Today, we celebrate the holiday of a great man in the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with all kinds of community activites to remember his birthday.
A big part of the MLK birthday celebration will be two basketball events, which are presented by the St. Louis Gateway Classic Sports Foundation and local girls basketball coach George Merritt.
The Gateway Classic is presenting the 18th annual Martin Luther King Basketball Shootout at Normandy High's historic Viking Hall. The event will feature four games involving some of the area's top programs.
The first game is a girls' contest at noon featuring defending Class 3 state champion Cardinal Ritter against Northwest Academy.
At 2 p.m., Cardinal Ritter's boys will take on McCluer North in a rematch of the Normandy Holiday Tournament semifinal thriller, won by McCluer North at the buzzer. McCluer North is currently undefeated at 11-0, but their closest call came against Cardinal Ritter.
At 4 p.m., Soldan will take on Maplewood Richmond Heights as friends and former SLU basketball players Justin Tatum of Soldan and Corey Frazier of MRH match wits on the sidelines with their talented young teams.
In the nightcap at 6 p.m., host Normandy will take on McCluer. The Comets are finishing up a challenging week of five games in seven days. They won the D.C. Wilcutt Tournament at Kirkwood last week, then came back to defeat Illinois Class A power Bresse Central on Saturday night in the Coaches vs. Cancer event at the Chaifetz Arena. Normandy won the championship of the Denver Miller Tournament at Kirkwood last week. Both McCluer and Normandy defeated the host schools in the championship game.
Tickets are on sale for $12 at the door. See you there.
On the girls side, George Merritt has put together a nice four-game MLK event at North County Tech High in Florissant.
At noon, Gateway Tech will take on Cahokia in the opening game.
The second game of the event will feature Merritt's North County Tech team against McCluer North at 2 p.m.
The highlight matchup of the event will be at 2 p.m. when nationally-ranked powers Incarnate Word Academy and Chicago Whitney Young hook up in a much-anticipated showdown.
IWA is ranked No. 1 in St. Louis while Whitney Young is ranked No. 1 in Chicago. It should be quite a game.
In the finale, McCluer South Berkeley will take on Miller Career Academy at 4 p.m.
There will be another girls showdown in town today when Chicagoland power Oak Park Fenwick visits St. Joseph's Academy at 1:30 p.m. in another Chicago vs. St. Louis showdown.
So, there are plenty of good opportunities to get your basketball groove on today. Hope you take advantage of them on this special holiday.
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