Go (North) West, College Basketball

Lamenting the death of the truly-enjoyable MTE.

I hadn’t planned on much basketball coverage here for a couple reasons: for one, the internet is a dying place, and, for two, that’s exacerbating the steady death of Off Tackle Empire dot blogspot dot biz.

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BUT!

Looking over the (limited) options for basketball on this last snowy Saturday—one, Bellarmine at Northern Illinois, had been cancelled thanks to the foot of snow whipping across the Midwest—I noticed a game that made me say Zut alors!

Somewhat amazingly, this is the third year the Northern Classic has existed—the first two, in 2022 and 2023, featured a number of D-I mid-majors…and also Oregon, thanks to Montrealer Quincy Guerrier?

It does, however, force me to revisit one of my great passion projects: why can we play basketball in Montreal, but not revive the Great Alaska Shootout?

Begun in 1978, the Great Alaska Shootout brought an eight-team field to the campus of the University of Alaska-Anchorage, featuring a who’s who of high-major programs like Kentucky, North Carolina, Louisville, Marquette, Arkansas, Kansas, UNLV, and Iowa among its early-year finalists. In 1985, ESPN began broadcasting the Shootout, with UNC taking advantage of the last shot clock-less year to Four Corners UNLV to death, 65-60, in the title; the next year, George Raveling (RIP) took the Hawkeyes’ up-tempo, pressing attack to Anchorage, thumping Northeastern in the title game, 103-80. Subsequent Big Ten titleists included Michigan State (1989 over Kansas, 73-68), Purdue (1993, 88-73 over Portland), and Minnesota (1994, 79-74 over BYU), with Iowa finishing runner-up in 1995 to Duke and Purdue falling to UNC in 1997 before returning to capture the crown over Duke, 78-68, in 2003.

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The 1998 final, between Cincinnati and Duke, featured this iconic walk-off from Kenyon Martin:

It was a great, interesting, beloved tournament, and then it fell victim to the proliferation of warm-weather tournaments across North America…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/north-west-college-basketball-133000543.html

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Publish date : 2025-12-01 13:30:00

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