gf1726

Oooohhh Nooooo. Back To Vegas Again.
ARC/Slam-N-Jam Las Vegas Grand Finale--(July 26, 1998)

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the gym and do a little shooting around, look out. Here they come. Again.

This is it. Really. The last big summer tournament. Well, that is unless you count Mae Fischer's little Vegas tournament during August, but we won't because it's technically not an "open evaluation" tournament. Yup, this is it, and there's a reason it's called the "Grand Finale." Because it's the end of the road before these teams split up and the players all go home to enjoy what's left of their summer.

The ARC/Slam-N-Jam Las Vegas Grand Finale runs from Monday July 27 through Friday July 31. It will be played at Six High Schools: Mojave, Cheyenne, Palo Verde, Cimarron-Memorial, Las Vegas and Valley High. Each school, with the exception of Valley, has both an auxiliary gym and a main gym, and all of them will be utilized.

Rich Goldberg of ARC will basically be putting this one on by his lonesome, as Issy Washington is ill and won't be attending. We want to wish Issy a speedy recovery, and tell him how much we enjoy his tournaments.

The Grand Finale (at least the boys' high school division of the tournament) will feature 8 pools each with four teams apiece, playing three days of pool play (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday) and then a single elimination round of play on Thursday and Friday, culminating in a championship game which will be played Friday, July 31, at 6:00 p.m. at the Mojave High main gym.

Actually the Grand Finale is far more than just a high school boys' tournament. The tournament features all different AAU age levels, and also has a girl's tournament bracket, which makes it a little different than the adidas Double Pump Big Time Vegas Tournament, which is all high school boys. This year the Big Time had 224 teams, the single largest high school boys' tournament ever staged. And the Grand Finale is probably just as big if you count all the age brackets, but that's far too much to cover. So again, we'll just stick with the high school boys. But by all means, if some of you out there are following the younger kids, or have results from the girls' brackets, then e-mail us, or post the results on the message board.

Here are the Pool assignments. And as you look through this, if you've been following the Big Time, the Best of Summer, or the Slam-N-Jam NIT, you'll recognize a team name here and there:

Pool 1 New York Gauchos Colorado Jam Team Kansas Heat Monterey Magic	Pool 2 Philly Rines All Stars KC ACT Northwest Cougars I Arkansas Rebels	Pool 3 Aim High Team Nebraska Beaumont Lions ARC II	Pool 4 Tennessee Travelers Bentalow Bombers Northwest All-Stars ARC I
Pool 5 SYF Players Northwest Cougars II Inflight Basketball Bay Area Fadeaway	Pool 6 Arkansas Wings Stockton Razorbacks Las Vegas Heat Portland Legends II	Pool 7 All-Ohio Red Oklahoma Rams Oregon Quaxe North Riverside	Pool 8 RBS Stars North Utah Team Lima San Diego Future Stars

We also have the complete schedule. Here's Monday's schedule, July 27, 1998. We'll post the other days up separately:

M= Mojave, MAux= Mojave Auxiliary, C=Cheyenne, CAux= Cheyenne Auxiliary, P=Palo Verde, PAux= PaloVerde Auxiliary, CM= Cimmarron-Memorial, CMAux= Cimmarron-Memorial Auxiliary, L=Las Vegas, LAux= Las Vegas Auxiliary, V= Valley. All teams should be at the gyms at least 20 minutes prior to the scheduled start of the game.

Time	Location	Teams
3:00 p.m.	M	Northwest Cougars II v. Inflight Basketball
3:00 p.m.	M-Aux	RBS Stars v. San Diego Future Stars
3:00 p.m.	C	North Utah v. Team Lima
4:30 p.m.	C	Colorado Jam v. Team Kansas Heat
4:30 p.m.	M	KC ACT v. Northwest Cougars I
4:30 p.m.	M-Aux	Team Nebraska v. Beaumont Lions
6:00 p.m.	M	New York Gauchos v. Monterey Magic
6:00 p.m.	M-Aux	Stockton Razorbacks v. Las Vegas Heat
6:00 p.m.	C	All Ohio Red v. North Riverside
7:30 p.m.	M	Oklahoma Rams v. Oregon Quaxe
7:30 p.m.	M-Aux	Tennessee Travelers v. ARC I
7:30 p.m.	C	Arkansas Wings v. Portland Legends I
9:00 p.m.	M	Philly Rines All Stars v. Arkansas Rebels
9:00 p.m.	M-Aux	Aim High v. ARC II
9:00 p.m.	C	SYF Players v. Bay Area Fadeaway