But they looked marvelous

Dressing for success is easy. Achieving it can be a whole different animal.

And few can attest to that fact as credibly as Zac Franklin, Tyler Walters, Nate Gobble and Parc Crecelius, the quartet of recent Mt. Spokane High School graduates, who created quite an impression – visually, at least – when they made their Hoopfest debut under the team name El Placento.

Franklin, Walters and Gobble all played their opening game on Saturday in dress shirts and ties, while Crecelius labored in a blonde wig and ankle-length dress.

“It’s strictly business out here,” Franklin said, when asked about his team’s peculiar uniforms.

But, alas, El Placento failed to close the deal, losing to Yah Ballerz.

“By about a half a point, I think,” added Crecelius, who claims to have mastered – but failed to use – the between-the-legs dribble in a long dress.

Not surprisingly, final scores meant little to this group of high school friends, all members of the Class of 2002, who stayed true to their dapper look – with the exception of the loosening of their ties and the early development of some unsightly sweat stains – until the very end.

No, this was much more about having fun. And the four certainly seemed to do that.

When asked by a reporter after the game how to spell his team’s name, Franklin said, “No clue. But I think it’s Spanish for something.”

Then Walters interrupted, saying, “Hey, I’ve got a middle name. Can I get that in the paper?”

Sure, why not.

“It’s ‘Danger.’ “

Tyler Danger Walters. Of course.

“Hey, I’ve got a middle name, too,” piped in Gobble.

And that would be?

“Stoppa!”

Enough with the middle names, already. Were any of you four guys players in high school?

“I was a player, all right,” Franklin said. “I just didn’t know how to play basketball.”

Should have seen that one coming.

So how was your Hoopfest experience?

“Strictly business,” Franklin said again. “This was our first time, but we’ll be back many a years. Yeah, many a years.”

Dressed for success, no doubt.

And not really caring whether they achieve it or not.

Close calls

Sprague-Harrington assistant football coach Clay Henry, who officiates college basketball games throughout the western United States, is playing in Hoopfest 2004 as member of Allfifteenplustwo.

After taking himself out of a game Saturday afternoon to catch his breath, Henry was asked how he liked the officiating in the call-your-own-fouls contests.

“It sucks,” he laughed. “We’re calling everything out there.”

Banking on the Zags

The Wheatland Bank team, comprised of former Gonzaga University players, came up a little short during Saturday’s first day of competition in the men’s open division.

The team was supposed to include 6-foot-8 Zach Gourde, who was a fifth-year senior on the 2002-03 Bulldogs team that made it to second round of the NCAA Tournament, and 6-11 Jeremy Eaton, who was a senior on the Zags’ 1998-99 Elite Eight team.

But Gourde didn’t play because of an injury and Eaton, who lives in the Tri-Cities, couldn’t get away because of work obligations until late Saturday afternoon. So Ryan Floyd and Carl Crider, the other two original members of the team, picked up Kyle Bankhead, a 6-0 senior on last year’s GU team, and battled Hoopfest’s best without a player taller than 6-1.

Wheatland Bank won its first game, but gave away a big early lead in their second and lost. Then, with Eaton on board, they stayed alive with a losers’ bracket win.

Still, it was hard to argue with the relationship between the former Zags and their sponsor.

Floyd’s grandfather, Chester Timm, was a member of Wheatland Bank’s original board of directors when it was founded back in 1979 in Davenport.

“It’s a great bank,” Floyd said, properly plugging the business that anted up for his team’s entry fee and classy uniforms. “I think I’ve had a checking account there since I was three years old.”

Elite upsets

Two of the top teams in Hoopfest’s Action Sportswear Elite Division took unexpectedly early detours into the losers’ bracket Saturday afternoon.

Defending champion Team Atlanta was knocked off in the second round by Rukus, a Freeman-based team comprised of Travis, Chad and DJ Goldsmith and Tanner Townsend.

Team Pasadena, which knocked off Team Atlanta in this year’s Hoop It Up World Championship, also fell in the second round, losing to Aero, a team of former Western Washington University athletes that includes Jared and Jacob Stevenson, Yogi Dennis and Dave Mott.

Quick stops

Former Utah Jazz standout Thurl Bailey, a member of North Carolina State’s 1983 NCAA championship team, was in town Friday to observe the setup of Hoopfest 2004.

Bailey, a Salt Lake City businessman, is interested in starting his own 3-on-3 street basketball tournament and was looking for ideas.

He met extensively with Hoopfest executive director Rick Steltenpohl on Friday, but had to fly back to Salt Lake City to sing at the funeral of Bobbi Sloan, the late wife of Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan who died recently of cancer.

He was scheduled to fly back to Spokane early Sunday morning and observe the final day of Hoopfest 2004.

“I talked to him for a long time on Friday, and he was really impressed with what he saw of our setup procedures,” Steltenpohl said.