By Jeremy Martin

On a day when a cold dusting of snow covered the whole of Seattle, the gym at Chief Sealth International High School was hot with some the of the area’s best basketball talent.

With the regular season tipoff less than a week away, the 14th annual Sealth Jamboree brought 11 teams together for a day long preseason showcase that allowed coaches a chance for their squads to measure up against future completion as well as a way to make early year tweaks before any meaningful contests.

“We beat up on each other for weeks and now we get a chance to go up against other kids. It’s fun, it’s a good learning experience,” West Seattle Head Coach Keffrey Fazio said. I like it, this is good for the coaches too, you’re playing one ten minute quarter, you have one timeout so you try to coach your guys on the fly a little bit, and you don’t have a whole game to set things up.”

The wildcats went 0-2 on the night, dropping a close one to Kent-Meridian followed by a buzzer beater loss to Auburn-Riverside in its second game.

Another school that had trouble with the Ravens was Evergreen, which took the court following West Seattle's two games.

The Wolverines couldn't keep pace with the already warm Riverside squad dropping its first game before faring better, yet still losing to a Vashon Island squad stocked with big men.

“This helps get us ready for the rigors of the season and gets (the kids) prepared for what’s going to happen next week. It helps you get prepared for different styles and you can go back to the drawing board, it gives you different looks and that’s always good,” Evergreen Head Coach Tony White said.

The host Seahawks had the toughest road in the Jamboree, tipping off against Roosevelt at 1pm in the first game of the day before having to wait nearly five hours to take part in its second scrimmage, a 6pm showdown with an aggressive and sizable Franklin team; but Sealth Head Coach Colin Slingsby wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I always tell (the kids) in this event, we don’t care about wins or losses. It’s good to get in a close situation like we did this morning, that’s helpful. We’re looking at a lot of things on this, we’re looking at how to run the offense, looking to see whose ready, who maybe needs a little more coaching. We had a couple league matchups today, it gave us a good glance at a couple team’s we’re going to play this year. This is kind of like a dress rehearsal, it’s a chance to get your uniform on, get out there and work off the first game jitters,” said.

Tyee, the area's other representatives dropped both of its matchups, the first to Sultan and then to Franklin.

The final results for the 2014 jamboree were: Franklin 2-0, Sultan 2-0, Vashon Island 2-0, Auburn-Riverside 2-0, Roosevelt 1-1, Kent-Meridian 2-0, West Seattle 0-2, Chief Sealth 0-2, Tyee 0-2, Evergreen 0-2, Lynwood 0-2.