Tim Martinez: Tournaments always seem to invite TBD

Welcome to holiday basketball tournament time, a time when one opponent seems to dominate the schedules of local basketball teams.

No, it isn’t Camas or Union or Skyview or Columbia River or Hockinson or La Center or King’s Way.

It’s TBD.

It’s always fun to go to a school website and find that a local team is playing in a holiday basketball tournament this week. And seems like everyone is playing the same team.

TBD.

We have a lot of teams playing in holiday tournaments this week. Here’s a sampling.

• Skyview boys at the Thomas Jefferson Holiday Tournament in Federal Way.

• Battle Ground boys at the Cactus Jam in Phoenix, Ariz.

• Evergreen boys at the MaxPreps Holiday Classic in Palm Springs, Calif.

• Columbia River boys at the Lake City Invitational in Coeur d’Alene.

• Seton Catholic boys at the Ilwaco Holiday Tournament.

• Skyview girls at the Nike Interstate Shootout in Lake Oswego, Ore.

• Prairie girls at the West Coast Jamboree Gold bracket in Antioch, Calif.

• Evergreen, La Center, Camas, Woodland and Battle Ground at the Hoops on the Holiday at Evergreen High.

• Columbia River girls at the Astoria (Ore.) Tournament.

Now, you’ll see in our high school schedule this week that many of our local teams are playing “TBD.” In some cases, that’s because the opponent has not been determined because the tournament is bracket-style play.

But in other cases, it’s because the matchups simply haven’t been shared.

Many coaches who host these tournaments haven’t figured out there is this thing called the Internet, and on the Internet there are things called websites. And you can put information about your tournament on those “websites” for everyone to see.

At least I’m not alone in my frustration.

I saw my colleagues at the Seattle Times tweeted to one coach “Are you hosting a holiday tournament next week.”

“Yes,” was the reply.

“OK, can you send us a schedule?” the Times tweeted back.

The reply was “Yes. Our tournament is Monday and Tuesday.”

OK, that DOESN’T help.

So we’re doing our best to run down schedules so you can know when and where your favorite team is playing this week.

And once we do that, we’ve only won half the battle.

The other half comes when our local coaches actually remember to call in the results from their games.