Can Good Game Top Great Event?

So here they are, Washington State and Gonzaga - together again at last on the same basketball court.

And all it took was the sacrifice of Shootout Spokane, the best idea - and best advertisement - the Bulldogs ever had.

But what is progress if not sacrifice in the name of the community good? The resumption of basketball relations between the Cougars and Zags is undeniably progress - and at $9.50 a ticket just to sit in the Spokane Arena’s upper horseshoes, it had better be good, right?

Alas, in the process of fixing what wasn’t broken, a perfectly good tournament got humpty-dumptied and it remains to be seen whether the king’s men will ever be able to put it back together.

Not that there’s any bellyaching about Gonzaga vs. WSU pre-empting Gonzaga vs. Maine or Gonzaga vs. Hofstra.

“If losing the Shootout, temporarily, has brought back us playing the Cougars,” said Gonzaga athletic director and basketball coach Dan Fitzgerald, “then that’s pretty good. We lost a great event, but we’re getting a better game.”

Meanwhile, Wazzu makes nice with Spokane.

“I don’t think there’s any question we need a presence in Spokane,” said WSU athletic director Rick Dickson. “We didn’t feel we needed to inherit old problems. Whatever kept it from happening in the past, this is a good vehicle to take it forward.”

Forward can be a daunting direction, fraught with potholes and detours - as Fitzgerald discovered in ushering the Shootout from Christmas to Thanksgiving and then from GU’s gym to the Arena.

Originally, a partnership with the University of Idaho was contrived, in hopes of finding a wider audience for those 12,000 Arena seats. Then the change of management at WSU made the Cougars approachable. And their involvement spawned visions of filling the field with a “name” school to keep sponsors happy.

But not since Jean Claude Lefebvre posted up has there been a slower developing play at Gonzaga. No name school bit. Idaho waited and waited for a contract. Fitzgerald suggested Eastern Washington as the fourth - and the Vandals recoiled at the possibility of meeting a Big Sky rival four times in one season.

Even Whitworth was penciled in for a time.

The bottom line: WSU vs. Gonzaga. Great pairing. But no kids clinic, no banquet, no 3-on-3 - none of the Shootout’s extras.

There were other casualties. You’ll notice the Zags and Vandals aren’t playing at all this season. And you’ll notice that Tidyman’s - whose five-year sponsorship of the Shootout was the epitome of corporate give-back - declined to be involved.

“This thing really got away from us and I would take the blame for that, if you need to assign blame,” Fitzgerald said. “What Idaho agreed to originally got changed and I can understand their position. We had a lot of balls in the air.”

A year from now, this may be a Shootout again - or a tournament by any other name. Dickson will continue to trawl for bigger Division I fish, and Idaho athletic director Pete Liske indicated that with the Vandals moving into the Big West, a field of four local teams could be do-able again.

But whatever the form, Gonzaga’s event will more and more become WSU’s event.

And maybe that’s as it should be - and should have been years ago, if Wazzu’s leadership hadn’t been so sleepy or stubborn.

“I can see a situation developing where we co-host a tournament,” said Dickson, “and I think Dan is comfortable with that. To get a top-30 type team in here, we bring more to it - and I think that’s the objective.”

Fitzgerald agreed.

“If there is going to be a tournament, then one of the schools has to take on ownership,” he said. “Two captains can’t fly the plane. And I don’t have a problem with that. They can bring more to the table as far as getting opponents. Really, I think the only way you get a Big 10 team or a Florida is if WSU goes back to their place.

“I know the pecking order here. It’s not necessarily an equal deal - we’re getting a nice payday here, they’re getting a bigger one. But it must be a fair deal.”

Launching a tournament is dicey. Nationwide, there are 26 in the Christmas-New Year’s hammock, compared to just nine at Thanksgiving. But five of those are in Hawaii, Anchorage and Puerto Rico - with a sixth in the works in Fairbanks - and don’t count against Division I game limits. Nevermind the new building, Spokane can’t compete with those events. And if WSU is running a tournament here today, it can’t be gone to Maui.

Fortunately, teams aren’t allowed to go to Hawaii every year, and WSU and GU are looking for just one big name. That, of course, will require some deep sponsor pockets. The Shootout paid its guests $16,000 each. Gonzaga doesn’t pick up the phone for less than $25,000. At Cal’s tournament, the marquee school gets $75,000.

“A tournament is what you want - it’s how a sponsor really gets some pop,” said Fitzgerald. “But you have to solve some things, and sustaining it can be tough - especially at Thanksgiving.”

And if it doesn’t materialize? If it’s only Gonzaga and Washington State and their repaired relationship?

“Then we’ll go back and attempt a Shootout down the road in December at our place,” said Fitzgerald. “If a tournament does happen, then what has been the Shootout - all the other events around it - will become something around a big home game.

“All of that was important - to our program, our campus and the community. That’s what we’ve lost this year, but we managed to avert a catastrophe. I’m not talking about next year or the year after, but if we can’t get the tournament we think we can, then we have to come back with the Shootout for our program and community. And the reality is, we can get it done. We’ve done it.”

But for the moment, it’s been done in.

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

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