The high schools of the Seattle/Eastside Kingco League have this strange ritual, which future anthropologists will struggle to understand. In the fall, the Eastsiders destroy the Seattleites in football. Then, in the winter, the Seattleites eviscerate the Eastsiders in basketball. The outcomes of the games are as predictable as the ending of this year’s Christmas pageant.

Case in point: On September 23, Woodinville beat Garfield in football, 52-0, getting all 52 points in just three quarters. Yesterday, Garfield beat Woodinville in basketball, 79-44, leading at one point 53-18.

How is this possible? One school’s athletes couldn’t possibly be incredible football players but bumbling basketballers, could they? I wish the explanation were exciting, but it’s not. More than anything, our current knowledge economy is to blame, for magnifying the importance–and cost–of earning a college diploma. High school athletes now often specialize in a single sport, the better to burnish their resumes for a potential college scholarship. On the Eastside the most talented athletes pick football. In Seattle the most talented athletes pick basketball. And as the Eastside schools get better and better at football, and the Seattle schools get better and better at basketball, the divisions perpetuate themselves. Imagine yourself as a talented high-school athlete–do you want to play for the team at your school that wins or the team that loses?

Which, like so many explanations, brings up another question: Why do Eastsiders pick football and Seattleites pick basketball? That is much more interesting, but so enmeshed in larger questions of culture and race and class and politics that you’d pretty much disqualify yourself from holding public office if you even tried to talk about it. Not that I’m planning to run for office or anything (although, like most Americans, I am leading Mitt Romney in Iowa), but I know my strengths as a writer–musing about high-school basketball and making fun of Portland.

Woodinville actually played Garfield pretty tight last year, but the four top scorers from that team are gone. This year’s Woodinville hoops team is under-sized and, critically against full-court-pressing Garfield, short of ballhandlers. Most teams like this hang with Garfield for a quarter or so, then wear down under the pressure and begin to commit turnovers and allow easy transition buckets. That’s exactly what happened this year, with Garfield’s 35-7  run being what we sportswriters refer to as “the turning point.”

(I must note that Woodinville point guard Robbie Jackson played heroically in a losing effort, scoring 21 points and showing some awesome passing and open-court skills.)

Garfield is also missing its four top scorers from last year–most notably, star Tony Wroten, last seen in Madison Square Garden driving past Duke defenders like they were folding chairs and drawing praise from Mike Krzyzewski. Wroten dominated Garfield basketball during his three-year career–and, it must be said, dominated the ball as well. This Garfield team shares better, and gets more open shots. They don’t necessarily hit those shots, but they do get them.

More about Wroten-less Garfield next week, as Metro League Tuesday will be headed back to the old alma mater in the last game before the holiday break.

But! If you were at yesterday’s game (and judging from the crowd you probably weren’t) you got to see one young hoopster’s finest basketball moment, one that I’m sure he will never forget. Late in the game, Garfield guard Zechariah Shepherd collected a steal at midcourt and broke toward an uncontested Woodinville basket. With the game being a blowout, I was chatting with my friend Mark about holiday plans, but I nudged him as Shephard approached the basket: “This could be interesting.”

And it was. The 6’2″, sophomore leapt high in the air, stretching his rail-thin frame as far as it would go, and rattled home–barely–what must have been his first dunk in a varsity game. Running back up-court, Shephard had a smile as wide as last night’s sunset, his teammates gave him high-fives and hugs, and the Garfield bench celebrated with towel-waving and general merriment. Now, I have dunked a basketball before, but it was not nearly as satisfying–perhaps because I was in my early 30s, perhaps because it wasn’t in a competitive game, or, perhaps, because I was dunking on the six-foot hoop at the John Hay Elementary School playground.

Shephard is just one of a passel of talented underclassmen on this Garfield team, which I promise to discuss more in-depth after seeing them again next week. For now, here’s Zechariah Shepherd dunking on his home hoop to edited-for-radio Ludacris.