Feb 28 2005 - High school basketball playoffs are my all-time favorite event. The stakes are higher, the players play harder, the crowds are bigger and louder, the upsets bigger, the frantic finishes more exciting.

If you're a basketball junkie, things will happen this week that you will talk about at reunions in a couple of decades.

Here's mine:

It was the high school basketball playoffs in (ahem) 1981 that got me hooked. Partly because they were probably the most exciting series of games I've sat through, and partly because of a dramatic and disastrous finish that defined the high school experience of many of my classmates and is still a spark for passion arguments 24 years later.

To set the stage, our school, Mercer Island (near Seattle, WA), had a perennially strong basketball program. Strong enough that my career ended before I could make the junior high team. The '81 team was solid but not spectacular -- one double-figure scorer, a 6-2 forward named Al Moscatel that could shoot the lights out. He averaged about 13 points a game. The beauty of that team was that EIGHT kids averaged at least five points a game and coach Ed Pepple had a 10-man rotation.

The Islanders finished third in a tough league, absorbed a loss in the district playoffs (which are double elimination in Washington) but caught fire in the regional final and topped 100 points for the first time in school history to qualify for the eight-team state finals.

The Seattle Times' high school sports writer posted odds of winning the tournament, ranked us eighth out of eight teams. But with a crowd of 5,000 (not to mention our 100-strong pep band, of which I was a part) that just fed the frenzy. MI upset the second-ranked team with two free throws with seven seconds left, and in the state semifinals knocked off the unbeaten, top-ranked team by 16.

The state championship game was on a Saturday night, featuring our beloved Islanders against Shadle Park, from Spokane. Shadle featured a 6-3, 200-pound point guard named Mark Rypien, who 10 years later was a Super Bowl MVP for the Washington Redskins.

MI fell behind by 13 points in the first quarter, but pulled to within one at the half and held a narrow lead through much of the final two quarters. It was an awesome game -- fewer than 30 turnovers between the two teams despite the pressure; smooth passing, clutch shooting and intensity both on the court and in the stands.

Oh, did I mention the clock wasn't working properly? Earlier in the day, during a consolation game, the arena's buzzer decided to quit, meaning an air horn at the scorer's table had to be used as the "buzzer." (Ominous music here.)

Shadle Park tied the score with about 30 seconds left. Mercer Island worked the ball for the last shot, and Kyle Pepple, the point guard, drove the lane and was fouled with six seconds left. After a time out, he stepped to the line ... and missed the first free throw, which rolled around the rim and out. The second free throw was good. Shadle had no time outs left and inbounded the ball against MI's full court pressure. As the clock approached zero, Shadle's point guard launched a cross court pass to teammate Greg Schmidt. From where I stood I could see the clock (which hung above the basket at the far end of the court) hit zero as the pass was in the air. There was no buzzer to be heard. Schmidt caught it and tossed the ball into the hoop without hitting the floor, but it seemed meaningless when the center court official waved it off.

This was, after all, 1981, so the MI fans stormed the court to celebrate with the players. The ladder went up, and Pepple and a teammate started to clip net.

And then ... the scoreboard changed. The ref under the basket ruled that Schmidt's shot counted, and all hell broke loose. The MI players stood on the ladder in shock, while others dropped to the floor in tears. Shadle's fans stormed the court and their players climbed the other basket. Fights broke out. It took arena officals and police about half an hour to clear the court. Our band director, spirited us out to the bus before the chaos got out of hand, but it was too late: the state championship was ruined.

Shadle had the trophy given to them in a stadium hallway, but not before their coach made an uninvited appearance in the Mercer Island locker room to announce to our guys that he felt their sportsmanship was lacking.

To complicate matters, the game wasn't televised, so there were no tapes of the game with an inset clock. Analysts were relegated to counting frames of tape to determine that, yes, the shot was indeed nearly a full second late (when analyzed by a Seattle television station) or that, no, it was on time (when analyzed by Shadle's hometown newspaper).

And thus began months of controversy, which included (in no particular order) sniping on radio talk shows, accusations of misconduct leveled at both schools and the officials, denials by the referees that they had ever disagreed on the final call, threats of lawsuits, you name it.

In the end, Mercer Island was put on probation, including the band, which was actually out on the bus when several of the incidents we were accused of occurred in the stadium. A group of us picketed the state association's office for an afternoon, to the amusement of even our own administration.

Rypien went on to win the Super Bowl. Three Mercer Islanders played Division 1 basketball, with several others playing college ball at lower levels. And Coach Pepple ... he's still there, after 37 years, nearing 900 victories and with four state titles to his name.

Of course, if you ask me, it's five.