Shaw Christmas Tournament returns to classic format

After a one-year departure from its normal tournament format, the William Henry Shaw Christmas Tournament will return to its roots this year.

The girls and boys basketball tournaments will be played on Monday through Wednesday of this week, though it will still feature a handful of differences from previous years. This year, there will be 16 boys and 16 girls teams, which will be split into divisions of eight teams playing their own separate tournaments. The teams were divided in part by classification as well as skill level to provide a competitive balance in each tournament.

Muscogee County system-wide athletic director Todd Stanfill, who heard some complaints from participants and fans when the tournament was scrapped in

favor of a set schedule over the course of three days last year, said the intent was always to get back to the tournament format this year.

"Last year, the reason we did that was because we needed to cut it to three days," he said. "And if you're going to do a three-day tournament, in order to guarantee people three games, you needed multiples of eight to get it done. We had some teams bail out last year and wound up with about 12 or 13 boys and girls teams. There was just no way to do a 12-team tournament in three days."

Fast forward to this year, and the goal was to ensure a return to a tournament format. Still, officials wanted the tournament to run no more than three days. They didn't want an eight-team tournament, so they targeted 16 boys and girls teams that they could divide into two divisions.

Having more teams allows each to face opponents that they wouldn't normally face during the regular season, something Stanfill said is important to many of the coaches and fans.

In boys group A, there are Shaw, Hardaway, Douglas, Lanett, Carver J.V., Northside, Central and Columbus. In boys group B, there will be Jordan, Marion County, Quitman County, Macon County, Central-Talbotton, Kendrick, Russell County and Spencer.

In girls group A, there will be Columbus, Shaw, Central, Chestatee, Northside, Sandy Creek, Carver and Hardaway. In girls group B, there will be Douglas, Jordan, Lanett, Central-Talbotton, Macon County, Marion County, Quitman County and Spencer.

The first two days of the tournament will be spread out at three locations, and the four championship games will all be held at Columbus State's Lumpkin Center on Wednesday.

Two notable absences will be the Kendrick girls and the Carver boys' varsity team. The latter was scheduled to play in the tournament, but will be playing in the championship game of the Bear Brawl tournament on Monday at Houston County.

Kendrick, Stanfill said, elected to fill its schedule with more unfamiliar foes. It is set to play in the Baker County Christmas Shootout against Cairo on Dec. 30.

"Any time you have a team of the caliber of the Kendrick girls, you hate to not have them participate," Stanfill said. "But one thing when I came on board was that I wanted our teams to venture out. We wanted them, but we didn't want them to feel like they were forced to play. It's tough to play those same teams over and over and over again. It was perfectly fine to me for them to search out another tournament."

One other change in this year's tournament are the dates. In previous years, the tournament would be played in the week following Christmas, placing the championship games on New Year's Eve. Last year, the tournament was curtailed to three days in order to finish on Dec. 30.

This year, Stanfill said they wanted to move the tournament up to preserve the integrity of the holidays for the student-athletes.

"When I came on board, one thing the superintendent had talked about, and I was on board with, was that we needed to make sure we had as much family time as possible during the holidays," he said. "When you have a tournament right after Christmas, that disrupts the holidays a lot more than having it before Christmas. There's that desire to practice on the 24th and the 25th, and that's just not good. People don't need to do that."

The result of everything is a tournament that Stanfill said he's extremely excited about.

"If you want to see some good high school ball, you better take advantage and come out over these three days," he said.

MONDAY'S GAMES

GIRLS

at Northside

Carver vs. Hardaway, 11 a.m.

Central vs. Chestatee, 2 p.m.

Northside vs. Sandy Creek, 5 p.m.

at Shaw

Jordan vs. Douglas, 1:30 p.m.

Shaw vs. Columbus, 4:30 p.m.

at Spencer

Lanett vs. Central-Talbotton, noon

Macon County vs. Marion County, 3 p.m.

Spencer vs. Quitman County, 4:30 p.m.

BOYS

at Shaw

Jordan vs. Marion County, noon

Douglas vs. Lanett, 3 p.m.

Shaw vs. Hardaway, 6 p.m.

at Northside

Kendrick vs. Central-Talbotton, 12:30 p.m.

Central-PC vs. Columbus, 3:30 p.m.

Carver vs. Northside, 6:30 p.m.

at Spencer

Quitman County vs. Macon County, 1:30 p.m.

Russell County vs. Spencer, 6 p.m.

This story was originally published December 20, 2015 at 6:40 PM with the headline "Shaw Christmas Tournament returns to classic format ."