SoCalHoops Tournament News

Bishop Montgomery In Dallas For
43rd Annual Whataburger Tournament--(Dec. 26, 2000)

Someone posted a message on our board, asking if we would be able to post the bracket for the tournament in which  Bishop Montgomery will be playing this week in Texas, and while we're not going to actually duplicate the bracket, we'll do the next best thing, which is provide a link to the place which actually has the bracket. . .

Bishop Montgomery, the defending CIF Southern Section IIIAA and California State Division III Champions, fresh from their championship overtime win over Muir on Saturday night in the La Canada Tournament, will be heading off to the Fort Worth-Dallas, Texas area for a tournament which starts this Thursday, called the "Whataburger Classic".  Whataname. Whatatournament. Sheesh.

The Whataburger Tournament is actually held not in Forth Worth or in Dallas, but in Haltom City, which we've learned is closer to Fort Worth than it is to Dallas. . . The tournament was begun 43 years ago by the local Lions Club as a project to raise money for some of the charitable causes which Lions Clubs support (an organ and eye banks, crippled childrens camps, scholarships, etc).  In fact, until last year, it was actually called the "Whataburger-Westside Lions Holiday Basketball Tournament," but when the Lions Club dropped the sponsorship, it became known simply as the "Whataburger" tournaent.  Still, it is consistently the top tournament in the State of Florida, and usually attracts some of the top teams in the country as well.  This year, Bishop Montgomery and Miami Senior happen to be the two big names in the 5A division.  In the 4A division,

This year, Bishop Montgomery will be playing in the 5A Bracket, which is the largest enrollment division schools. Defending champion Fort Worth Dunbar, which is actually a 4A team (ranked No. 3 in the State of Texas in Division 4A by TexasHoops), is also going to defend it's title again, and they will be in the same half of the bracket as Bishop Montgomery, where the two could meet in the quarterfinals.   There are at least 14 Division I college players appearing this year in the tournament, guys who have already signed, and there are many more who could sign later this spring.  Among the players who have already signed letters of intent are: Errick Craven--Bishop Montgomery (USC); Derrick Craven--Bishop Montgomery (USC); Devaughan Peace--Bishop Montgomery (UC Irvine); Evan Louis--Miami Sr--(Central Florida); Erek Hansen--Euless Trinity (Iowa) ; Adam  Warren--Richland (Denver);  Brian Miller--Lewisville (SMU) ; Matt Williams--Temple (Colorado State) ; Nick Williams--Mansfield (Kansas State); Justin Barnett--Arlington Martin (North Texas); Jamaal Jenkins--Mansfield (Weber State); Triston Redmon--Lufkin  (Navy); and Brandon Ellerbee--Plano East  (Marist).  Other players to watch, who are either unsigned or simply too young (i.e., underclassmen) are guys like Marcus Woods--Plano East, Aaron Curtis, South Grand Prairie; Jerald Minnis 6'-8" So. F)--Miami Sr; Fred Washington (6'-4" So. F)--Bishop Montgomery;  Kenny D'Oyen (5'-10" Sr. PG)--Bishop Montgomery.

The tournament features four of the Dallas-Fort Worth area's top six Class 5A defensive teams: Euless Trinity (averaging 44.4 points per game), Lewisville (44.7 ppg), Flower Mound Marcus (unranked by Texas Hoops, but averaging 45.7 ppg) and Hurst L.D. Bell (48.4 ppg).  In fact we did a little digging as well to see what the competition would be like for the Knights, and we found that among the 14 teams from Texas in their bracket, six of those teams are also ranked among the Top 40 in the State by TexasHoops:   Arlington Martin (No. 11 in Texas), . Mansfield (No. 21 in Texas), Temple (No. 24 in Texas), Plano East  (Top 40), Lewisville (Top 40),   and Hurst L.D. Bell (Top 40 team). And while Dunbar is not unranked among 5A teams, they are now No. 3 in the State among 4A teams. 

The Dallas Morning News had a fairly nice story on the tournament with some of the schedules, i.e., the 5A and 4A tournamnents, and the paper will also be a likely source of continuing information, articles and updates throughout the tournament for those of you interested in following the Knights' progress.   Another good source for news and info about the tournament is Mike Kunstadt's TexasHoops (a Rivals.com site), and Mike's site already has some interesting news and tidbits, as well as some (but not all) of the bracketing too.  

For the full brackets for all three tournaments, the best source is the Official Whataburger Tournament website where you'll find all the brackets for every division, including the 5A tournament, the 4A tournament and the 1A-3A tournament brackets, as well as a complete list of all the teams playing, and a short, but informative history of the event.  It's not the slickest or the most technologically advanced site of its kind, but it looks like it will provide a vehicle for the Whataburger tournament folks to get the word out about what's happening as it happens. 

We're not sure what the enrollment cutoffs are between the different divisions in Texas, but it appears that 5A is the large-schools division;  4A is for slightly smaller enrollments, and 3A through 1A is for the smaller schools.   Bishop Montgomery thus finds itself in a 16 team bracket with the largest enrollment schools in Texas. Here's the schedule for the 5A tournament. 

Click here for bracket

 
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