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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Steve Christilaw: ‘Cupcake’ matches eventually lose charm

Contrary to what they try to tell you on the Food Network, you can definitely have too many cupcakes.

Well, perhaps when it comes to dessert. But if some of the people I know are any indication, it’s more of a frosting overload. (If only we could have overcome that one little problem with my invention, Frosting on a Stick – the one where the frosting doesn’t, you know, stick to the stick.)

But I digress.

We’re talking the other kind of cupcake.

Perhaps you think of them by a different term. Creampuff, perhaps? Christmas cookies?

They’re those teams that make you ask, when your open your season ticket package, who is this? Do they even have a team?

They are the packing peanuts of college basketball. Filler. The games that make the nice people who determine a school’s strength of schedule break down and snicker.

That’s not a knock on the little school. I love small-school basketball. If you call yourself a basketball fan and you’re not regularly sitting courtside for Whitworth games, I would doubt your claim.

Coach Matt Logie has the No. 2 ranked NCAA Division III program in the country out there among the pine trees.

And I liked it when the Pirates played an early-season game against a Rick Majerus’ Utah squad a handful of years ago. Whitworth gave a good showing and collected a very nice check for the privilege.

In November, these games have a discreet charm. Gonzaga likes to schedule teams from other Catholic schools – bring them in for a payday to help out their program. Whitworth got its date with Utah because then-Pirate coach Jim Hayford was a good friend of Majerus.

And sometimes there’s a neighborly aspect to such games.

I like to think that’s what the University of Washington had in mind when it originally put Gonzaga on its schedule year after year.

For the big school, it’s a chance to check out what it has way down at the end of its bench. It can check out different combinations. Work out a few kinks.

For the small school, it’s a chance at some exposure to folks that would never get the chance to see them play. Maybe get a game on television. It can help a program grow.

And it’s a healthy paycheck. For a small school, that may be what helps pay for having that extra varsity assistant coach.

Just ask little Chaminade University of Honolulu, formerly of the NAIA and now an NCAA Division II school, about what the one-in-a-million chance of winning can become. The Silverswords will forever be remembered for a 1982 Maui Invitational game with No. 1-ranked Virginia, led by Ralph Sampson and Rick Carlisle. Chaminade won, 77-72.

But by December, games like that have lost all their charm.

Idaho had a fantastic game with Washington State last week, and the Vandals won for the second year in a row.

It was a thrilling and for the Cougars a disappointing game that helped both programs get ready for the conference season.

And then Idaho played at home against Northwest Christian College and scored a school-record 127 points.

Sure, there’s a thrill at breaking a scoring record that stood for 50 years. But aside from that, what good could Idaho have possibly gotten out of beating up the former Eugene Bible College varsity five?

There are a few small schools – somewhat bigger than EBC – who filled their schedule for November and December as the cupcake du jour. They spend two months playing the Washington Generals to Division I teams’ Harlem Globetrotters, always on the road, because they need the paydays in order to have a program in January, February and March. To their credit, they are upfront about it.

You have to respect the programs that spend December getting ready for January.

It’s frustrating when Gonzaga lets another big game slip away in the final minute. But at the same time, it takes playing an Arizona or a UCLA to find those kinds of flaws.

Steve Christilaw can be reached at steve.christilaw @gmail.com.