The 36th annual GSK Holiday Invitational, one of the nation's premier high school basketball tournaments, will again be in Raleigh, NC from December 27-30. I've been to the tournament each year, for the past 8-10 years and have seen some great future ACC and NBA stars--players such as DeMarcus Nelson, Chris Wilcox, Marcus Ginyard, Chris Duhon, Luol Deng and Josh Smith. Typically there is a good mix of local teams and teams from other parts of the country who will/may play at one of the area ACC schools--Duke, Carolina or NC State. I've especially enjoyed seeing DeMatha play, as they have one of the most storied high school basketball programs in the country and are always well-coached.
In the last 5 years or so, with the rise of message boards and blogs, and certain games being featured on ESPN, the profile of high school sports has risen dramatically. Since Lebron, the spotlight has become even brighter. I still love high school sports but I'm a little worried that we're building them up too much, and putting too much focus on them. When coaches are scouting kids in 9th grade (and often earlier), there's something wrong. But I understand the dilemma coaches face; they may not want to scout kids this early, but if others are doing it and they're not, they will miss out. But this is another post for another day...
If you're in the Raleigh area and want to see some good high school basketball, check out this tournament. Here's the schedule for tomorrow:
Thursday, December 27, 2007:
12:30 p.m.: Game 1 - Northern Durham vs. Green Hope (4-Team Boys)
2:10 p.m.: Game 2 - Panther Creek vs. Broughton (4-Team Boys)
4:00 p.m.: Game 3 - Taft vs. Jordan (8-Team Boys)
5:40 p.m.: Game 4 - Kinston vs. Ravenscroft (8-Team Boys)
7:20 p.m.: Game 5 - Southern Durham vs. Word of God (8-Team Boys)
9:00 p.m.: Game 6 - DeMatha vs. Knightdale (8-Team Boys)
For more info visit the Holiday Invitational official site.