This past week the annual Canisius High School 3v3 Basketball Tournament was held in the Kennedy Field House. Carson Kruk ‘21 ran the tournament. The original 30 teams narrowed down to only eight on Wednesday, March 5. Team GRIT won the championship in an exciting final matchup in overtime. Team GRIT consisted of Mike Barnes ‘20, Roland Snyder ‘20, Grant Taylor ‘20, and Troy Toohey ‘20.

Carson, as the head of the tournament, got to decide which organization would receive the money raised from registration, and he chose Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo. The reason why he chose this cause was because he frequently volunteers for Yroswell, a team of high school and college students who strive for a cancer-free world. Out of the the 30 teams that competed, $960.00 was raised in total.

A specific set of rules was developed for the 3v3 format. Teams were limited to a maximum of four players so they could use one substitute if needed. The winner of each game would have to either out-score their opponent in 15 minutes or score 15 points before their adversary. Fouls still applied, and each player was limited to four fouls. During one of the semifinal games, team BGT was down to only one player and faced a three-on-one situation due to foul trouble. Even with one player to defend his three opponents, BGT managed to keep their opponent to a one point win.

Despite the specific rules put in place, there were some controversies. One regarding time keeping and the other was about whether which team should get possession of the ball first in overtime. Since the first team who scored in overtime would clinch the victory, it was difficult to determine a way to fairly decide on which team would receive possession first. During the final, team GRIT and team Vicious + Delicious ended up in a jump ball situation to decide upon possession.

The tournament began years ago as a fundraiser for SADD, or, Students Against Drunk Driving. The event was held at Canisius for eight years and was popular and successful. The tournament took a two year break though before a group of seniors last school year brought it back to Canisius. Carson ran into an opportunity to run the tournament after last year's seniors graduated. Both Carson and faculty moderator Mrs. Hogan wanted to continue the basketball theme because of its popularity in past years with the students.

The final was incredibly exciting as it looked liked team Vicious + Delicious was going to win heading into the the final minute. Team GRIT scored with seconds to spare. Team Vicious + Delicious had one more chance to score but came up short and the game moved into overtime. After a couple minutes of controversy, it was decided that a jump ball would decide who received first possession. Team GRIT won the jump ball and drove down to the basket to score and become the 2020 3v3 Basketball Tournament champions.

Click here to see more photos and video from the tournament.