Love the week in between Christmas and New Year’s, because it means a ton of holiday hoops around the Northern Virginia area. While lots of local teams use the time off from school to travel to neighboring states or somewhere warmer to seek out competition, plenty of action in NOVA to keep us fans busy.
One of the best tourneys locally on the guys side is always George Long at Wakefield, which kicks off Tuesday. Believe this is the 19th incarnation of the tourney, which honors the memory of the Warriors’ George Long, who died in 2010. There’s always a great DJ at the tourney (George used to DJ Wakefield games), and there’s usually some pretty good basketball.
The bracket is above. Last year Annandale turned heads with an upset run to the tourney title–can the Atoms do it again? And check out that first round matchup between #15 Forest Park (5-2) and #6 South County (3-2).
Also underway Tuesday is Lake Braddock’s tournament. Most of the same teams that played last year are back. Lake Braddock has been in every game they’ve played this year, but has only won one. Can the Bruins win their tourney like last year? It’ll be a tough road, especially with #5 Battlefield (9-0) and #13 Stone Bridge (5-1) in the tourney. The Bobcats and Bulldogs would be an intriguing second round matchup, if they can get past TJ and Woodbridge, respectively.
The next day (Wednesday) two major other tournaments get started. Joe Cascio at Falls Church is a huge three-day tournament that features eight guys teams and eight girls teams. Play starts at 9:00 am each morning (sometimes boys, sometimes girls). Check out Falls Church’s “taco in a bag” if you go!
The bracket is wide open–who do you like? Honestly, we can see a number of teams winning this thing. It should be fun.
That same day the Mount Vernon Tournament gets going as well. This tournament is always intriguing as it mixes (usually) significant Maryland and DC talent with Northern Virginia teams. Really enjoyed a few years ago watching Ronald Polite of Oxon Hill, now playing for GMU, take on a solid Dominion team.
We don’t have the bracket, but we’ll put it up when we see it. Local teams in it this year include Lewis, Oakton, Seton, Christ Chapel, and of course, the host Majors.