THE FRONT ROW WITH MARK NELKE: Sunday, March 7, 2015

It's a funky concept, these high school state tournaments in Idaho.

In particular, the basketball tourneys spread across six buildings in the Treasure Valley. It's a great idea in theory - six tourneys, each relatively close to each other, so after your team plays its game, you can hop in the car and go watch another team from your area, in another building nearby.

Unless you run into roadblocks.

For instance, the distance between Caldwell High, where Lakeside's boys played a first-round game in the state 1A Division II tournament, and Capital High, where St. Maries was playing in the state 2A tourney, is 22 miles - the farthest distance between any two of the boys' sites.

Lakeside played in the first game, at 1:15 p.m. St. Maries played at 3. No problem, we thought, we'll just miss a little of the St. Maries game.

But the problem with traffic is, well, it's traffic. Sometimes it's slow, and sometimes you happen upon a scary looking wreck, as we did the other day - a three-car meeting where one car was on top of the hood of another car, and the driver of the latter car appeared to be trapped inside.

Detour!

They say an NBA game doesn't start until the fourth quarter? Well, for us, the St. Maries game didn't start until about 3 minutes remained.

OH WELL.

Other than that, jetting from gym to gym - especially when trying to catch what you can of the next game - becomes a quest of finding the fastest, yet least-traveled way. That's easier said than done in the Boise area, which continues to grow like a weed, and the traffic confirms that. Interstate 84, for example, seems to be a constant construction zone.

But in the big picture, if that's the worst thing about six tourneys in six different locales somewhat close to each other, we'll all figure out how to deal with it.

WE VISITED five of the six sites this weekend - Caldwell High, Capital High, Meridian High (3A), Borah High (4A) and the Ford Idaho Center (5A).

Most gyms, the walls are just a few feet behind each basket. Caldwell's gym is HUGE - you could almost set up a volleyball court behind each basket. In this case, Caldwell chose to erect bleachers.

Meridian's gym is OLD - brick walls at each end - but it's been a loyal home to the 3A boys tourney for a couple of decades, and it's in the middle of the six sites, location wise. Plus, it had coffee for Saturday's 9:15 a.m. consolation title game, won by Kellogg.

At Borah, a large banner adorns one of the walls, honoring the accomplishments there of former football coach Ed Troxel - father of Lake City football coach Van Troxel. With St. Maries a relative newbie to the 2A ranks, this was our first trip to Capital - where the fact it had working wireless almost negated the fact it was so far away from Caldwell.

I still think it would be interesting if they could expand the Idaho Center, drop a second court in there, and play two tournaments at one site. Or, if they wanted to play all day, four tourneys at one site.

MAKES YOU wonder, if some year they let North Idaho host the state tournaments, where they would play them.

Sadly, there is no North Idaho equivalent to the Idaho Center - which seats around 8,000 for state basketball. North Idaho College's proposed arena might solve this problem for the 5A tourney.

Post Falls High (capacity 3,100), Lake City High (2,700) and Lakeland could handle three of the remaining tournaments.

Where to hold the other two? Would Coeur d'Alene High be big enough? All the state sites in the Treasure Valley have upstairs seating, so finding six suitable facilities up North could be a sticking point. Would they look to Sandpoint? Moscow? Lewiston?

Attendance wise, the cry is that while most people like to come to the "big city" for state, would fans from the Boise area, and eastern Idaho, trek all the way to North Idaho?

The diehards would. And, I think the good folks of North Idaho would turn out to support these tournaments. Attendance might be down a bit because of the smaller population up North, but with some of the gyms being smaller as well, that might work out OK.

Plus, do you ever hear about traffic jams up North?

Mark Nelke is sports editor of the Press. He can be reached by phone at (208) 664-8176, ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.