A round of winter weather in the forecast caused the start of the third annual Greenland Invitational basketball tournament to be bumped up to this afternoon.
The three-day boys basketball tournament was scheduled to begin Thursday afternoon, but will tip off with a Cedarville-Gentry matchup at 4:30 p.m. today instead, thanks to a forecast of freezing rain and snow set to hit late tonight or early Thursday.
“I got a hold of everybody (Monday) morning and everybody was good with it,” Greenland coach Jared Gobel said. “So we moved it to make sure we could get two games in.”
Inclement weather would affect non-Greenland teams in the tournament, most of which will have to make drives of 45 minutes or more to get to Greenland each day. But the tournament does provide an opportunity for teams to get valuable early-season action before starting conference play.
“We’ve only played one game so far, so it wasn’t a big decision to us,” Huntsville coach Jim Stafford said. “We want to play. Our kids have been beating on each other since the first day of school. They’re ready to play somebody else.”
This year’s tournament fi eld is the same field as last year, with the exception of Gravette, which opted out of playing again. It features a Class 5A school (Huntsville), two 4As (Gentry, Berryville), three 3As (Greenland, Cedarville, Mansfi eld) and a 2A (Johnson County Westside).
The tournament is now scheduled to run through Friday, but it could be stretched out a day longer, if necessary.
“We’re just going to play it by ear,” Gobel said. “It sort of depends on who we could get where when. … We’ll try to get what we can get in by Saturday.”