What happened to the Great Alaska Shootout?

[jleves]

I remember teams like Syracuse and Duke playing in this in the not too distant past.

Tonight's final is Colorado St vs UC Santa Barbara....

That's not exactly an elite final.

 

[CTBasketball]

Travel or money.

 

[kyle]

ESPN

They created a bunch of new tournaments (PR Tip Off, Charleston Classic, Orlando Classic, etc.) themselves around 2007 or so after the NCAA started allowing teams to play in these types of events more often and never renewed their contract with the Great Alaska Shootout. Without ESPN's coverage they can't attract major sponsors or good teams which is unfortunate because it was such a unique location.

 

[Fishy]

Up until this year, it was held in a terrible arena.

Add in expensive travel and poor exposure and the Shootout started to die about a decade ago.

 

[willie99]

competition

used to be they were one of two games in town, then one in three when they added the "Preseason NIT", and now I couldn't even tell you how many in season tournaments there are. I know there seems to be multiple tournaments at multiple locations, from HI to PR to Orlando, NYC, Bahamas, Mexico, LV ..................................................

damn, we (the State of CT) even have a tournament in the Mohegan Sun

 

[TRest]

Not to mention all the other pre-season tourneys are in warmer locations.

 

[willie99]

true, I was going to mention that

 

[jleves]

Funny - I just heard them say on the broadcast that 'it started that The Maui Invitational and The Great Alaska Shootout were the top tournaments, but now there are so many of them and they're building it back up.'

I guess it's kind of hard to draw teams to Alaska in November when they can go to Maui or the Bahamas or many other warmer places like, well, anywhere.

 

[Danzz]

I remember running into Chris Smith at Westfarms Mall and he was wearing a beautiful leather jacket from the Alaska Shootout. BTW, Smitty was about 5'10"-5'11".