The Kansas Players Elite 5th grade AAU basketball team played in the Kansas City Keys 15th Annual Basketball Invitational Tournament this past weekend. Our boys ended up winning the championship in the fifth grade division. You can look here for a summary of our weekend.

Over the years, the KC Keys tournament has become one of the premier basketball events in the Kansas City Metro area. It’s run by the Kansas City Keys, an organization dedicated to developing youth in the KC area.

As part of their program, the Keys’ consistently field very competitve boys’ and girls’ basketball teams in all age groups, and they hold several highly regarded tournaments throughout the year, which I’d definitely recommend to competitive tournament teams looking for a challenge. Overall, the quality of the competition at the Keys tournaments is very good, with several of the teams entered per age division playing basketball at a very high level. So, no matter how good you think your team is, you’ll probably find a challenger at the Keys Tournament.

The Keys Tournament games are played in several different venues around the Kansas City metro area, and the management of the tournament ensures that those venues are all pretty friendly. The tournament definitely has a down-home feel because the Keys organization pulls together their local basketball family and friends to work their tournaments.

So, if you’re interested in some good tournament action, check out the KC Keys home page for links to information on upcoming tournaments.

We’re heading to Springdale, Arkansas, this weekend for the 1st annual Arkansas Mustang Invitational, hosted by (guess who!) the Arkansas Mustangs, an elite boys’ basketball club. This tournament is by invitation only, and includes some of the best teams in youth basketball. Grades 3-7 will be represented.

Ant’s playing in the 5th grade division with the Kansas Players Elite, from Wichita, KS. There are nine teams in this division, divided into 3 pools of 3 teams each. In our pool, there’s us (obviously), the Oklahoma Storm, and the Texas Titans. We’ll be reporting back on all the scoops from this first ever Mustang Invitational.

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I have to say that the Mustangs Invitational was very well run from an operations standpoint for a first-year tournament. Since the field of teams was relatively small, all of the games were held in the same facility. That made it easy for teams to watch each other — which always builds up the excitement in a tournament. Overall, the referees were solid, which is always a plus.

The best thing about the tournament, though, was the level of competition.

As I mentioned before, there were only 9 teams in our 5th grade division. But they were quality teams: the Texas Titans, the Kansas Players Elite (us); the Arkansas Mustangs; the Houston RYTES Warriors, and the St. Louis Majestics were all in our division. The up-and-coming KC Tarheels made their regional debut at this tournament, as well.

To begin with, on Saturday, we played pool games against the OK Storm and the Texas Titans.

We beat the Storm 41-23, but I’ve got to give big props to their big man — if you’re reading this, you know who I’m talking about. This kid is amazing — and was arguably the best big man in the 5th grade division.

Our second game was against the Texas Titans, a team pretty well known in AAU basketball circles not only for their success on the basketball court, but for the fact that they’re financed (in high style) by a billionaire. There are a lot of people who hate on the Titans for both of these reasons, but I thought they were a class act. They appear to hold themselves to a very high standard, and not only on the basketball court — players, parents and coaches are all showed great sportsmanship and were a lot of fun to be around.

Back to the game. . .

Our game against the Titans ended up being a nail-biter, despite the fact that the Titans had a 15-point lead on us at one point in the game. What could have been a boring blowout turned very exciting as we battled back and ended up tying the game i42-42 with just one minute left in the game. So, it was anybody’s game as the clock wound down. Turns out it was the Titans’ game, as they beat us 46-42 in that final minute. It was a loss we couldn’t feel too bad about though, since it could have gone either way at the end.

I didn’t realize it until after the game ended, but the game had drawn quite a crowd by the time the final buzzer sounded.

Note: Fittingly enough, both the Titans and the OK Storm were staying in the same hotel as we were. That gave some of us the opportunity to meet, hang out and get to know each other a little bit. I was impressed by the people I met from both teams. Shout-outs if you’re reading, Titans and Storm!

On Sunday, we started out playing the KC Tarheels. After beating them, 48-30, we faced the St. Louis Majestics in a tough game that was marred by some real issues with the clockkeeper, who kept playing with the score and letting time run off the clock. The constant arguing over the status of the score and clock killed momentum for both teams. The Majestics pulled out the victory, though, in a pretty ugly game.

The loss to the Majestics left us at 2-2, and unable to compete for the championship. So we played our final game against the Arkansas Tigers, in a game that meant nothing in terms of the tournament standings. I didn’t have a problem with that, though, because the Tigers are a good team, and I figured that any time we spend on the court against another good team is all good.

All good, except for the fact that we lost. To a really good team. . . but still. I hate to leave a tournament with a losing record (in this case, two wins and three losses).

However. . .
See my report on the Keys Tournament for the results of our rematch with the Tigers a month after the Mustang Invitational.

So who won the Arkansas Mustang Invitational? The Texas Titans beat the Houston RYTES Warriors in the championship. Congratulations to both for making it to the championship — and congratulations to the Titans on the championship.