Homeschool tournament features 52 teams from the East Coast and Texas

By Ted Allen

Published: March 19, 2008

With Liberty University on its Spring Break this week, more than 500 homeschooled basketball players from as far away as Austin, Texas, Brevard County, Fla., and Binghamton, N.Y., have invaded the campus for the 12th annual East Coast Basketball Championships.

The 52-team event, which started Monday and concludes Friday, features 130 games in 13 divisions, ranging from middle school girls to varsity boys (five divisions).

For the players, it’s their version of the NIT, with last week’s 300-team National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships in Oklahoma City more like the NCAAs.

Rachel McLeod, an LU freshman guard from Houston, played in that event last year.

The tournament is set up in a World Cup format, with pool play separating the 20 varsity boys teams into five four-team brackets for today’s semifinals and Friday’s championship games.

“It’s not a unique format, but it works for us,” said Chris Davis, executive director of home school sportsnet (HSPN), who has organized the event since its inception in 1997.

It has grown exponentially since then.

“We started out with eight teams in one gym on a Saturday (at Fredericksburg Christian School),” said Davis, who expects this week’s tournament to draw some scouts from D-II and D-III schools, including Bridgewater College, “some who will be coming down incognito and anonymous.”

He doesn’t want to see the tournament grow as large as the national event.

“I’m happy if we stay the same size,” said Davis, who also coaches the Front Royal Flames JV team after coaching his own kids in that program in the past. “We don’t want it to become real big. The NCAA only gives out bids to 65 teams.

“You lose something if you have too many.”

This year’s event originally had 72 teams from 12 states signed up, before 20 — mostly from Indiana, Illinois and Iowa — pulled out due to conflicts with Easter weekend festivities.

There is no qualifying criteria for this year’s event, an open invitational.

But many of the teams are their state’s champions and that could be a requirement in the future if the field becomes too large.

The Greensboro Panthers and Baltimore Chargers are among the favorites in the varsity boys “5A” competition, along with the team from Texas, the Upstate (S.C.) Eagles and Lighthouse Christian (N.C.).

The Lynchburg Patriots, a middle school-aged team, are the only local representative.

Eleven of the championship games will take place at LU’s Vines Center, with the other two — today’s girls varsity Division A and 2A finals at 5:45 and 7:30 p.m. — moved to Liberty Christian Academy to give the Flames women a chance to practice before Saturday’s NCAA opener against ODU.

Besides renting LU’s facilities, with access to 13 wooden floor courts, mostly in the LaHaye Center, Davis hired local high school referees from the Colonial Officials Association and football players from LCA to operate the clocks and the scoreboards.

There is no admission fee for any of the games.