Missing The Great Alaska Shootout
Among my dad’s impressive collection of VHS tapes I repeatedly watched growing up was Memories ‘88, a documentary chronicling the University of Arizona’s run to its first-ever Final Four in the 1987-88 season.
Aside from the jarring reminder of how much less aggressive record companies were about enforcing copyright laws — Memories ‘88 includes dozens of ‘80s hits that I’m certain went unpaid for royalties — the other most staggering element is the emphasis the documentary places on the Great Alaska Shootout.
Arizona’s trip to Anchorage for the Thanksgiving weekend tournament is touted as a pivotal moment in the program’s ascent from Pac-10 Conference dark horse to national championship contender.
Viewed with the benefit of hindsight and through that lens, the 1987 Great Alaska Shootout is thus the launching pad that built one of college basketball’s most prominent programs of the last three decades — and that’s somehow only the second biggest storyline to come out of the tournament that year. It’s difficult to top Glen Rice allegedly smashing with Sarah Palin.
While an in-house produced documentary might be prone to as much hyperbole as a National Enquirer-esque recounting of a 25-year-old fling, there’s undeniable significance of Arizona’s ‘87 Great Alaska Shootout.
The Wildcats routed Rice’s Michigan team in the semifinal. That same Wolverines bunch earned a No. 3 seed in the 1988 NCAA Tournament and, a year later featuring essentially the same lineup, won the national championship.
In the title game, Arizona beat a No. 1-ranked Syracuse with Derrick Coleman, Rony Seikaly and Sherman Douglas that, a few months earlier, was a Keith Smart jumper away from winning the Final Four.
Ironically, the Associated Press lamented the 1987 Great Alaska Shootout field as “its weakest field ever.”
Brother, you have no clue how good you had it.
Because of Memories ‘88, I associated the Great Alaska Shootout with the best of college basketball’s early-season tournaments in my formative years, even if its glory days apparently preceded me.
From its inaugural season in 1978, when NC State beat Louisville in the championship, to the Arizona-Syracuse championship of 1987, the Great Alaska Shootout featured such noteworthy finalists as an NC State fresh off its last national title in ‘83; a Brad Daughtery-led North Carolina team beating a Jerry Tarkanian-coached UNLV bunch with Mark Wade and Armen Gilliam; and Reggie Lewis leading the first post-Jim Calhoun era Northeastern squad to the championship round.
Even in the ‘90s when I was a kid first getting into the sport, the Great Alaska Shootout still hosted some great teams. With such participants as National Player of the Year Glenn Robinson and Purdue, the Vince Carter-Antawn Jamison Tar Heels, and the ‘98-’99 Duke juggernaut playing Kenyon Martin’s Cincinnati Bearcats, I held the Great Alaska Shootout in the same esteem as the Maui Invitational and the Preseason NIT1.
Even into the early 2000s, the Great Alaska Shootout delivered great games. Dwyane Wade leading Marquette past Dan Dickau and Gonzaga2 offered me, visiting my parents as a college freshman, a welcome reprieve from Miami beating the absolute piss out of Washington3 in football that same night.
Staying up late on Thanksgiving Eve to tune into the Shootout’s opening round became a childhood tradition. The championship game signaled the unofficial end of the holiday weekend for me, one last great college basketball game in which to indulge like the final slice of pecan pie.
Even after ESPN abandoned the Great Alaska Shootout and the quality of the tournament’s fields plummeted commensurate with its move to CBS Sports Network, I remained committed. Its closure a few years ago leaves a hole in Thanksgiving weekend none of the dozens of new tournaments in sunnier destinations have been able to fill.
The rich history of the Great Alaska Shootout is a quintessential example of ESPN missing the boat not opening up more of its vast library as part of its digital property. Since the launch of WWE Network in 2014, and its subsequent move to Peacock in the past year, I’ve made a tradition of watching one of the old National Wrestling Alliance Starrcade shows from the ‘80s, which were staged on Thanksgiving night.
In that same vein, I would love to be able to visit some of the historic Great Alaska Shootout games that made the tournament one of college basketball’s best for more than two decades.
The Preseason NIT is another tournament that was once the benchmark for early-season basketball, but has become a complete afterthought in the current generation.
The 2001-02 Gonzaga team is the first Zags squad I contend had transcended Cinderella status and become heels. Mark Few pretty shamelessly politicked for NCAA Tournament seeding that year, complained on Selection Sunday about being a 6 before citing the previous three years’ deep runs, then the Zags proceeded to lose in the 1st Round to Wyoming.
My college friends and I LOVED that Miami team. With Arizona being pretty bad in the first year of the dismal John Mackovic tenure, The U became our adoptive team to occupy some time on Saturdays. However, the receipt Miami gave a good Washington team for the Whammy in Miami made for a boring viewing experience as an 18-year-old away from his drinking buddies.