Columnist Ron Kantowski: Orleans feels just right for NIAA tournament

Friday, Feb. 25, 2005 | 11:23 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night because A) I live here, and B) a room there is too expensive, at least according to all those bellyachers up North who say it costs too much for a hotel room in Las Vegas to justify playing the state basketball tournament here every other year.

So I'm certainly no expert on this event. But based on Thursday's opening day at the Orleans Arena, all us of price-gougers who call Southern Nevada home are off to a decent start if making the boys' and girls' tournaments a biennial thing is the goal.

No, it wasn't exactly "Hoosiers." I even arrived early, hoping to find some towheaded point guard from Hickory High -- or at least Pahranagat Valley -- climbing onto the shoulders of a teammate to measure the distance from the floor to the rim.

Maybe today, when the little schools that provide these tournaments with much of their charm arrive, something like that will happen. But on Thursday, nobody ran the Picket Fence play after a timeout. Nobody attempted a two-hand set shot. Or an underhand free throw. No Norman Dale, no Myra Fleener. In deference to the high school kids, beer was not sold at the concession stands on the concourse. So no Shooter, just a bunch of shooters. Or at least P'Allen Stinnett and a lot of guys who took a lot of shots.

Stinnett tickled the twine, as the sportswriters in Indiana used to write in the 1950s, for 35 points to lead the Palo Verde boys to a victory over city rival Valley. But he wasn't wearing high-top canvas sneakers or satin basketball trunks.

Maybe there's a lesson to be learned in that. The quicker we come to grips that Nevada isn't Indiana minus the bobby sox, or any other state where high school basketball is a religion instead of an alternative to Halo 2 on the X-Box, the quicker we'll be able to judge the success of the state tournament in more realistic terms.

While no official attendance figures were immediately available, it appeared the arena was at least a third full for Thursday afternoon's session featuring Centennial vs. Coronado in the girls' 4A tournament and Palo Verde vs. Valley in the boys' big schools game. Call it about 2,500, plus or minus a few face painters or woodwind players in the pep bands.

About 3,000 were on hand to watch Bishop Gorman -- and maybe another couple of hundred to cheer against the Gaels, the local prep equivalent of Notre Dame -- as the Gorman girls and boys shared the evening card.

A crowd of 2,500 for high school basketball on Thursday afternoon at a crazy time to be doing anything, with the possible exception of taking High Tea with the Duchess of York, isn't all that bad, no matter what the NIAA might think.

For the record, officials of the Reno-based high school sanctioning body said they were encouraged by the turnout, although I'm told behind closed doors in the hospitality suites, they were disappointed the place wasn't packed.

I guess they were serious at the news conference a couple of months ago when they said they hoped the tournament would sell out. Of course, I knew better, in that I've lived here since 1987 and have seen more empty seats than Ashlee Simpson.

Six of the eight teams in Thursday's games hail from Southern Nevada, so attendance might drop off a bit today when the smaller schools, the majority of which come from the North, start lacing up their high-tops. But it almost certainly will be an improvement over the last time the tournament was played here in 1987, when South Tahoe beat Valley in front of an intimate gathering of their moms and dads and girlfriends at the cavernous Thomas & Mack Center.

There's nothing cavernous about the Orleans Arena, which, Stinnett's array of rafter-scraping 3-point jump shots and thunderous slam dunks notwithstanding, gets my vote as Thursday's MVP -- Most Viable Property.

As I said when the tournament was announced, with its 7,000-seat basketball configuration, the Orleans is to high school hoops what baby bear's porridge was to Goldilocks. While the T&M is much too big and those cookie cutter gymnasiums going up on every new high school campus around town a little too small, the Orleans is just right.

Plus, it's an arena, and a state-of-the-art one at that. That's what makes it special for the kids. There should be a rule where you can't hold a state tournament where there are walls instead of seats behind the baskets.

Bill Purcell, the director of corporate sales for the arena, said the highlight of his day was when the Coronado High girls came out for the shootaround and their eyes lit up as if Justin Timberlake had just been named their coach.

"You should have seen them looking around. It was just like in 'Hoosiers,' " Purcell said.

There's that reference again. But in that Purcell grew up in Indiana, we won't "T" him up.

In fact, from where I was sitting, there weren't many fouls at all, which is unusual for an event of this magnitude at a first-time venue.

Arena officials were at a loss to explain the portable hardwood floor chipping away in places, given it has only been used for two Harlem Globetrotters performances. Maybe Meadlowlark and Goose Tatum's descendants are putting something a little stronger in that famous water bucket these days.

But other than that, and that the security force made the five Valley Vikings face painters who had spelled out S-V-I-K-E on their bare chests put their shirts back on, I thought it was an encouraging beginning for the long, long, long awaited return of the state basketball tournament to Las Vegas. As for the Valley spelling bee champs, I would have just lined them up in the proper order and let them be true to their school.

But rules are rules, and apparently Spicoli and his pals violated a little-invoked arena edict: No shirts, no shoes, no semis.

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