Jamaica Classic NCAA basketball tournament gets underway
ST JAMES, Jamaica – The Jersey Mike’s Jamaica Classic NCAA men’s basketball tournament will get underway Friday morning at the Montego Bay Convention Centre with four games featuring eight Division One programmes.
Eight games will be over the weekend, four on Friday and another four on Sunday’s final day with the teams separated in two sections.
Former NCAA champions Georgetown University, coached by Jamaican-born former NBA star Patrick Ewing, are among the teams competing in the tournament. The other teams are Loyola Marymount University, Wake Forest, University of Queens, University of Wisconsin at Green Bay, La Salle University, Utah Valley and Morgan State University.
The tournament, which was first held here in 2017, is being played in the country for the first time since 2019 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year’s staging was held in Jacksonville, Florida because Jamaica had not lifted restrictions at the time.
Jacob Ridenhour, the event’s organiser said all was in place for another exciting weekend of basketball.
“The venue is all squared away,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.
“Everything is looking great which is most important so the fans can have an experience and feel like they are in a whole different venue so to speak.”
The floor of the court is stored in Jamaica but Ridenhour said most of what will be used were brought into the country.
“It’s not what you are used to seeing in Jamaica, we bring a lot of the stuff in from the States; we are one day away from the start but we are six days into set up, we have been here working since Friday.”
He said they were eager to start.
“We are excited, we have a bunch of new people on my crew so they are thrilled to death, the teams are getting in and they are enjoying their experience, they had a great experience at the airport, their flights were good and they are impressed with how Jamaica has treated them since they got off the airplane.”
Asked which team he thinks will win the tournament, Ridenhour said: “It’s always interesting at an event like this – someone who you are not expecting to play well, does well and someone who you expect to do well does not.
“But I would expect on Friday that Wake Forest and Georgetown win and we will see them play on Sunday, and of the other four teams, I would expect to see Utah Valley and Queens but I hope it is Green Bay.”
Friday’s games-
Queens vs Green Bay- 11:30am
Lasalle vs Wake Forest- 2:30pm
Loyola Marymount vs Georgetown- 4:30pm
Utah Valley vs Morgan State 7:00pm