COLLINSVILLE – The Edwardsville High School, Granite City High School and Triad boys basketball teams will play in the Prairie Farms Collinsville Holiday Basketball Classic, which has become one of the premier holiday tournaments in the St. Louis area.
The 36th edition of the tournament, which has attracted some of the better teams and players from around the state of Illinois and the St. Louis area, tips off Friday morning at 9:30 a.m., and will conclude on Monday, Dec. 30, with the championship game at Vergil Fletcher Gym.
The tournament starts on Friday morning at 9 a.m., when Belleville Althoff Catholic faces off against O’Fallon. Next up will be the Warriors against Mundeien of suburban Chicago in a 10:30 a.m. game. Belleville East will next go up against Decatur MacArthur at 1 p.m., with the top half of the bracket concluding at 2:30 p.m, with Lincoln going against the Knights.
The bottom half of the bracket starts up at 4 p.m. with the Tigers going up against Decatur Eisenhower, with the host Kahoks going at 6:30 p.m. against Oakville of south St. Louis County. The final two games of the tournament will be at 8 p.m., with Quincy going up against Madison, and at 9:30 p.m., with Rockford East playing against Springfield Southeast.
The quarterfinals of both the championship and consolation brackets will be played on Saturday, Dec. 28, with the Crusaders-Panthers winner going against the winner of Granite and the Mustangs at 9 a.m. at Fletcher Gym in the first quarterfinal. The second quarterfinal will be between the Lancers-Generals winner against the Railsplitters-Triad winner at 10:30 a.m. The Edwardsville-Eisenhower winner goes against the Collinsville-Oakville winner at 12 noon, and the Blue Devils-Trojans winner meets the E-Rabs-Spartans winner at 1:30 p.m. The consolation bracket quarterfinals will pit the losers of the first-round games in the CHS auxiliary gym at the same times.
The quarterfinal winners in both brackets will play each other in the semifinals later that evening at 6:30 and 8 p.m. at Fletcher Gym for the championship bracket, and the auxiliary gym for the consolation bracket. The fifth-place semifinals in both brackets will be played in their respective gyms at 5 and 9:30 p.m.
The tournament then takes Sunday off, and on the final day of the tournament on Monday, Dec. 30, the seventh and fifth place games in the consolation bracket will be played in the auxiliary gym at 12 noon for the seventh-place game and 1:30 p.m. for the fifth-place game. The consolation bracket third-place game will tip-off at 3 p.m. in the auxiliary gym, while the consolation bracket final will take place in Fletcher Gym, also with a 3 p.m. tip-off. The seventh and fifth place games in the tournament’s championship bracket will take place in Fletcher Gym, with a 12-noon tip for the seventh-place contest and 1:30 p.m. for the fifth-place game. The third and fourth place game will tip-off at 5 p.m., and the final will tip-off at 7:30 p.m. in Fletcher Gym.
Springfield Southeast is the tournament’s defending champion, defeating the Kahoks in a classic final 65-62.
