UCLA Native Basketball Tourney

The 19th Annual UCLA Native basketball tournament isn’t just about playing basketball. Its also chance for student athletes from around the world to visit the college and maybe take interest in attending the college. Before any games have been played, athletes have to go to attend classes that teach Native Culture. All the players have to attend four classes and at the end of each class there paper gets signed by the teacher. They have multiple classes some were about science, how land has evolved through tribes over time, sports class learning old native sports, and why people view the way they do.

This years Basketball Tourney was something special, there was a lot of teams in the tournament this year because of what they were rewarding the top two teams. This year the championship game was to be played in the John Wooden Center. Bishop went with a pretty solid team and solid bench that played hard and showed a lot of sportsmanship. Bishop only won 1 game but it was a great experience for the other athletes that went with the Bishop team for the first time.

The first game Bishop played against was Red Storm, Bishop stuck with them through the first half but the second half they pulled away winning by about 20 points.

Second game was played against IMBC and they were also a tough opponent. It was a close game in the first and second half, both Bishop and IMBC were trading baskets back and forth but around 5 min left in the second half Bishop started to pull away and started playing with great intensity and that helped Bishop get the dub by 20 pts.

The third game Bishop played was against their rival from last year, Sherman. Sherman always has a good team, they’re a private Native school that focuses a large amount of time on basketball. Bishop knew they were gonna be a tough team. In the 1st half Bishop did great Sherman was only leading by about 8, then the second half came around and Bishop was still putting up a good fight. However, Sherman was able to pull away from Bishop and they ended up winning by about 20 points. The loss to Sherman put Bishop out of the tournament and for some of us knowing it was our last year to get to play in the tournament was tough. However, we had a good run and definitely have some memories.

Bishop’s starting five lineup was Mikey Molina, Tommy Ruelas, Kanyon Martinez, Hunter Waasdorp, and Zay Anderson. After Bishop took an L the team decided to watch other games and took a trip to the Santa Monica Pier and checked out the beach. The team got to see a couple of street performances and enjoyed the stay in LA. All in all it was a great basketball tournament and the ones that are graduating this year, who played this tournament for the last time, will definitely miss it, I know I will.