OK, let’s say it: GREG GIESE is the real deal.

The senior guard-forward from ALMIRA/COULEE-HARTLINE and likely all-stater had an off shooting day in Wednesday’s opening round of the Class 1B state tournament, but that didn’t stop him from leading his team to a 57-45 victory over NEAH BAY.

Although his shot was off on a 6-for-20 day — like a lot of first-time state-trippers, he had trouble finding his range in the SunDome — he made up for it with 18 rebounds, five steals, a block and an assist.

“It was a little rough shooting, seeing nothing in the background, like you were shooting against nothing but air,” said Giese, who still managed to put up a game-high 21 points. “I knew I wasn’t feeling it that game, so I just tried to get the ball to my teammates. Kyle Tucker (15 points of 6-for-9 shooting) put the ball in the hole real well tonight.”

Giese, who in one blowout win this year put up 27 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and seven steals in less than three quarters of play, did his job Wednesday the old-fashioned way — hard work, no showboating. With his team leading by eight points with seven minutes remaining, he had a breakaway layup and a chance for a highlight-reel dunk ... and he considered it.

“I always think about (a dunk) from about midcourt,” Giese said. But with a defender just a step behind, he opted to lay it in carefully off the glass. “We needed the points.”

John Wooden would have loved it.

GRAND THEFT: The quick-handed defensive work of senior guard CHELSI PAKOOTAS is one of the things that makes the INCHELIUM girls — who will face SUNNYSIDE CHRISTIAN in a 4 p.m. quarterfinal today — such a scary opponent.

She averaged 4.3 steals this season, and when you figure in the turnovers she also forced — pressuring ballhandlers into dribbling the ball out of bounds or passing it into the seats, for example — she creates at least six extra possessions every game for her team.

Against TAHOLAH in round one, though, Pakootas and the Lady Reds were even more larcenous.

Pakootas came up with nine steals to lead Inchelium to a team total of 36, which not only will become the record in the very new Class 1B record books, but also is six more than the all-time Class B state-tourney standard. Other opening-day numbers that may hold up as the official 1B records at tournament end may be the single-quarter points put up by the LIBERTY CHRISTIAN boys (25) and INCHELIUM girls
(26), plus TULALIP HERITAGE’s 11 3-pointers (which would tie the Class B record as well).

CLEAN SWEEP: This year’s state trip by TULALIP HERITAGE was the school’s first, but senior guard TOBY MILLER has been on state-tournament courts literally hundreds of times — with a broom in his hand.

“I was one of the first sweepers ever,” recalled Miller, who began doing it as a second grader along with older, tribal kids who were students at a new alternative program called Tulalip Option School, where Miller’s father, Jimmy, worked. For the tribal kids at the Option School, the opportunity to be on the floor at Class 4A and 3A state tournaments at the Kingdome, Tacoma Dome or Key Arena was a reward for getting straight A’s, and Jimmy Miller demanded the same thing from his own elementary-aged (and non-tribal) son. For five or six years, young Toby kept making the grades and earning the trip. Now he’s Tulalip Heritage’s student body president, has a GPA around 3.9 and is a two-year basketball team captain — and this season finally got to play in a state tournament himself.

“This is my senior year, and we finally got to go. I had butterflies — we all did,” said Miller, who had eight points and six points in the Hawks’ 73-45 rout of Oakville. Remembering his old days with the broom, he added with a grin, “It’s way different.”

SHORT JUMPERS: Many of the players in Wednesday’s boys game between ST. JOHN-ENDICOTT and LUMMI had met once before — while wearing football uniforms when those teams met in the the state B-8 football championship game, won 12-6 by SJE. ... The last time the NEAH BAY girls came to state was in 2000, when first-year coach LISA HALTTENEN was a senior and the team’s high scorer. ... CURLEW center Tyrone Novikoff, a 6-6 1/2, 310-pounder, has to play football for the University of Idaho, where he’ll be an offensive lineman.