Updates

Seeding Brackets – All of the seeding brackets are posted, only the B10, G10, B12, G12, B18D-1 and G18D-1 are close to final we hope to make them final with 24 hours (we will make an official announcement when they are final). The other divisions are still wide open and there are a lot of changes being made. Save a tree, don’t print them yet. Click Here To See Brackets

Note to Coaches – please feel free to make requests for changes, we do what we can. Keep in mind we do random brackets, so we don’t check to see of you have your boys varsity and girls varsity playing at the same time on Monday – if we do will change it if you let us know. We cannot do the same for Tuesday’s games as there are only so many time slots and programs with a four or more time slots will overlap.

Notes to parents – we know many of you have numerous children playing in the tournament. Our goal is to make sure the varsity teams do not overlap with your other teams before Friday. If you have a lot of kids in the 10-16 age groups, you will have a conflict that is just the fact. One positive note is when I was doing it with four boys in those ages we were driving around San Antonio for Nationals and that was often forty-five minutes of traffic and driving between games, Springfield is a much friendlier town to get around.

Players Names Missing – We have had a couple of dozen players who have registered not appear on the post on the website, we are sorry about that and not really sure what happened. If you were on the first posting but not the second or if you have a receipt and are not on the list – don’t panic you are all set.
What to bring to Nationals – we recommend that you bring your confirmation for your t-shirts or player registration fee if you have them.

Water bottles – We received a phone call today from the company we ordered the water bottles from. They informed us that our guaranteed delivery date (tomorrow) would not be met and that we would not have the water bottles until after Nationals. Needless to say we canceled the order and we will not have water bottles. If you purchased a water bottle we will give you a refund. If you were to receive a free water bottle please accept our sincere apology as this was beyond our control. If you are really upset about this I would like to make a suggestion:
Do – please send me a letter
Do NOT – give our volunteer staff a piece of your mind because:
1. They are not responsible for this error
2. They cannot help you (none of them make water bottles)
3. It is a long week and you might need that piece of mind later in the week

Team USA 16U Players need to be at the Team USA Meeting at 4:45 on Monday.

Brackets and Updates

We are ahead of the schedule I announced last night, all D1 seeding brackets are posted, we should get D2 done tomorrow. The main brackets have been finished and have to be checked one more time but could be up by tomorrow as well.
Please check the brackets and make sure we haven’t matched you up with someone you have played four times this year. We will keep making adjustments for the next few days and then go final. Click Here

T-shirt Pick and Voucher Up
If you paid for a t-shirt or player registration on line, you received a notice from Google Checkout that said your item is being shipped. This is a standard form that goes out, we do not ship anything. When you arrive at Nationals you will go to one of five stations:
1. T-shirt Pick Up – this means that you paid for your player registration, ordered you t-shirt on line and either your voucher covered the cost of your t-shirt or you upgraded and paid the balance.
2. T-shirt Pick Up with balance due – this is the same as number one except you didn’t pay the balance for the t-shirts.
3. Voucher Pick Up – this is for players that paid player registration fee but did not order t-shirts (this prevents people from leaving vouchers at home).
4. Player Registration – this is for players that have not played for their player registration.
5. Station 5 – two days ago I had a station but right now I can’t remember it but I am sure it will come back to me and I will post it later.

The plan is to post on line the names of players that will go to each station on Saturday that way you will know where to go and if we have you in the wrong category we can try to clear it up before via e-mail before you arrive.

7 Days and Counting

Just seven days left until the 18th Annual National Christian Homeschool Basketball Tournament tips off. We are really excited about the opening day activities.
In this email I am going to release the preliminary first round
match-ups but first I would like to point out what is sure to be a
very exciting opening day. Here is what will be taking place Monday
March 16th at Baptist Bible College (Gym)*

2:15 pm All-American Award Ceremony

We will be handing out 1st 2nd and 3rd Team All-American Awards

3:00 pm Girl's Tip-off /Ceremony at Baptist Bible College (Gym)

The Mayor of Springfield and virtually the entire Springfield news
media will be there as Tabar Spani leads the 2009 Omaha Regional
Champion Kansas City Metro Mavs against the San Antonio FEAST
Patriots. Tabar was just selected as a McDonald’s All-American, she
is the first HomeSchool player to ever receive this honor which is
awarded to the top 24 high school seniors each year.

4:30 pm Boy's Tip-off at Baptist Bible College (Gym)

John Caleb Sanders last year’s Maravich award winner will lead HCYA
Warriors; the two time defending National Champions against the
Cincinnati Landmark Eagles. In a very unusual twist this is a first
round match-up of last year’s National Championship game. Landmark
graduated all of their contributors and looked to have a rebuilding
year, but Coach Tom Head led the team to a 7th place Cincinnati
Regional finish and set up this compelling match up.

5:50 Game features the 2008 National Champions and 2009 OKC Regional
Champion THEASA Riders feature 2008 1st team All-American Anna Parish
as well as one of the top freshman High School players in the country.
Be ready to see some jaw dropping moves by Moriah Jefferson. As THESA
draws the Manhattan CHIEF in their first round match-up.

7:00 Game features the 2009 OKC Regional Champion when the Oklahoma City Storm takes on California’s Christian Heritage Academy. The Storm has
spent the entire year in the top three of the MaxPreps rankings and
returns four All-American from the 2008 3rd place finisher.

8:15 Game features the Cincinnati Regional Champions when Indianapolis Wildcats make their first appearance at Nationals. Indy has been in
the top 4 of the MaxPreps all season. All-American Adrian Hood will
lead the Wildcats against sharp shooter Ben Mies and the Memphis FCA
Nighthawks.

9:30 Game features NCEBC #1 Seed Central Park Christian School from
Birmingham, Alabama. If you want to see some top level basketball,
don’t miss this game. They have it all: They have size (if you
consider 7 guys from 6 8’ to 7 foot big). Athleticism – last time I
coached against them five years ago they had 14 dunks but I think that
is overrated because Marco Killingworth had 8 of them. This year they
feature 6’6 swingman and Alabama Signee Tony Mitchell and 6’10
wing/post Will Neighbour who has signed with the University of
Arkansas/Little Rock. This year they are relatively young.

For more schedule details go to
http://www.homeschoolbasketball.com/seeding-brackets

Team USA – we have a record number of Team USA players this year. We still have openings in all age groups but we really need 3-4 more Boys
10 and Boys 12 to fill up those teams.

Did you see the All-American List

We added three more gyms to make the schedule a little more manageable, we have posted the new map on the home page of the web site http://www.homeschoolbasketball.com

Team Hotel we have a great hotel at $89.00 per night with a $20 rebate so a net of $69.00 that we would like to put a team in to fill that hotel up. Contact me if you are interested.

Updated Player Registration

I would guess we have about 250 players that have not registered; coaches keep checking the list as it is your responsibility to make sure all your players have registered before they arrive in Springfield. http://www.homeschoolbasketball.com/registered-players

T-Shirt Pre-orders are over. We have listed everyone that we have received an order from so you can double check if you did not get an e-mail confirmation. http://www.homeschoolbasketball.com/t-shirts

All-Americans --- we just completed compiling the All-American ballots from the four completed regional tournaments and the winners are ……… Http://www.homeschoolbasketball.com/AA

Top Ten Things You Need to Know

…… To make sure that your Nationals Experience is awesome.

1. Banners – During the opening ceremony each program is permitted to participate in the flag march. Each state flag will enter the arena and two representatives from each program will follow carrying a program/team banner. Please make sure you have a nice banner.

2. Seeding – check out the seeding information to see where your team is fitting in -- we still have to seed Christian Educated and division 2 for boys and girls varsity. http://www.homeschoolbasketball.com/seeding-process

3. T-shirt Pre-Order – Two more days to pre-order the t-shirts. http://www.homeschoolbasketball.com/t-shirts

4. Anonymous e-mails – If you have a complaint about another team or about something with Nationals, please feel free to send us an e-mail we are very interested in different perspectives. However, please be advised that we discard anonymous e-mails. The Nationals policy is simple if the complaint isn’t important enough for you to put your name on it, it isn’t important enough for our staff to read.


5. Hotel Rooms Available – we have a couple of hotels that we need to filled up. We have a special rate if you’re looking for a room, send me an e-mail.

To be continued ………

Seeding, Teams and Player Registration

We have posted a lot of new information to the website here is an overview:

Teams - please double check and make sure your team is listed - we have had to adjusted for 10-12 cancellations and some new teams coming in and we want to make sure it is accurate, you are our best check and balance. http://homeschoolbasketball.com/registered-teams

Player Registration - we are at 2600 so still 400-600 stragglers to get in within the next week, please double check and make sure all your team mates are registered. http://homeschoolbasketball.com/registered-players

Seeding - each year we go through an agonizing process called seeding, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Trust me Washington lobbyist have nothing on some of our coaches. It is all good our seeding committee has thick skin and plus they are really good at what they do.

Last year they seeded the boy's varsity 1-4 in the order they finished and the girl's varsity 1-5 in order, very impressive. Any way we are going to actually post the process on line to make it easier for coaches, players this area is not for you unless of course your curious than go ahead and look but please leave all the complaining to the coaches that is what they get paid the big money to do.

http://homeschoolbasketball.com/seeding-process

Three Updates On March 1st

Team USA
We will have a record number of Team USAs this year if you are attending Nationals with a brother or sister and your team is not coming, check out Team USA it is awesome. Click Here

Win a Full Year College Scholarship at Nationals

I am happy to announce an exciting promotion at nationals this year sponsored by The Homeschool Nation. During halftime of the boys 18 and under championship game, 1 contestant will win the chance to shoot a half-court shot for 1 full year’s tuition to any college profiled on HSNATION.com . To be entered, just fill out the registration form at this link - www.HSNATION.com/nchbc -

Everyone who registers will also receive a free copy of the 2009 HSNATION.com college preparation book for homeschoolers. Register today and GOOD LUCK!!

If you have any questions about the contest, contact Luke McDonald by phone or email.

(405) 701-4008

LUKE@LMPPUBLISHING.com



T-shirts


We are planning to take t-shirt orders until March 5th. I hope that you will all take time to pre-order your t-shirts even if you plan to pay when you arrive. Here are a few questions that we are getting about t-shirts.

Question: I registered my two kids but have not received my vouchers what do I need to do? 1. You can pre-order your t-shirts and program on line by giving the name of the player you want to redeem the vouchers.
2. You can pick up vouchers at Nationals.
This year we are not mailing vouchers, this way no one will forget them at home this year.

Question: I tried to order t-shirts - I think my order went through, but it did not give me the opportunity to pay for the 2 extra shirts what should I do?
You will be sent a Google invoice and that is when you pay if you have not received your Invoice by 3/7 please e-mail us.

Question: Does the t-shirt come with the $30 registration (which I did online already) or is it another $15.00?
Each player gets a program and a $15.00 voucher which can be used toward any item. If you choose a t-shirt then it is paid in full.

Question: When do we pick up t-shirts?
All t-shirts and programs must be picked up by noon on Tuesday (no exceptions).