The Spartans were celebrities by association earlier this week as they played to a packed Paski Gymnasium against the Nathan Hale Raiders, the top-ranked team in the nation, Tuesday.

Indifferent to the very vocal crowd of stalwart Spartan fans, the spotlight-snagging guests (16-0 overall, 11-0 in league) sailed smoothly and with predictable aplomb to a 96-57 league win, leaving the Bainbridge High School varsity boys (3-14, 1-11) to scoop up what successes they could in the turbulent wake.

“We’re happy that as a team we came out and competed,” said BHS Head Coach Steve Haizlip. “We didn’t play nervous. We played loose.

“We’re not happy we lost,” he added. “You’re never happy you lost. But I think we competed. We played as a team and we stayed together [and] if we can carry that to our next game, we’ll be OK.”

The king of the court remained Hale’s high-flying frontman, the 6-foot-9 senior Michael Porter Jr., a University of Washington recruit. He reportedly averages 36 points per outing — and against the Spartans managed 42. He scored 19 in the first eight minutes alone of Tuesday’s matchup and finished the night with 10 dramatic dunks.

BHS started off behind and remained so throughout the night as the Raiders handily maintained a healthy lead, despite occasional bursts of momentum from the island squad.

The first quarter ended 26-10, with the Spartans hanging tougher than some in the raucous crowd obviously predicted. There were jeers (at the guests) and cheers aplenty then, as the first half came to a close at a rather respectable (all things considered) 57-26.

In the third, Bainbridge somehow kept it close, putting up 10 to the Raiders’ 23, to end the quarter 80-36.

The fourth was the only quarter in which the Spartans outscored the guests, albeit minus most of their starters (21-16), an emotional condolence at least.

There was much to like about what Bainbridge brought to the court, Haizlip said. Against another opponent the outcome could easily have been different.

“When you’re playing the No. 1 team in the nation it’s a very challenging task at hand,” he said. “I think in every game that you play it’s, ‘How is this going to help us for the next game — win or lose?’

“I thought we took steps today,” the coach said. “I thought the guys were just really loose and together and honestly just played as though not one possession was more important the other and just played.”

Leading the Spartan scoring efforts was senior Lyle Terry (22 points). Charlie Hoberg managed 11, Brendan Burke nine, Jackson Barnes three and Ethan Schulte, Marcus Clyde, Cole Muran, Coltrane Brooks and Daniel Queen each put up two.

The numbers reflect confidence, Haizlip explained. There is a freedom to being underestimated.

“We need to play the same way in every game,” Haizlip said. “They had nothing to lose.

“Nobody felt the pressure of, ‘If I don’t make this shot we won’t win.’ And I think in other games that’s been the case, or at least that’s what it seemed like.”

The rejuvenation of the Raiders, who the Spartans twice defeated just last year, is the topic of much chatter both in the league and abroad. Under the leadership of debut Head Coach Brandon Roy, a former University of Washington and NBA star himself, and with an influx of seven stellar transfers, this year’s team is a decidedly different animal than in past seasons.

One could, wrote Matt Calkins in a recent Seattle Times column, consider this year’s stellar squad of Raiders “a factory-direct shipment of ringers” whose growth is “about as organic as a Hungry Man dinner.”

The question then becomes, for BHS and everyone else in Metro, does this signify the arrival of yet another league powerhouse program, a perennial contender the Spartans are now doomed to tussle with as best they can for the foreseeable future?

“If they keep getting transfers, yes,” Haizlip said. “You just never know. What’s the next school going to be? And where are kids going to transfer to? That’s the biggest thing.”

Bainbridge is, of course, no stranger to facing down teams made of cherry picked rosters in Metro, where private schools routinely attract highly skilled players to certain sports programs — but Nathan Hale is a public school.

The rest of the league is now left to decide: Is the Raider’s 180 degree turnaround this year a fluke brought on by the hiring of a skilled celebrity coach and a few exceptional players, or the first signs of a new era of high school basketball?

“I honestly don’t agree with it,” Haizlip said of the increasing proliferation of team-hopping.

“I think it’s exciting that people get to see amazing basketball,” he said. “There’s no doubt that they’re great basketball players. I just don’t know if it’s going to help high school basketball in general. I really don’t. I think it helps those teams that compete and get all the transfers, for a while, and outside of that I think it could actually ruin high school basketball.”

Are the days of the “Hoosiers”-type mythos and come-from-behind underdog miracles antiquated?

“It does lose that,” Haizlip said. “Every high school team seems like it’s an [American Athletic Union] team now.”

For the Spartans, Haizlip sees big things on the horizon despite this year’s admittedly dreary record. The island boasts a solid youth program, he said, from which the varsity team will continue to harvest new and promising talent for years to come.

“[On] Bainbridge, we’re getting who we get and we’re happy with that and we’re going to build from within,” the coach said. “I’m excited because we have the opportunity to build, and I told the guys here, ‘Let’s not pack the gym because of another team, let’s pack this gym because of who we are and how we play.’

“I have no doubt that we’re going to do that,” he said. “It’s going to happen.”