1999 Reebok Holiday Prep Classic
Set For Dec. 18-22--(Dec. 14. 1999)

What: 1999 Reebok Holiday Prep Classic Where: Las Vegas, NV, Durango & Green Valley HS When:  December 18, 20, 21 & 22, 1999 Who:  64 High School Teams From All Over The US

Every year for the past three years we've featured coverage from the Reebok Las Vegas Holiday Prep Classic, and we'll be back again this year.   This year, the tournament is again at two facilities in Vegas, Durango and Green Valley High Schools (last year Cimmaron-Memorial and Durango were the venues, and Green Valley adds a little more drive time, so be aware of that when you plan which games you want to see).

This year the tournament has taken on more of a regional flavor, with most of the "nationally ranked" teams (e.g., Rice, Mater Dei, Washington Union, Artesia, Oak Hill, Seton Hall Prep, Ballard, Portland Jefferson, DeMatha, Dominguez, etc) all choosing to be elsewhere this year.  The only team to be "ranked" on any kind of national level is Bishop Gorman, from Las Vegas, Nevada, which is ranked currently by USA Today at No. 9 in the Wester Region (and in case you're interested in such things, USA Today currently has the following teams ranked in the West, in this order: West: 1, Artesia, Lakewood, Calif. (3-0);  2, Mater Dei, Santa Ana, Calif. (6-0);  3, Dominguez, Compton, Calif. (4-1);  4, Jefferson, Portland, Ore. (2-0);  5, East, Denver (2-0);  6, Clovis West, Fresno, Calif. (11-0);   7, Foss, Tacoma, Wash. (3-0);  8, Bingham, South Jordan, Utah (5-0);  9, Bishop Gorman, Las Vegas (5-1);  10, Shadow Mountain, Phoenix (4-1).)

Interestingly, virtually all of the ranked teams were at the 1998 version of the Reebok Holiday Prep Classic; maybe next year's rankings will be filled with this year's participants, who knows.  But in any event, there will still be plenty of top high school talent to see, including more than a few SoCal-based teams with national-level recruits, many of whom you are already familiar with or whom we've previewed and profiled here at SoCal Hoops before.

In any event, we receive the schedules and the pools informatoin for the tournament, and this year, unlike prior years, there won't be a single "open" division, where 64 teams (and sometimes more) compete for a single championship.  This year, instead, there will be four separate "tournaments within a tournament"  similar to what the Slam Dunk to the Beach or some of the other major national tournaments have been doing for years.  

This year, instead of a single pool, there will be a "Millenium Cup," bracket, a "Gold Cup" bracket, a "Silver Cup" bracket, and a  "Bronze Cup" bracket.  The teams seem to have been placed into each bracket according to their overall competitiveness against each other, with the most competitive "national" teams placed in the Millenium bracket, and then each team from most competitive to less placed in the other brackets in a sort of descending order.   And this isn't meant as a knock on any of the teams, but just a basic reality check.  While everyone wants to play against the "best",  divisional play is probably an improvement over years past when there were absolutely huge mismatches, making the first rounds in pool play meaningless except to the players and perhaps their parents in the stands.  After all, what fun was it to watch an Oak Hill hammer poor Podunk HS?   While perhaps the pools don't really achieve real parirty, it's probably a step in the right direction.

We'll post the schedules up shortly.   And if you're going to Vegas, you might want to make your reservations by now.  Just remember, the tournament

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