The rain came.<\/p>\n
But that hardly put any sort of damper on the first-ever ShoWare Shootout 3-on-3 basketball tournament, which played out Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 7-8, amidst grey skies and sporadic rain showers. The 160-team, 16-division tournament that took place in the parking lot of the ShoWare Center brought players from as far away as Yakima and Spokane, Everett and Marysville.<\/p>\n
By the time all the championship games for each division wrapped up late Sunday afternoon, the buzz had died down, but the excitement for what the tournament was \u2014 and what it could be in the years to come \u2014 remained.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was pretty fun,\u201d said Logan Goethals, a freshman-to-be at White River High. \u201cIt was neat that more kids got to play, and it didn\u2019t matter how good you were, everybody got to play. The crowds were really big … all the parents came and everything. I would definitely do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 3-on-3 tournament followed the blueprint established by the Spokane Hoopfest, which take place at the end of June each year and draws more than 5,000 teams and 25,000 players from around the nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it went excellent. Everybody got a lot of games, a lot of basketball,\u201d said tournament director Steve Turcotte, who spearheaded the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing (that didn\u2019t go well) was that the weather didn\u2019t cooperate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final numbers, however, proved to be bigger than what was first anticipated. Two weeks before the tournament tipped off, roughly 60 teams had signed up to compete. Three days before tipoff, that number soared to 160 teams and 600-plus total players.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought if we got 100 teams, it would be a real success,\u201d Turcotte said. \u201cWe could comfortably put 300 teams down there (at the ShoWare Center).\u201d<\/p>\n
The event is expected to grow for next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d like to get over 200 teams next year,\u201d Turcotte noted. \u201cIt\u2019s the first event I\u2019ve ever done with that many people, and I thought it went well. We\u2019ll make some tweaks for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 160 teams spread across 16 divisions played out on 17 different courts in the ShoWare Center parking lot. The adult men\u2019s recreation division was the largest with 31 total teams. There were divisions for both genders along with all ability and age levels. During the two-day basketball festival, 323 games were played.<\/p>\n
\u201cI liked the location,\u201d said Don Goethals, who coached two ninth-grade boys teams in the tournament. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to drive over to Spokane to play. The Hoopfest is so much bigger that you can\u2019t really compare. It really overwhelms the entire city of Spokane. It would be fun if (the ShoWare Shootout) got to that point.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely has room to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rain, however, wasn\u2019t a problem.<\/p>\n
In fact, it was kind of refreshing, Goethals noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the kids thought it was nice because a lot of them play at Hoopfest, where it\u2019s 90 degrees,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The rain came.
\nBut that hardly put any sort of damper on the first-ever ShoWare Shootout 3-on-3 basketball tournament, which played out Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 7-8, amidst grey skies and sporadic rain showers. The 160-team, 16-division tournament that took place in the parking lot of the ShoWare Center brought players from as far away as Yakima and Spokane, Everett and Marysville.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-4750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4750"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4750"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}