Preseason Top Ten Power Poll

#1 HCYA Warriors, TX
Last Years Finish: 1st
Returning Starters: 1
Returning All-Americans: John Caleb Sanders (2nd team)
HCYA will be looking to find four new starters but the Warriors are returning their leading scorer and sophomore sensation John Caleb Sanders. HCYA has continued their domination of the 16 & under division with 4 straight national championships. This is a very big part in why the Warriors are favored to make their 7th straight national championship appearance despite losing nearly their entire core from last years National Championship team.


#2 Okc Storm, OK
Last Years Finish: 3rd
Last Year's Gateway Regional Champions
Returning Starters: 3
Returning All-American: Nathan Santelmann (1st Team), Aaron Santelmann (2nd Team), Rex Farmer (3rd Team), and the addition of Evan Justus (Honorable Mention) from the OKC Knights.
The Okc Storm & HCYA Warriors are the only two teams that had earned their way into 6a since the inception of divisions. This year the Storm is looking to make their first national championship game appearance since 2004. With a 3rd place finish last year, the return of three All-Americans, and the addition of another All-American the Storm will certainly be in the mix for a national championship.

#3 St. John's Warriors, MI
Last Years Finish: 6th
Returning Starters: 5
Returning All-Americans: Eric Hamilton (3rd Team) & Kyle Williams (3rd team)
Last year's St. Johns team was a very young & talented team and looks to be returning everyone. Last year St. John's won their first ever Michigan State tournament and made their first appearance in 6a. This is a team will have plenty of test throughout the year & has the potential to be a team that finds themselves knocking on the door of a championship game appearance in March.


#4 Huntington Eagles, IN
Last Years Finish: 7th
Returning Starters: 3
Returning All Americans: Colin Featherston (2nd team)
Fresh off their first appearance in 6a last year Huntington will be returning a very strong core and will look to make a run at their first ever final four appearance. Huntington is returning 5 of their top 7 players including a couple standout freshman that were key players last year.

#5 CHSA Wolverines, TX
Last Years Finish: 8th
Returning Starters: 3
Returning All Americans: 0
In 2007 CHSA was the surprise team of the tournament with an incredible run to the national championship game in what was their first appearance in 6a. Last year despite some devastating injuries the Wolverines were able to reach 6a again. This is a team that is looking to make their third straight appearance in the gold ball division and with the return of 4 of their top 6 players, key additions, and some players moving up from their JV this is a team that may have a legitimate shot at a final four appearance.



#6 Crestwood Calvary, IL
Last Years Finish: 4th
Returning Starters: 3
Returning All-Americans: 0
Last year Crestwood was led by 1st team All-American & Sr. Joel Morris. This year Crestwood should be a very tough team and has goals of making 6a again. Crestwood is a regular in the gold ball division but will need a good supporting cast around their returning starters in order to get back into the final four.



#7 MHEA Eagles, TN
Last Years Finish: 9th
Returning Starters: 4
Returning All-Americans: Josh Brown (3rd team) & Ben Barnes (Honorable Mention)
Last year MHEA was able to win the 5a division despite their youth and with a very strong returning cast the Eagles will look to make a run at their first ever appearance in 6a. Last years the Eagles ran into Michigan state champions St. John's and lost a competitive game and then bounced back very well winning out versus a very tough 5a field.


#8 Derby Invasion, KS
Last Years Finish: 12th
Returning Starters: 5
Returning All-Americans: Shawn Michelson (Honorable Mention)
Derby last year had a solid run considering their youth and have put themselves in a excellent situation considering they are returning their entire team. This is a team that I expect will make a very legitimate push for their first ever 6a appearance. Additionally the Invasion have added a 6'7 post player that will give them some much needed size and depth.


#9 Landmark Eagles, OH
Last Years Finish: 2nd
Last Year's Region 1 Champion
Returning Starters: 0
Returning All-Americans: 0
Last year Landmark was led by the dangerous combination of 1st team All-American's Peter Jackson & Eric Head. Landmark has a very good core of young players and has several key editions that could help them greatly during what is supposed to be a rebuilding year. This will be a young & dangerous team that hopes to make a run at consecutive 6a appearances.


#10 HSAA Blue Angels, TX
Last Years Finish: 10th
Returning Starters: 3
Returning All-Americans: 0
HSAA has been one of the more consistent varsity boys programs. With many 6a appearances however last year was a disappointing year. With the return of 3 starters and a very strong core of young players (14 & under national champions) this is a team that expects to return to 6a.


In Alphabetic Order here are the other teams that received consideration:

Dallas Thunder, TX
Faulkner County Falcons, AR
FEAST Patriots, TX
Nashville Central Warriors, TN
North Atlanta Flight, GA
Tulsa NOAH, OK
WCHSA Royal Eagles, WI

Regional Format Announced

Wow, right when I think the summer is about to become less hectic the pace picks up and now the summer is over. I have a number of very significant things to announce that we have been working on for some time. Please make sure that you read the entire post and forward to others in your program.

Information Websites

We have been working on ways to make everything a lot more user friendly and so
we are giving our staff more control over the communication mechanisms. You will
see that Kurt Talbot has website for Regional Tournaments and Rob Flatt has one
for All-American/All-Region Nominations.


New Region Format

This year we have divided the US into six regions. We have assigned each state
(or sometimes we divide states) to a region. Regions are simply called Region 1,
Region 2 etc. Each Region will be allotted a number of Automatic Bids for Division
1 and All-American voting will be by region. Four Regions will have a regional
tournament this year with Region 5 adding a tournament in 2010.
To check out what region you are in, who the competition is and how the system works
go to www.nchbctournaments.com We are still working on the site, the terminology and the wording so if some doesn't look right please contact us.

ALL-American Nominations

We are making some minor adjustments to our All-American Nomination procedure this
year. Each coach can make All Region nominations for his team. All Region Nominations can be made from now until September 10th. There will be a second round of nominations at the end of the first semester. We will have two coaches polls one ending September 10th and one January that will determine which players will be All American Candidates. Coaches may not vote for their own players during this stage of the process. Final ballots will be cast by all coaches that are attending Nationals. Each coach will vote for players from his region (once again coaches are not permitted to vote for his own players or players that he has not seen play). These ballots will be cast immediately following Regionals. Players attending Regionals will have one last shot to make a good impression.

To check out the nomination process go to www.nchbcregionals.com coaches can make nominations immediately and we will post the teams that make nominations
each week.

Preseason Top Ten

The next news update will have the preseason Top Ten Teams. Will your team make
the top ten? Just another 10 days to find out.



Tournament Directors

Looking for teams? We now have the ability to list tournaments online for you more
information at www.nchbctournaments.com

Basketball Nationals Update

This is a busy time for our Nationals staff and we are going to try to communicate on a regular basis so that we won't overwhelm you with information all at one time. We will be looking for individuals and families to help with various things this year and will post those opportunities in these e-mail updates. In this update we are looking for a few people to help with Media Relations (see below). We would also like to ask you to forward this e-mail to knew families in your program.


Springfield Drive Time Savings

One thing that we liked about Springfield is the size of the city. While it is big enough to accommodate a tournament the size of Nationals, it is small enough that all the gyms and hotels are in a 6-7 mile from the center of the city. This makes all gyms and hotels within about 12 miles.
A special thank you to Randy Martin from Memphis actually did a Google map of all the hotels, colleges and high school gyms, here is the link. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=114826141753583136334.00045443d920c7bac7c90

To give you an idea of the economic impact of this, if the average family that travels to three gyms in a day they would travel an average of 50 miles fewer per day or 300 miles per week. If the average team has 5 vehicles that is 1500 vehicles driving 360,000 fewer miles and at say 15 miles a gallon and gas at $4.00 per gallon (although last weekend I saw gas in Springfield gas was $3.33 per gallon), the savings will be $120,000 for the homeschool families.



All-American Nominations

Next week we will be announcing the procedure for All-American Nominations. There will be many new facets to this year's procedure and it will be very exciting, stay tuned.


National's Hotel Link -- Springfield CVB

The link for hotels in Springfield is http://www.springfieldmo.org/housing Many hotels are filling up quickly. I was surprised to see that the Double Tree (which is widely considered the nicest hotel in Springfield) hasn't received very many reservations. Every team that books through this link with the CVB will receive a rebate details to follow.


Television Deal

We are getting close to having a TV deal finished and making and hope to make an official announcement soon.

Preseason Tournament

The Tip Off Tournament will be held in Springfield MO November 13-15th. We already have teams from Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Tenessee signed up (Where's Texas?). If you would like more information please contatc Kurt Talbot at 1-417-880-4875.

Media Relations A Family Project

I am looking for 3-4 families from around the country that would be willing to serve as Media Relations Directors. I will be glad to train individuals for this project. This will be a huge help to Nationals and a great learning experience.

NEW Regional Tournaments

Next week we will be releasing the new Regional breakdown that will include information on All Region Teams, Automatic Division I bids and a couple of new Regional Tournaments.

Fundraising Project

The year we have introduced a new fundraising program for teams and families to help offset their expenses to attend Nationals. For example if a team raises $2500 they receive FREE team fee, FREE players registration, a $75 gas card for each player and coach (total of 11) and a FREE Pizza Party ticket and Gymsack for all players. For more information go to the website and click on Founders Club in the left column. www.homeschoolbasketball.com We will also have some more exciting news about this program relating to FREE All-American and National Championship rings.



Tim Flatt

New Host City -- Springfield, MO

The past eight years the National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships has enjoyed a very special relationship with its host city, Oklahoma City. Prior to arriving in OKC the NCHBC had moved five times during its first ten years including stints in San Antonio, TX, Estes Park, CO, and Santa Fe NM. The NCHBC experienced tremendous growth during the last eight years, growing from just over 100teams to more than 300 in 2008. “Our experience in OKC was tremendous. We benefited from the central location, the stability of being in the same location for eight years and the great people we worked with at the OCCVB, local colleges and area businesses. OKC has been experiencing a significant economic growth the last few years, culminating this summer the acquiring of an NBA Sonics team. We applaud these exciting events for the OKC but in the end the growth of both the tournament and the city made it necessary for us to look at other options for the championships starting in 2009” states Tim Flatt, Executive Director for the NCHBC.

“We carefully looked at ten cities and as of today we have a new home for at least the next three years. We are excited to announce our new host city is Springfield, MO” adds Flatt.

The NCHBC staff has worked very closely with the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) and the Springfield Sports Commission to make certain that the 2009 National Tournament will be a great experience for all teams and families that attend. Springfield was selected over ten other cities for the following reasons:
1) Facilities
2) Hotel Rates and Availability
3) The support of the CVB and Sports Commission
4) Location
5) Televised games


Facilities

Showcase and Championship Saturday -- The NCHBC has secured the use of the Hammons Student Center at Missouri State University for both Wednesday and Saturday. The Hammons Student Center has a capacity of 8,846. This will give room for growth as the Sawyer Center at SNU held 5,000 last year. Additionally, MSU is building a new facility that will seat 12,000 that will be a valid option if we out grow the Hammonds Center.

College Gyms - We will be using Evangel College, Drury University, Central Bible College and Baptist Bible College. These are all top quality college gyms that hold 1,500-3,500 fans and will be perfect for semi-final games.
Other Gyms - Springfield Public Schools and Springfield Parks and Recreation are making their gyms available for the NCHBC. The gyms will be a very significant upgrade from the gyms in OKC which have been very good the past few years.



Hotel Rates and Availability

One of the concerns about OKC was the continuing rise of hotel rates. The bottom line is that Springfield offers our families 800 plus hotel rooms less than $79.00 per night and another 800 between $80-89 per night. It is estimated that families will save over $300,000 in hotel costs in 2009.

IMPORTANT
The Springfield CVB has negotiated group rates with virtually every quality hotel in Springfield. These rooms will be offered via a special website starting Tuesday August 12 at 9:00 AM. We will post a link on the website and Blog, as well as send an e-mail with the link.

VERY IMPORTANT
It is very important that everyone either uses this service provided the CVB or notifies us if they chose to make other hotel arrangements. Let me explain why this is so important. The purpose of CVB is bring events to their city. Their effectiveness is measured in room nights. The more room nights the more the CVB is willing to do to help events. How does this affect you? In our agreement with the CVB there are certain arrangements that we have that are directly affected by room nights. The kinds of things that the CVB helps us with is the cost of the Hammons Student Center. Additionally if we want to move to the new facility this will be determined by the room nights we use. When the CVB covers cost for Hammons Student Center that allows us to use sponsor's funds to get our events on television.
The hotels listed on the CVB site give us the most credit but if you choose to stay somewhere else contact us and we will get some credit and may even be able to negotiate a better rate through the CVB.

Why are some hotels not listed?
1) We chose to not to list hotels with high attrition rates. Some hotels require you to pay for 80% of the rooms you hold whether you use them or not.
2) We chose to avoid hotels that are often rented by the hour more than the day.
3) We chose to not use hotels that were in unsafe or unseemly areas.

Televised Games
It is our plan to eventually have nine NCHBC games televised. This would include local, regional and national coverage. We are negotiating with various stations at this time. We are confident that we will work our way to nine games; however, we may have to start this year with 3-5 games televised. The number of games will be directly related to how much sponsor money we can direct toward this goal of increasing exposure. The funds for this project will come directly from the CVB sponsorship and fundraising through the Founders Club. Next week we will give you an update on the Founder's Club.

Central Location
The location of Springfield will be a tremendous asset in the continued growth of the NCHBC. The move will add an extra 200 miles for most Texas teams and an extra 280 miles for OKC, West Texas, New Mexico, AZ and CA . However, it will still be a one day trip (5-10 hours for most of the teams) for all teams that are currently a one day trip from this region. AZ and CA will remain a two day trip. The positive is that now almost every other team that attends Nationals will be able to get the in one day.

We believe that our biggest area for growth over the next few years is from the Midwest - Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa as we have been able to identify almost 200 teams from this region that don't currently attend Nationals. Now we are within a day's drive for virtually all of these teams and with your help we may be able to encourage many to attend.