3A Boys Notebook | Where did all the fans go?

Mike Colbrese always cautioned that success for the Class 3A tournament in Seattle could take time.

But after two years back in Seattle, the agreement to play the tournament at KeyArena and Edmundson Pavilion has run out — and some sobering attendance figures are in — leaving doubts about whether the tournament should stay.

After disappointing attendance last year — aside from a packed crowd for the championship games — overall crowds dropped by about 3,000 this year. Combined attendance was slightly up Wednesday, but down the past three days. Saturday's crowd of 4,484 was 2,248 below last year's Day 4 attendance. Figures do no include presold tickets at high schools.

Even more sobering, attendance is less than half of the 42,540 total for the 2000 3A state tournaments in Seattle.

Those numbers give the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association's executive board something to think about when it ponders the tournament's future March 26.

Yet Colbrese, the WIAA's executive director, is still convinced that Seattle remains the best option.

"I think the Seattle site is working," Colbrese said Saturday. "I think we'd like to see bigger crowds. We're just trying to figure out the key to unlock that."

Colbrese said he would like more feedback from fans about the tournament's two-site system, which isn't likely to change as long as the 3A tournaments are in Seattle. No venues exist in Seattle with two courts that would to play the boys and girls tournaments simultaneously, Colbrese said.

If the executive board decides to move the tournament back to Tacoma, it would mean three weekends of tournaments in Tacoma, or Yakima, if the Class 2A tournament moved back to the SunDome. But Colbrese said the 2A tournament has done well since moving to the Tacoma Dome.

The 3A tournament, with most schools in the Seattle area, seems to make the most sense in Seattle.

"Seattle provides the potential [for growth] that doesn't exist elsewhere," Colbrese said.

The tournament's 16-team, double-elimination format isn't likely to change. Colbrese said the executive board has met for three separate special sessions the past 15 years to discuss the format and entertain ideas, including different numbers of teams or a single-elimination format.

"Nothing gets any legs," Colbrese said.

Berndt can't choose

West Valley co-coach Jim Berndt stayed in Seattle after his team lost the fourth-place game to Mount Rainier, 60-57, to watch the championship game between Lakes and Rainier Beach. He was a Yakima Valley Community College teammate of Beach coach Mike Bethea and Lakes coach JoJo Rodriguez in the 1970s.

"I don't know who to root for," Berndt said Saturday. "I told that to JoJo last night and he said, 'You have to root for me because I'm the underdog."

Notes

• West Valley of Yakima's Evan Berndt broke his nose late in the fourth quarter on defense, but there was no way the Rams coach was going to get him off the court.

"He's my son, so he doesn't listen to me anyway," said Jim Berndt.

• After Renton beat Enumclaw to win fifth place, Renton coach Rick Comer was greeted in the locker room by his players, who tried to dump the water cooler on him.

One problem: three more teams still had to use the same locker room. A three-man maintenance crew, using mops and an industrial vacuum, were sent in to dry the floor.

• Lakes seniors Kavario Middleton and Jermaine Kearse, a pair of Washington football signees on the Lakes basketball team, met Washington's newest assistant coach, Steve Gervais, this week. Gervais, the former coach at Skyline High School, was named UW's running-backs coach Wednesday.

The Lakes players saw Gervais at work last fall, when Gervais' Skyline team beat the top-ranked Lancers 39-20 in the round of 16 of the Class 3A football tournament. .

• One of the Mount Rainier assistant coaches is KJR personality Dick Fain, who played at Mount Rainier and graduated in 1992.

• Top-ranked Rainier Beach, which won its four tournament games by an average of 25.5 points, has an enrollment low enough to be a Class 1A school, but opts up to 3A to play in the Metro League. Rainier Beach has only 361 students, smaller than most of the elementary schools in the Seattle School District.

• Squalicum won the scholastic award for best grade point by a boys 3A basketball team in the state (3.579) and the West Valley of Yakima was tops among bands (3.297).

• No Eastern Washington team has won the 3A tournament since Othello in 1984.

Seattle Times staff reporter Craig Smith contributed to this notebook.