Another MCAC state tournament has started. 

The first few years that Jay was at MCTC, the tourney moved around from school to school.  I remember watching us win in Fergus Falls over Anoka Ramsey many years ago.  We trailed the Rams the entire game and our man, Johnny Kee was at the line one point down with three seconds left on the clock.  Johnny missed both free throws but Eric Thompson tipped it in to put us up by one for the first time in the game as the clock ran out. 

I don't remember when we first hosted, but Jay and Ron did such a sterling job that they sort of became the unofficial official site of the state tourney after that.

Man, it was fun.  For the first few years, I let Tyler and Katie take school off and they worked the tourney, at the ticket table or the concession stand.  We just lived in the gym for three days.  The teams from outstate all seemed to like coming to the Twin Cities; more hotels, more stuff to do between games, etc.  We liked it because despite the work (none of which was ever done by me) it was great that our players got to sleep in their own beds.

This is the end of an era.

Without MCTC in the mix, the league will not only have lost it's shining star, it will have lost it's venue.

Thank you so much, Phil Davis, from the entire state.

Enough of that, the game last night was a blast!

Zack went down early and watched basketball all day.  There are always alumni at the tourney and he got to see a lot of old friends.  These are men who've known Zack since he was a bald headed pre schooler.  Now he's all grown up and hairy and he's even as big as a few of them.  Almost. 

Katie, Josie and I arrived at the gym shortly after tip off and joined the fans packing the stands.  There were many friends, family and students in attendance.  Our guys played very well against Vermilion, who earlier in the season had handed us our first home court loss in years.  It was doubly sweet to take revenge in a single elimination, season ending event.

We crushed them.  Our guys all played well, including three of them hitting double doubles and in fact, Kenny had a triple double with 22pts, 10 rebounds and 11 assists, most of which were probably to his twin, Peter, who scored 29 points with 10 rebounds.  Ronald Kelly jr. had 10 points and 14 rebounds.  The final was 88-67. 

It was great fun and we get to do it again today.

This is a very weird tournament for us.  Every team wants to win, every year.  That's the nature of the business.  Unlike most teams, we've always been in the position where winning it all is a very real possibility.  Wanting to win it all is nothing new but this year, we want to win for our own survival; it's sudden death for everyone else, it's actual death for our program.

Thanks again to the philanthropist Phil Davis.

I mean, really, in today's world, who needs such fun, joy and excitement? 

 

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