BENTONVILLE -- Big-time high school basketball games will make their way to Northwest Arkansas in the near future.
Bentonville West has been chosen as one of four sites to host regional tournaments in conjunction with the Spaulding Hoophall Classic. The Hoophall South tournament will be held Jan. 6-8 in Wolverine Arena and will bring a number of high-caliber national teams into the area.
The regional tournament will be run by Position Sports, a longtime partner of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and be part of the Hoophall Classic organization.
"We are extremely excited," said Matt King, chief operating officer with Position Sports. "The Basketball Hall of Fame exists to celebrate and promote the game of basketball across the country, and some of the great places where the game is played are in towns like Bentonville.
"Nothing beats a packed gym with the band playing and a passion for high school basketball. The Hall of Fame is excited about planting roots in Northwest Arkansas, and hopefully, this will be a tremendous event that will have an impact on the community."
The announcement, which was made in a press release Tuesday night, culminated a three-month process where tournament officials flew into Bentonville and spent a few days in the area as they attended a local basketball game and visited with school and city officials. All four regional events are expected to be the most premier showcases in their respective areas.
The Hoophall South Regional will be the last of the four newly formed tournaments, with Hoophall West being Dec. 6-8 in Scottsdale, Ariz., followed by Hoophall Central in Sioux Falls, S.D., on Dec. 16-18 and the Hoophall East taking place Dec. 27-19 in Lewes, Del.
These four tournaments will set the tone for the "Road to Springfield" for the 20th annual Spaulding Hoophall Classic, which takes place Jan. 13-17 in Springfield, Mass., the birthplace of basketball.
"When Matt reached out to us about the possibility of this tournament, and me being a former basketball coach, I was really excited to get a chance to meet with them," Bentonville athletic director Scott Passmore said. "(Bentonville West) Coach (Greg) White had previously reached out to them about some things going on in our community.
"They were impressed with what they saw, and we were able to take that to the next level. They contacted me a few days later and said Bentonville was great and exactly what they were looking for. I celebrated secretly at my office at that time because we had to keep it confidential at the time."
Passmore said he wasn't sure how many teams the tournament would bring, and the field of teams will be announced at a later date. Because the tournament has ties with youth basketball, games for younger age groups will be held at Bentonville High's Tiger Arena while the main tournaments take place in Centerton because of Wolverine Arena's additional capacity.
Not only will Bentonville and West play against these teams, but they will play each other -- and it will also count in the 6A-West Conference standings. Because the tournament falls during the first week of conference play, the two schools will have to make some changes with other league schools to make it work.
"We had to make some adjustments in our conference schedule," Passmore said. "Between Bentonville and Bentonville West, we would have Springdale and Fort Smith Southside on our schedules. Their administrations were kind enough to work with us and adjust the schedules.
"It will be unique that our two teams will be playing each other and that it will be a conference game as well."