It doesn’t look like there will be an easy game for anyone in the Jefferson Bank Holiday Hoops Classic.
“You know your first-round game will be a barnburner and there’s a really good chance all three of them will be as well,” Helias coach Garrett Wiggans said Wednesday during a press conference for the Classic, to be played Dec. 28-30 at Capital City High School.
Helias, at No. 4 in Class 5, is one of four ranked teams playing in the event.
The Lady Crusaders, the defending Classic champion, will open against Staley. Helias fell 46-42 to Staley, making its first appearance in the tournament, last season in the 12 Courts of Christmas in Kansas City.
Helias is 6-0 after defeating Southern Boone 66-40 on Wednesday night.
“We’ve gotten off to a good start against some very good competition,” Wiggans said. “It says a lot about our girls and how hard they’ve worked to get ready for this season.”
Gallery: Great 8 Classic/Holiday Hoops Classic Press Conference
Jefferson City, ranked No. 9 in Class 5, will start with a game against Oxford, Miss., making its first appearance in the Classic.
“The holiday tournament always is a point in your season that you make decisions on who’s in your rotation, who has sustainability to help your program and get into that mix, whether they have the guts or the heart to grit it out and the mental side to be able to see if they can mentally lock in for three days in a row,” Jefferson City coach Kay Foster said.
“It’s a process to put them in that and grit that out.”
The Classic is a key part of the season for the Lady Jays (2-1).
“We pretty well know at the holiday tournament our rotations and who our ride or die kids are,” Foster said. “This is who we are going with, this is the decisions we are making and we are rolling with it.
“It’s the measuring stick of where you’re at in that point of the season and who your ride or dies are going to be at the end of the season.”
Fatima (4-1), ranked No. 4 in Class 4, will be in the tournament for the first time since appearances in 2013-14.
“It’s a unique situation where you’re playing tough teams for three straight days without a chance to get some rest,” Fatima coach Matt Baker said. “You get to see how tough your kids are.”
Fatima opens against Hickman in the opening game of the tournament. The Lady Comets have experience playing during the holidays after taking part last year in a tournament at Rolla.
But they kept an eye on what was going on in the Classic.
“We were flying back, all of our kids, to get to Jeff City to watch the tournament,” Baker said. “It’s exciting for us to be a part of it this year.”
Capital City will start against the other ranked team in the tournament in St. Joseph Benton, ranked No. 5 in Class 4.
“We’re young and I don’t know if they really understand how special it is to play in a tournament like this,” Capital City coach Ashley Agee said. “We go in and we treat it like any other tournament and just roll. We’re looking for wins and we don’t hype it up a whole lot because sometimes if you hype something up too much it can put fear in us.”
At 1-5, the Lady Cavaliers have gotten off to a slow start this season. But that may not be a true indication of how Capital City has played.
“If you look at wins and losses, that isn’t there,” Agee said. “We’ve played three good teams that are either ranked or, two teams that are ranked in Licking and Tipton and we lost to them by 7 and 13 and last year Tipton was a 50-point ball game, Lebanon was a 50-point ball game, so we really turned it on, the kids are bought in. The win-loss record looks the same, but it looks different because they know the work they put in is right there.
“It’s just the consistency and the small things that if we can put together four quarters of basketball, we can compete against anybody.”
The Classic provides a great opportunity for all the teams.
“Especially over the holiday time, it’s an opportunity to bring the community together in one venue with basketball being the common theme that brings communities together,” Foster said.
“There’s families that comes in for the tournament that wouldn’t get to see their kids play any other time -- aunts, uncles, grandmas and grandpas -- that’s always a wonderful thing.”