Isaiah makes mark during scoring blitz

TACOMA — After putting on the greatest display of scoring in big-school state-tournament history, Isaiah Thomas stood on the west end of the floor, hands on his knees, hanging his head in disappointment.

The 5-foot-9 Curtis junior broke — check that, obliterated — several tournament scoring records in his four days at the Tacoma Dome, but headed back to University Place without the one thing he came here for.

"They're good," he said of the records. "But we came in here as a team and we're leaving as a team. We didn't get that state championship that we wanted. The records are good individually, but this isn't an individual game."

Eventually, however, he was smiling, though still disappointed with a sixth-place finish.

And after completing his spectacular four-day show, Thomas had earned the right to smile.

As players from both teams cleared the floor after receiving trophies, a Curtis assistant coach handed Thomas a sheet of paper listing the records he had broken.

Even he shook his head in disbelief at what he had done.

In Friday's semifinal, his 51 points broke the 51-year-old record of 48, and also pushed him over the record for one tournament. By the time he was done, he had scored 162 points in four games, a 40.5 average that was eight better than the previous mark.

Most impressive, Thomas, who had 33 points and was named tournament MVP on Saturday, already has the career-tournament record with 241 points, and he'll probably be back to add to that total in 2007.

Ferris' Sean Mallon set the previous record of 230 in 11 games over three tournaments. Thomas needed just seven games to break it.

"I didn't look at coming in here and doing that," he said. "It just happened."

All of those 4A tournament records are also better than the record in the 3A classification.

"That little guy is amazing," said South Kitsap coach John Callaghan, who used the word amazing at least six times to describe Thomas during a two-minute interview. "And at 5-8. I hope every kid in Port Orchard was here to see him so that they can see that you don't have to be 7 feet to play the game. It's inspiring to everyone.

"That guy is just amazing. Even when you play good D, he's going to hit a 23-foot shot. He can get his shot off, pretty much whenever he feels like it."

And he gets plenty of shots off. Thomas set tournament records for field goals and three-point field goals attempted. He made 51.5 percent of his field goals and 41.1 percent of his threes.

"He can score, he has great confidence, he's got great creativity, and I get criticized heavily for it, but I let him go," said Curtis coach Lindsay Bemis. "When you've got a thoroughbred, you've got to let him run. It's a green light for him. It's bright green."