By Kyle Goon

| The Salt Lake Tribune

On Thursday night, the Utah basketball community turned its eyes to the gym at Orem High School.

The Great Western Shootout was only a high school basketball tournament in its inaugural year. But judging from the crowd, you could tell it was already a hot ticket.

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There were hundreds of fans, jumping up and down and cheering. Larry Krystkowiak stopped by, as did half the BYU men’s basketball team and a dozen area college coaches.

Even Jerry Sloan — whose mere presence caused the students to stop watching the game to chant his name — would stop by that night, nestling into a high corner of the stands.

The game everyone had pegged as the highlight of the night? Top Utah team Lone Peak against top Colorado team Denver East. Orem coach Golden Holt, who helped organize the tournament, declared before the game, "I would pay money to see this game, and I don’t have to pay."

It was a good thing he didn’t have to part with his money, because the game wasn’t worth it — at least from a competitive standpoint.

But for those who wanted to see the Knights beat up on a hyped out-of-state team, it must’ve been worth the price of admission. It never was close, from when Lone Peak jumped out to a 8-0 off the bat until it capped off the 84-58 win with its JV squad playing almost the entire fourth quarter.

Watching the Knights make the Angels fall from their lofty spot at the top of the Colorado rankings wasn’t really the game folks thought it would be. But then again, given the day’s earlier results, why should it have been?

In the first game, West Jordan shell-shocked Canyon Springs, Nev., in a blowout. Orem and Davis didn’t quite emulate the rout the Jaguars put on, but they still managed to beat Highland, Idaho and Mountain View, Ariz., respectively.

Much of the crowd came to see how Utah teams would fare against out-of-state competition. It appears that the competition was left wanting.

And it wasn’t just that the opponents were the Washington Generals or the Little Sisters of the Poor. These were ranked teams — several of them had won championships just the year before. They had stars, with some decent college prospects among them.

Were they just unprepared? Were they suffering road fatigue?

Maybe Utah basketball is just a little better than it’s sometimes given credit for.

It’s hard to pinpoint what factors won each game because it was a combination. In some cases, the players were better. In others, the coaching was more solid or the game plan was executed more efficiently.

But the way some of Utah’s top teams dismantled the top squads from surrounding states shows whatever the reason, it might be time to start taking the state’s basketball more seriously. Whenever Utah club teams go on the summer circuit and compete — as Utah Pump-N-Run did this year — outside observers seem surprised.

Maybe it’s time for the surprise to end. Maybe instead of trying to compete with the best in the region, Utah teams should be more ambitious, aiming for more tournaments in competitive basketball states, such as California and Oregon. Or, as the Great Western Shootout has done, maybe we should bring them here.

So far this season, Lone Peak was the only nationally ranked team from Utah. When the Knights fell on Friday to Orem, they made sure they’d fall from the rankings completely. It probably will take a monumental season for any Utah team to make it back in.