It was a great weekend of hoops at Mountain View High School as the 2nd Annual Northwest Premier Invitational took place Friday and Saturday, May 6-7. Fans and college coaches got a chance to see a lot of future Division I and II players along with NAIA and junior college level kids.
Click here to see the final brackets
Click here to see the list of college coaches in attendance
Click here to see some of the media coverage the tournament received
In the end, CSI Elite Camp June 6-8 took the 17U title, defeating the top team from the Eastern Washington Elite club. It was payback for the team coached by assistant coaches from the College of Southern Idaho. The teams had played earlier in pool play with Eastern Washington Elite coming out on top.
The CSI Elite Camp team (which was named after the elite camp that is hosted at the College of Southern Idaho each June) was made up of players from around the northwest including three players from Seattle, two players from Montana, three players from Wyoming and two players from Idaho. For Head Coach Colby Blaine, the most difficult part was developing immediate chemistry amongst this group of players that had never played together. “These guys overcame some early missteps, learned from them and used them to make themselves a better team, “said the coach. “They truly did a remarkable job.”
For the 16U bracket, it was two local teams that wound up in the championship game, Hoop Dreams and Idaho Select Blue. Both teams had to beat Spokane Pump N’ Run (ranked #24 in the nation according to Five Star Basketball) to make it to the finals. Hoop Dreams put on a dominant performance and left as the 2011 16U Champions.
In the 15U bracket, Eastern Washington Elite cruised to the finals where they knocked off Idaho Select Green.