Turkey and Basketball

For the 14th year in a row, Southeast will host its annual Thanksgiving Hoopfest tournament, bringing together schools from different areas and classifications, from Tennessee to metro-Atlanta. The tournament will begin Tuesday with two games, the first at 6 p.m. when Model’s girls take on Rockmart, followed by Model’s boys vs. Rockmart. More games will be played Wednesday, Friday and a championship game Saturday for the girls, while all boys teams will play three games each with an all-tournament team to be named on the Saturday.

Admission for each day is $5 for adults and $3 for students.

The Raiders’ first game will be Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. against Model. They’ll play Polk County at 5:30 p.m. on Friday and Blessed Trinity at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The Lady Raiders open tournament play Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. against 5A’s Meadowcreek and will play either Polk County or Blessed Trinity on Wednesday. They’ll also play Saturday against an opponent to be determined.

Raiders first-year coach Josh Carter said the idea behind the season-opening tournament is to raise money and generate good competition.

“We like to get as many local teams involved because this is a fundraiser for the program,” he said. “We fill spots based on a first-come, first-serve basis. The second criteria is to be competitive and draw as much attention as possible. Doing that will get some teams here and hopefully coming back.”

The girls’ portion of the Hoopfest will feature eight teams and be played in traditional tournament format with a loser’s bracket. On the boys’ side, however, each team will will play three games in a round-robin format because one of the schools — Snellville’s Shiloh High — was a late scratch, leaving the tournament with seven teams.

To make up for Shiloh’s absence, Carter called North Murray coach Eric Bishop and asked for the Mountaineers — a first-year program playing a JV schedule — to take on Tennessee’s Polk County on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. Bishop accepted the offer, which allowed the Raiders to play in the tournament.

“Eric saved our tournament by filling that slot,” Carter said. “We guarantee every team that comes to this tournament three games, so if North Murray doesn’t play that game, we (Southeast) wouldn’t have had the opportunity to play in our own tournament.”

With a fledging program looking for the fast-track to developing its players, Bishop said he didn’t think twice about putting his team of freshman and sophomores up against a varsity team.

“We’re excited about the opportunity,” he said. “Even though on paper we’re a JV team, we’re trying to take on the mindset that we’re a basketball team, whether we’re playing a freshman team, a JV team or a varsity team. Whoever is on the floor with us, we need to play at the level we need to and beyond. That’s what we’re all about, so we want to play up. We’ll take any opportunities we get to do so.”

First-year Lady Raiders coach Elizabeth Crane said that after an offseason of practicing and learning a new system, her team is ready to take the floor.

“We’re extremely ready,” she said. “One of the things we’ve talked about is being ready to play. We’ve had intense practices, run play after play, gone over game situations and played a scrimmage.

“We’re excited about the level of competition, because on the girls’ end it’s very good. Our perspective is we’re looking for good competition so we can use that as an advantage to get deep into the playoffs. If we play quality teams early in the year, it will help us to be better for the sub-region and region tournaments.”

Schedule

Tuesday — Model girls vs. Rockmar, 6; Model boys vs. Rockmart, 7

Wednesday —Mundy’s Mill girls vs. McEachern, 10 a.m.; Polk County boys vs. Mill Creek, 11:30 a.m.; Polk County girls vs. Blessed Trinity, 1; Mundy’s Mill boys vs. Blessed Trinity, 2:30; Meadowcreek girls vs. Southeast, 4; Model boys vs. Southeast, 5:30

Friday — Girls loser bracket semifinal Game 1, 10 a.m.; Mundy’s Mill boys vs. Rockmart, 11:30 a.m.; Girls loser bracket semifinal Game 2, 1; Blessed Trinity boys vs. Mill Creek, 2:30; Girls winner bracket Game 1, 4; Polk County boys vs. Southeast, 5:30; Girls winner bracket semifinal Game 2, 7

Saturday — Girls loser bracket third-place game, 10 a.m.; Model boys vs. Mundy’s Mill, 11:30 a.m.; Girls loser bracket final, 1; Rockmart boys vs. Mill Creek, 2:30; Girls winner bracket third-place game, 4; North Murray boys vs. Polk County, 5:30; Girls winner bracket final, 7

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