Butler invites high school teams to play at Hinkle, NCAA says "not so fast"

When did this rule get put in place? There was a 16-team tournament in a D-I team's facility in my old town. I figured it was still taking place.

 

Is that paper sponsoring the tournament or are they actually running it, because there's a huge difference.

 

Before? After all, Eric Montross and Eddie Casiano went to junior high in Lawrence Township .

In all seriousness, the one at Hinkle wasn't run by third-party AAU hucksters, it was run by a local group called Compton Strategies, which also puts on several football quadrupleheaders at Lucas Oil Stadium. They do a really, really good job of promoting such events. The local conference has done several events with them -- they handle the booking, logistics and promotion, and really take a lot of heat off high school ADs to do it. (it also wasn't a tournament, it was a six-games-in-one-day event).

Hinkle has been a haven for high school hoops (and until a couple of years ago, was probably better known as a venue for HS games than Butler's home court) since it was built in 1928. One of the primary reasons it was built as big as it was -- its initial capacity was 15,000 -- was to host the then-wildly-popular IHSAA state basketball finals. This isn't about Butler getting a recruiting advantage, it's about high school players getting a chance to play in a place that's basically Mecca for Indiana high school hoops.

And, Bubbler, I'm still peeved about Victor Bush's jumper in the '90 regional and LaSalle Thompson losing his footing going for his fourth buzzer-beater moments later at the end of the '90 regional. To a high school hoops junkie, Hinkle is an awesome place -- my high school (Pike) *always* played a game there every year when I was a student, usually the season finale against Lawrence North. Two of the coaches on our staff still talk about a game they played against each other at Hinkle 18 years ago like it was yesterday (note to those of you who don't know: I'm an ex-journo who has coached high school hoops for several years since). That place means something to people here, and of course, even though the NCAA is five miles away, it's hard to understand that.

The way I read the rules, as long as a "scholastic entity" handles the event, it's OK. So a high school or a state high school association can rent out the facility, but a third party or a college cannot. I'm curious, because my high school's conference has a girls basketball quadrupleheader scheduled there in January, but Compton Strategies always handles the promotion of such quadrupleheaders (yet, the schools essentially rent out the facilities and use Compton to handle the logistics), so I'm not sure if it would fall under the "legal" (e.g., the schools are running the show) or "illegal" (e.g., it's being run by a third party) definition. From what I heard, one of the schools involved in this weekend's event at Hinkle tried to take over the promotion to save it, but it was too late. The games were all played at local high school sites instead.

 

I think, not 100-percent sure, the paper played a role in inviting the teams, setting up the brackets, etc. It was definitely more than putting up money and calling it the Podunk Press Classic.

 

Not doubting your story, but I doubt a paper would do that. There would be too much cost involved because you'd have to hire someone to physically run the tournament, but what do I know.

 

Like I said, I don't know/remember for sure how it worked, but the sports editor and managing editor did a lot during that week. The AD at the city high school was probably what you'd call the tournament director, but I'd say it was more than sponsorship on the part of the paper.

There are other people on the board who might have more specifics. It's been years since I covered it.

 

The NAIA apparently has no such restrictions. One of our local NAIA universities puts on high school tournaments all the time over the holiday season, both boys and girls. No problems so far.

 

My last paper sponsored a Christmas tournament split between two NAIA schools in town. Now one of them is D-III, so a more than half-century tradition may be getting scrambled in a hurry.

 

Montross went to junior high in Lawrence Township. The Montross house was on a hill above Mud Creek off 82nd Street. He was a legit Lawrence township kid. He went to Park Tudor for a year or two and came back. The only player on the '89 LN team that wasn't a township kid, or who was in their designated busing district back in the busing days, was Victor Bush.

Casiano is after my time. He was a year or two later.

 

Bellarmine University in Louisville, which won the NCAA D-II title, is still hosting the LIT (Louisville Invitational Tournament). And it is a regular-season event.

What got the Rupp event cancelled - it was a scrimmage as state association rules forbid teams from playing regular-season events prior to the Monday AFTER Thanksgiving - was bringing in Findlay Prep from Vegas. That same rule also mentions no paying of teams. So I doubt Findlay Prep (with a UK recruit) was coming all the way to Kentucky (hotel, airfare, food together would be in the thousands) for a one-day SCRIMMAGE for free without being paid.

The organizers of the Rupp event never came clean on what Findlay's deal was.

The rule also says the host site (i.e. college itself or the facility if the college claims it to be home ... off-campus "home" sites still included) cannot be involved ... which makes you wonder why UK itself tried to get a waiver.

 

You sure that was Victor Bush? Pretty sure he graduated with me in 1989. Of course, LN went on to shit the bed against Southport in the regional championship game that year, Pike probably had a lot to do with wearing them down. Too bad, because I would've loved to see LN take down white boy hero Damon Bailey in the state finals that year.

The Pike-Lawrence North rivalry was awesome when I was in high school. True hatred. They started playing in Hinkle my senior year, but the year before that, they played the season finale at LN. I'll never forget Montross missing a free throw early in the game and one of Pike's players got out of the free throw lineup to try and shake his hand for the miss. Damn near started a fight. You don't see shit like very much anymore, but it was pretty hardcore and I kind of half admired him for doing it.

It's forgotten that LN's '88 team was that one that was state-ranked and anointed as a possible state champion (before an epic bed-shitting against Chatard in the sectional championship) and that the '89 team was unranked and unfancied after it lost to Pike in the season finale.

I still remember much celebration in the green-and-red half of Lawrence Township when we found out Pike got dumped by Brebeuf at Ben Davis in the '89 sectional. Of course, Brebeuf ended up giving LN its toughest game en route to MSA.

Marion County hoops in general were pretty damn good when I was in high school. It was before schools like LN, Pike, Warren Central, North Central and Ben Davis became mini-college programs. They weren't underdogs, but they were never considered state title caliber timber, so it was more fun. LN was the first to break the duck.

The LN-Warren Central games were fantastic too. Every one of them went OT when I was at LN. One of them at LN had both teams push 100 points, still one of the best HS games I've ever seen. Greg Graham, who was the most feared individual player LN played against when I was there, was certainly just as capable of taking Warren to the state championship as LN was back then.