OT- Lakota Nation Invitational HS BB

[Striper69]

I'm at Rapid City, SD this week. The tournament is in it's final day and the champions will be crowned tonight. It's been four solid days of (mostly) native American boys and girls HS BB teams from SD and Nebraska playing games at the Civic Center in Rapid City, SD. Even if they lose they play all four days. Pretty fascinating.

There is one team from Custer, SD that looks to be mostly white girls and boys and the some other teams have one or two white and black players mixed in but they're mostly native American and mostly Lakota Sioux members. The team I came to watch is from the Omaha Nation and there is also a team from the Winnebago tribe in Nebraska playing. There are 16 schools participating and each has a boys and girls team playing. The players have cool last names like Flying Eagle, Brown Otter, Antelope etc.

The teams are getting along great and there's a lot of good sportsmanship being demonstrated. Last year there was a controversy about some members of the audience spraying beer on some players but this year I notice that they aren't selling beer at the venue (smart decision- why sell alcohol at a HS tournament?).

I might post a short video of the games when I get a chance. You can google the championship games tonight starting at 7:30 PM MST at:
Lakota Nation Invitational - Live Webcast | SDPB

There's also a girls game at 12:30 PM MST today.

 

[Striper69]

This girl won a scholarship (I think it was $500.00) and scored the most points of the tournament. She also was named the best defensive player of the tournament and was on the all-tournament team. She plays for the Omaha Nation HS team and is a junior. This was a video clip I made from a preseason game they play in November.

 

[Striper69]

There was a girl who plays for Pine Ridge, SD (a junior) who put on a passing exhibition in a game I failed to take my HandyCam to. If the players she was passing to were half as good as her she would've had 30+ assists. She was setting them up for bunnies right next to the basket and the players were missing most of them. I was in awe while watching her thinking stuff like "How did she do that?", "How could she know to make that pass?" etc., etc.

I'm going to make a video of some of the stuff she did that I had my cam with me to record. If some college coach out there needs a point guard to get the ball to their dominant center (psstt...do you hear me Oklahoma coach) in a couple of years then this kid can do it better than anyone I've ever seen.