By ROY HESS | Staff Writer
The traditional Brownsville Tournament is undergoing a format change for its boys basketball teams.
For the first time, this year the annual event will involve only Brownsville teams playing each other in a round-robin format.
“It’s so hard to put together a tournament sometimes, we thought we would make it a city competition and have round-robin games,” said Brownsville Veterans Memorial coach Larry Gibson, the host of the tournament. “This is the first time to have the tournament with this format. We’ll know what everyone thinks about having it this way after it’s over, but I think everyone likes the idea.
“We’ve got all these kids (in town) who play basketball, and now they can have a city competition against each other,” Gibson added. “Every team will play the other (Brownsville) teams. We’ll see who comes out with the best record.
“I think it’s important to note that out of the six teams in the Brownsville Tournament this year, four of them — Pace, Rivera, Porter and Veterans — went to the playoffs last year, so that says something (about the quality of the teams).”
The tournament starts today as Pace plays host to Hanna at 5:30 p.m. Today’s other two games are at Brownsville Veterans as Porter and Rivera play at 6 p.m. and Brownsville Veterans plays Lopez at 7:30 p.m.
Porter just defeated Rivera 63-49 at Porter on Tuesday to open the season.
After today, all tournament games will be played at Brownsville Veterans starting at 10 a.m. Friday. The round-robin action continues from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday.
Last year, Rio Grande City won the event.