tournament.

The following year, they'd advance to nationals, but came up four points short in their opener without one starter.

While the NIC men's basketball team failed to qualify for nationals, it took a lot of other things to happen to keep them out. After playing the Region 18 tournament a week earlier than most, NIC had to wait after losing in the Region 18 semifinals to find out if the Cardinals would receive an at-large bid.

They also dropped in the national rankings and saw a few teams ahead of them also lose in their conference tournaments, leaving the Cardinals on the outside of the tournament.

The NIC men have already hit the recruiting trail with some players already verbally committing to the school, with commits for the women's team likely to soon follow.

FOR THE record, I picked Gonzaga in my NCAA tournament bracket pool.

Not because they're a team from the Northwest, or that I really believed they'd make a run to the national championship.

The main reason for picking Gonzaga came from the way they'd been playing in the last two months.

Outside of a loss against Butler at the buzzer, Gonzaga hadn't lost a game since Dec. 8 when Illinois beat Gonzaga 85-74 in Spokane, so to me, there's something about consistency that brought me back to them.

They'd beaten West Virginia, Kansas State (in Seattle), Baylor, Oklahoma State and Oklahoma of the Big 12 Conference, so that idea that they couldn't play with schools from the larger conferences wasn't enough to change my mind.

Once they'd received a No. 1 seed into the NCAA tournament, they went from the hunter to the hunted.

They did enough to get past Southern in the second round, but against Wichita State - they ran into a team that just couldn't miss.

Those things happen sometimes. When Gonzaga started that initial run in 1999 as a 10th seed, it came with players hitting shots at key times in big games.

Despite Gonzaga's loss, I'm still second in our bracket pool, with the chances of winning slim.

But there's always next year.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d'Alene Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com.