Time for those beloved holiday tournaments

Doesn’t seem possible that we’ve already been playing in this 2012-13 basketball campaign for nearly a month now, but if you take a look at the schedule, that’s where we are.

As we head into the final days of 2012, and brace up for the coming new year, high school basketball fans can realize that it’s also time for that two-week stretch of the season that coaches love, and player’s families hate – the holiday tournament run.

I’ve never hidden my dislikes for the holiday tournament run – it’s certainly my least favorite part of the year – and has been since I had boys playing – but never-the-less, it’s a part of the season that we have to accept.

That being said – I will give the local coaching staff and Athletic Department credit – at least they make it considerably easier on local fans by staging our own tournaments that enable local fans to stay here for half of the holiday break.

Also to their credit, both of our local tournaments – the boys’ Twin Lakes Holiday Classic, followed by the girls’ Best of the Lakes Holiday Classic, will certainly be top notch as far as organization and quality of competition goes.

Looking at the rundown for both of our tournaments sees Clinton County playing host to four other schools for the three-day lineup, with both varsity games and junior varsity games between the Bulldogs, Boyd County, Muhlenberg County, Louisville Seneca and Louisville Iroquois.

Clinton County will take the floor for games at 6:00 p.m. Thursday, 11:00 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Friday finishing out the tournament run on Saturday at 6:00 p.m.

The Lady Bulldogs will be playing over in the Caverna Holiday Classic prior to Christmas, going up against Edmonson County on Thursday for a 5:00 p.m. tip-off. Other game times will be announced as the tournament progresses.

The following week, December 27-29, the post-Christmas stretch sees our Lady Dawgs hosting Cumberland County, McCreary Central, Pickett County (TN) and Clay County (TN) in our own Best of the Lakes event.

The Lady Dawgs’ first appearance is on Thursday (December 27) when they take on Cumberland County for an 8:00 p.m. tip. The Lady Dawgs hit the 8:00 p.m. slot again on Friday, going up against Pickett County, and we play twice on Saturday, taking on Clay County at 3:00 p.m., and McCreary Central at 8:00 p.m.

While all of that is going on, our Dawgs will be playing in the Lloyd Memorial Classic in northern Kentucky, getting in four games between Thursday and Saturday of that week.

Then finally, with the arrival of the New Year, we can get back into the swing of some normalcy for the last two months of the roundball campaign.

In the meantime – here’s wishing all of our readers, our Big Blue players and coaches and fans – a very Merry Christmas … See ya at the gym.