Wednesday, February 21, 2001

By Rusty Bryan
Stars and Stripes

MANNHEIM, Germany — For the price of less than an hour’s minimum-wage labor, basketball fans in Europe can buy into 1,856 minutes or so of maximum effort beginning Thursday.

As part of an effort to boost security and to defray the cost of putting on the best basketball tournament in Europe, spectators will be charged to see this season’s big dance.

The tournaments, simultaneously conducted for Divisions I, II and III, begin at 9 a.m. Thursday with games at four sites —- the Benjamin Franklin Village Sports Arena and Sullivan and Coleman barracks gyms here and at nearby Heidelberg High School.

But while the games will be played at four sites, tickets, priced at $5 for adults and $2 for students and good for all three days of the tournament, will be sold only at the BFV Sports Arena. In all, 58 games are scheduled to be played between Thursday’s opening tip-off and Saturday night’s awards ceremony.

While Mannheim has been the site of every truly Europe-wide tournament except one since the school system began holding such events in 1994, this year’s festival is being hosted by the Mannheim community rather than the high school because of heightened security precautions. Access to the venues will be limited to ID-cardholders and metal detectors will be used at the doors, with community personnel assuming the workload.

Games are scheduled to begin every 90 minutes until 7:30 p.m. at all four sites on Thursday. Friday, there are seven games, beginning at 10 a.m., at each of two sites, the Sports Arena and Sullivan. Saturday’s third-place and championship games are also confined to the two venues, Sullivan and the Sports Arena.

For a while during last weekend’s regional tournaments, it looked as though there might not be any defending Division III champions at this year's season-ending hoops festival.

But the Baumholder girls rallied from a less-successful season than the Lady Bucs have grown used to and won the Division III-South regional at Illesheim, and the Bad Kreuznach Bearkat boys came back in the if-necessary game of the Division III-North regional at Alconbury to earn a chance to defend their European title here, too.

Bad Kreuznach, with scoring star Keith Walker nursing an injured wrist, dropped Saturday’s first championship game to Rota before rallying in the winner-take-all finale 74-59 and earning a spot in the four-team Division III event.

That victory means that just the defending Division II champion Mannheim girls are in danger of missing this year’s field. The Lady Bison, gutted by graduation from last year’s championship squad, are to play SHAPE at 6 p.m. Wednesday for the eighth berth in the Division II field. The boys’s elimination game between Vilseck and Black Forest Academy is to follow at 7:30 p.m. Both games are scheduled to be played at the Sport Arena here.

Because of the geographical distance between the Division III finalists and the lack of common opponents, those teams were drawn, rather than seeded, into their brackets.

In the other divisions, the Ramstein girls and Lakenheath boys earned the top seeds in Division I, with Bitburg’s defending champion boys and runner-up girls earning the top slots in Division II.

Second-seeded in Division I were the defending champion Kaiserslautern girls and Heidelberg boys, while the Patch boys and girls nailed down the second slots in Division II.

Divisions I and III will hold pool-play events, with the Lakenheath, Wiesbaden and Kaiserslautern boys on one side of the draw and Heidelberg, Ramstein and Wurzburg on the other. The girls’s event matches Ramstein, Wurzburg and Lakenheath in one pool, and Kaiserslautern, Heidelberg and Wiesbaden in the other.

Division III will hold its pool-play games on Thursday exclusively at Heidelberg High School, while the larger schools are winnowing down their field at BFV Sports Arena, Sullivan and Coleman.

Semifinal games take center state at the Sports Arena and Sullivan starting at Friday, with third-place and championship games scheduled for both those venues on Saturday.

No matter where you decide to take your seat, however, you’re sure to get your money’s worth.

RELATED STORIES:
          H.S. basketball tourney preview story
          Tournament schedule

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