54 teams compete at ROTC basketball tourney

  • Published
  • By Alexandra Hanson
  • Notre Dame Air Force ROTC Detachment 225
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AFPN) --  Cadets on 54 basketball teams, representing Air Force, Army and Navy ROTC detachments across America, played in the 19th Flying Irish Basketball Invitational here Feb. 4 to 6. The tournament is the nation’s largest athletic ROTC event.

The 5-on-5 tournament featured 39 men’s and 15 women’s teams set in brackets named after significant figures or aspects of University of Notre Dame history. The Rockne, Gipper, Four Horsemen and Lou brackets pay homage to football legends at Notre Dame. The Domer bracket refers to the campus’ famed Golden Dome and the nickname given to all who live beneath it.

“(The invitational is) always a lot of fun,” said Cadet Raphael Carranza, from the University of Miami at Ohio. “The other teams are good, and we get to know each other’s faces.”

Some teams were focused on winning while others were more intent on just having a great time.

“We’re definitely here for fun. We lost our first game by thirty and our second by … I can’t even count that high,” said Cadet Phillip Turner, from the University of Kentucky.

When it came down to the playoff and the championship games, the remaining teams were all business. Adding to the excitement, the championship games are played on Notre Dame’s home basketball court.

In the women’s championship game South Dakota State University Air Force beat Marquette University Army, 26-23. Notre Dame’s Air Force A-Team defended their men’s championship title with a victory over Virginia Polytechnical Institute, 31-23.

The tournament also featured a 3-point shoot-out and a cadre bracket. Elizabeth Harding, from SDSU, won the women’s 3-point shoot-out while Notre Dame’s Tim Kogge took the men’s title.

The cadre bracket features teams composed of three cadre members from different schools. The champions of this year's cadre bracket were Scott Coge, Charlie Balliette, and George Dowdy, dubbed “Team B.”

The tournament’s most valuable players were chosen by their peers. The female MVP was Tiffany Bilderback from Marquette Army, and the male MVP was Purdue University Navy’s Roland Palmer.

The Colonel Moe Award is presented to the men's and women's team that demonstrates good sportsmanship, hustle, pride, and consistent bearing and professionalism throughout the tournament. Col. Tom Moe, for whom the award is named, was on hand to present the award to the University of Kansas Army women and the VPI men. Colonel Moe was a distinguished ROTC graduate from the detachment here and was a former Vietnam prisoner of war.