The Bank of North Carolina Christmas Classic, scheduled for Monday, Dec. 28, through Wednesday, Dec. 30, features 10 teams from within The High Point Enterprise circulation area and three from just outside the city. And even the two teams traveling the farthest for the event – Christian Academy of Knoxville’s boys and girls – don’t exactly count as strangers given that athletic director and girls coach Steve Denny was a fixture at Wesleyan Christian Academy for years.
“We’re excited. It’s going to be a good tournament,” said Southwest Guilford athletic director Brindon Christman. “Most of the teams are local, and having Bank of North Carolina on board as our corporate sponsor is a great addition to the tournament.”
Holiday basketball became an annual tradition in High Point in the early 1980s, when longtime Bison girls coach Kenny Carter began hosting small tournaments. The Enterprise sponsored growing events into this decade before giving way to a Wachovia Classic that brought in a greater number of outside teams.
Starting last March, a four-man panel of Christman, Carter, High Point Central athletic director Mike Cook and current Wesleyan AD Ricardo Viera worked at restoring the proud tradition. Last year’s event lacked a title sponsor, and the boys bracket had just six teams instead of eight, making for a round-robin tournament with no true champion.
“Kenny’s run tournaments for a long time, Ricardo is a really sharp guy, Brindon does a great job – we’ve got a lot of people to bounce ideas off of with experience doing stuff like that,” Cook explained.
Cook lauded Carter for his role in securing Bank of North Carolina as the corporate sponsor, and Christman said that “Bank of North Carolina coming on board gave us a little extra stability.”
Expenses add up for items such as officials, clock and scoreboard operators, and security. The host schools pay for those items and hope at least to break even – and possibly make a profit – after all the work that goes into putting on a tournament for three days.
This year’s event will be conducted at Southwest and Central, with Southwest and Wesleyan the likely hosts for next year in a rotating schedule.
The event opens Monday the 28th with four games at Central starting at 3 p.m. and scheduled 90 minutes apart: T. Wingate Andrews vs. Southern Guilford girls, Westchester Country Day School vs. Southern Guilford boys, then a Bison-Calvary Baptist Day School girls/boys doubleheader.
At Southwest on opening day, Christian Academy of Knoxville opens against the Wesleyan girls at 3, followed by the Wesleyan boys vs. Western Guilford. Southwest’s girls play Cardinal Gibbons, then the Cowboys take on Knoxville’s boys.
The action continues Tuesday with consolation and semifinal bracket games starting at 3 p.m. Wednesday’s contests begin at 11:30 a.m. so no one is playing opposite the championships, which will be held at Central at 6 p.m. starting with the girls.
“It ought to be a really good Christmas tournament with competitive teams on the boys and girls side,” Christman said. “We wanted it to be the local area, more of a community tournament. Davidson County has the NewBridge Bank tournament with all the Davidson schools. We wanted it to be the High Point schools: We invited High Point Christian and they couldn’t come this year. Hopefully we can try again and get all six schools.”
Tickets for the event already have been printed and can be purchased at either Southwest or Central. Single-day tickets are $7 – good for both sites – while a tournament pass for all three days at both sites is $17.
Don’t miss a rundown of complete brackets for this event and others in the area starting this weekend in the Enterprise.
shanf@hpe.com | 888-3526
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