’Tis the season for holiday hoops tournaments as Southside is set to host its third annual Seahawks Holiday Invitational tournament and Northside will tip-off its second annual Northside Christmas tournament. Both tournaments are scheduled to begin today at 6 p.m.
At Southside, Washington and Pamlico are in the leadoff spot as the two teams will square off against each other before the Seahawks take on Trinity immediately after in the all-boys tournament.
The Seahawks Holiday Invitational is a two-day tournament and is scheduled to play its championship game on Friday at 7:30 p.m., with the losers’ bracket game being played at 6 p.m.
Northside High School, which will have both girls and boys basketball games, will start out with the Creswell girls facing Currituck before the Mattamuskeet boys will take on Currituck today.
The Northside Christmas tournament is a three-day affair and will have the host teams playing on Day 2 as the Panthers’ girls will face Mattamuskeet at 6 p.m. before the Northside boys take on Creswell.
On Saturday, the action will begin at 3 p.m. with the losers’ bracket girls game being played before the losers’ bracket boys contest. Those games will be followed by the girls and boys title games.
Aside from providing the fans with plenty of hoops highlights, the tournaments also offer coaches an opportunity to better evaluate their personnel before heading into the bulk of conference play.
“We’re getting close to setting our rotation,” Northside coach Mike Proctor said. “We have to narrow our rotation down a little bit so we will be looking at that during the tournament.”
Southside coach Sean White also said he will use his tourney as a chance to examine his bench depth.
“The long stretch of conference games are coming up after we come back from break so this gives us some extra time to look at players,” White said. “Right now my starting five is pretty much solidified but with these next few games I will be able to look at some of my bench guys and be able to set some of their roles. We are still doing a little bit of mixing and matching.”
Washington coach Steve Flowers, whose Pam Pack team has not lost a game at the Southside tourney the past two years, felt the same way.
“The big thing for us is that it gives us a chance – without hurting our conference standings – to see different rotations and give some guys some playing time that don’t normally get it and see how they respond in a game. It’s big for us.”