This should be a great day for fans of basketball, and the head to head matchup of NU and CU recruits will be fascinating.
Omaha World-Herald wrote:
High school showcase hits Omaha
Teams from Dallas, Kansas City and the Chicago area will join five teams from Nebraska and western Iowa at Qwest Center Omaha on Feb. 5 for the first Omaha Shootout.
The event consists of four back-to-back games, starting in late morning to work around the arena's prior commitment to Creighton University's evening game against Southwest Missouri State.
Game times and ticket prices will be released this afternoon as part of an official announcement.
Event promoter Keith Pickett of Columbia, Ill., said that the order of games will have Nebraska Class B No. 1 Beatrice playing the first game against Omaha Skutt, followed by Iowa 3-A No. 2 Harlan against Iowa 4-A No. 2 Sioux City East, Dallas Lincoln against Country Club Hills (Ill.) Hillcrest and Nebraska Top 10 No. 1 Bellevue West against Kansas City (Mo.) O'Hara.
It will be the first meeting between O'Hara point guard Marcus Walker, a Nebraska recruit, and Creighton-bound point guard Josh Dotzler of defending state champion Bellevue West.
Dallas Lincoln is third in the Texas 4-A rankings, Hillcrest 13th in the latest Chicago Tribune Chicago-area rankings and O'Hara is off to a 7-1 start.
"We're excited about getting this started," said Pickett, who has staged the highly successful KMOX Shootout in St. Louis since 1984. "We intend for the Shootout to become an Omaha tradition, an event basketball fans look forward to each year just as they do in St. Louis."
The St. Louis event uses the Savvis Center, where MECA President Roger Dixon worked before coming to Omaha. That relationship is one of the factors, along with the freshness of a new arena, that caused Pickett and his son, Adam, to choose Omaha over sites such as Kansas City and Indianapolis for their first expansion attempt.
No team from Nebraska or Iowa has played in the KMOX Shootout, which draws an average of 10,000 fans each year on an early December Thursday. Twenty-four NBA teams sent representatives this year. Twelve NBA All-Stars have played in the event.
Pickett said he hopes to start in Omaha with a turnout of at least 3,000. He'd like to reach the break-even point financially, too. Among his expenses will be travel, lodging and meal costs for the three most distant teams.
His intent is to stage the Omaha Shootout every year in early February, allowing enough time after the St. Louis event for proper promotion in the month following the holiday season.
Pickett attended last year's Nebraska and Iowa state tournaments to get a feel for which teams would be suitable to invite. He wanted as many as six games, including a girls matchup, but had to settle for a reduced number with the conflict in dates with CU.
"I credit (coaches) Doug Woodard at Bellevue West and Mitch Osborn at Harlan," Pickett said. "From Day One when I proposed this early last spring, they held this date open for us. I have a lot of respect for them in the way they can coach, the way their programs are and the quality people they are."
Pickett said it was 20 years between visits to Omaha. "The last time, we did a press conference when I was working for 7-Up," he said. "What a change."
"The right to have access to every building in the city by private motorcar in an age when everyone possesses such a vehicle is actually the right to destroy the city."
Lewis Mumford, The Highway and the City, 1963
It might be a great idea to let Catholic schoolchildren in for free to draw a big crowd, but where does that leave the promoter?
Rental for the Qwest Center is $25k a day. Ticket prices are $16 and $10. You do the math to find out what it would take just to break even on the arena rental, not to mention a stipend to each of the eight teams.
