BRUNSWICK – The easy way out of painting Bowdoin’s 67-48 women’s basketball victory over Bates on Friday night is to say the steak didn’t live up to its sizzle.

Picky, picky, picky. Especially coming from anyone who’s occupied bleacher space long enough to remember when Jim Murphy picked up the dry-erase board at Bates and Stefanie Pemper stepped into the coach’s office at Bowdoin.

We’re talking about two people who might have signed over half their salary back then in return for a buzz. At most outposts on the NCAA Division III landscape, women’s basketball is about as buzzworthy as The Hallmark Channel.

But their two inseparable programs have made strides. As in the strides of 1,724 spectators who tiptoed around puddles and black ice to find a seat in Morrell Gymnasium for the winter’s most anticipated college basketball game of the winter to date, no gender qualifiers necessary.

“They get top dollar here,” joked Murphy. “I wish we could have given them more of their money’s worth.”

Athletic event admission at Bates and Bowdoin is free.

Funny, when you think about it, because dozens of mid-major Division I men’s programs and minor-league professional sports franchises would sell their souls to draw a crowd large enough to merit a comma.

This wasn’t even Plastic Puck Night or Disco Fever Day. The only gimmick at the door was a box full of free ice scrapers bearing the name of a local John Deere tractor dealer.

Truth is, in our astute corner of the hardwood universe, we don’t need anything more than high-quality basketball for a lure. And right now we’re spoiled rotten.

Bowdoin: Ranked No. 2 in the nation. Winner of 48 straight home games. Defending national runner-up.

Bates: Top 10. Unbeaten until Friday’s humbling interlude.

Let’s not forget Southern Maine. They’re riding a streak of, what, 142 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances? Yet the Huskies were KO’d by both Bates and Bowdoin before Christmas.

“We circle a lot of games on our calendar,” said Bowdoin junior Justine Pouravelis, who helped construct the current Class A championship tradition at Catherine McAuley High School in Portland. “But Bates is different. They’re so much like us, it’s almost like we’re playing against ourselves.”

Local hoop fans appreciate that juxtaposition, and we’re not always easy to please.

True, Maine has a basketball-mad reputation, but that tradition is aging like the porous roof at Bangor Auditorium. Go to the average high school game on a Monday or Tuesday night in January and you can hear yourself chew gum.

But there’s something about the Polar Bears and Bobcats that drew us out of hibernation. Maybe it’s that they embody everything the men’s game is no longer.

Crisp passes. Tireless defense. Lights-out perimeter shooting.

Tough to compete with that.

“We get a lot of support from people of all ages in the community. It’s awesome to think that this was the atmosphere in here,” said Pouravelis, “when we had almost no students because we’re still on winter break, and there was a men’s hockey game going on next door.”

Bates and Bowdoin will lace ’em up again on Feb. 1 in Lewiston.

Might want to go set up your lawn chair outside Alumni Gymnasium now. The claustrophobic haunt holds 750 people on a night when the fire department is feeling charitable.

“You just love this,” said Murphy.

The object of our affection let us down a trifle, but 1,724 of us didn’t seem to mind.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His e-mail is [email protected].