THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Good tunes and eats to be found down south

When Timberlake High plays at Middleton High, at least in the state 3A girls basketball tournament, you know you’re going to see something special.

Forget the games, those always deliver.

But dusting off Def Leppard before tipoff, I’m sold.

BEFORE THE back-to-back state 3A titles in 2016 and 2017, Timberlake was in a three-OT game against Snake River in 2012, a game the Tigers eventually won to advance to a second straight championship game.

“We’ve had some really good games in this gym,” Miller said. “I’m not a superstitious person, and don’t really believe in any of that stuff. But we’ve had some really good games here, and it’s another one that you’ll have to list.”

Timberlake also rolled past Teton 67-16 in a 2017 game that featured — at the time — two of the top three teams in the state media poll.

Thursday’s opening round game between Timberlake vs. Sugar-Salem had all the feeling of a state 3A girls basketball championship game.

Fired-up crowds, teams and coaches, you get the picture.

“It should have been played on the Idaho Center floor,” Sugar-Salem coach Crystal Carpenter-Dayley said. “They’ve got to seed the tournament because it’s sad when you’ve got the first-, second- and third-ranked teams on the same side of the bracket. We should have never been playing them, especially on opening night. We hadn’t played in 10 days and had some jitters coming out.”

And as for how Def Leppard plays a part in this, Timberlake’s band played the hit song “Pour Some Sugar on Me” right before tipoff.

Not “Bringing on the Heartbreak,” which could have worked as well.

No “Foolin’.”

MOST TEAMS from the northern part of the state begin their journey to the tournament on Wednesday morning.

Post Falls might have shown up in the most recognizable mode of transportation, a bus decked out in Washington State football logos.

“The guy that drove us drives for them,” Post Falls coach Marc Allert said. “I mentioned something to (Post Falls athletic director) Craig (Christensen) about getting one of those for us, with Trojans on it, but he wasn’t having it.”

Allert added that there’s nothing different about the bus, albeit with the Cougars’ colors on it.

“It’s got about 500,000 miles on it,” Allert said.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, after the practices and team meetings, members of the Coeur d’Alene squad went on a journey you won’t find anywhere at home.

“This team is amazing,” Coeur d’Alene sophomore Skylar Burke said after the Vikings’ heartbreaking 50-49 loss to Eagle in the first round on Thursday. “I wouldn’t want to play with anyone else. We’ve been all wanting this so long, and almost wanted this game for them (the juniors) more than me. Yesterday (Wednesday), we all went and walked a mile just to get out of the hotel and get some food. We went to Chick-fil-A and then we all came back and hung out in one hotel room and painted our first finger on our hand blue to represent the Vikings and show we’re No. 1.”

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at (208) 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JECdAPress.