BLOOMFIELD - To no surprise, the Dexter Bearcats received the top seed in the 48th Annual Bloomfield Christmas Tournament, which is scheduled to start tomorrow morning.
Dexter, winners of six straight Bloomfield championships, enter the tournament with a 4-2 record and were ranked as high as No. 2 in the state in Class 4.
The Bearcats' top competition could come from any number of teams, so says Portageville coach Jim Bidewell, whose team garnered the No. 2 seed.
"I think it's probably more even this year through the top eight than it's ever been," said Bidewell. "A lot of the coaches were talking and they felt the same way. There's a lot of teams on an even keel whereas before you had the top three and then it dropped off quite a bit after that. This is as deep a tournament as there's been since I've been coaching."
Bidewell's opinion is echoed when looking at some of the teams involved, including East Prairie, which is seeded 10th but owns a 5-2 record -- its best start in several years.
"You look at East Prairie at No. 10, they're capable of doing something," said Bidewell. "They've got a couple nice guards that can play with any of them."
But many observers feel that Bidewell's Bulldogs pose the biggest threat at snapping the Dexter streak.
Portageville enters with a 5-0 mark and haven't really been challenged since a close victory against Kennett.
All-state guard Willie Hassell leads a balanced attack alongside senior classmates Jordan Penn, Jimmy Larry and Antonio Scott.
"I know we're seeded first but a lot of people think Portageville is pretty solid this year," said Dexter coach Eric Sitze. "We're just going to approach it the same way we have the last three years. Take it one game at a time."
Dexter is led this season by 6-foot-5 senior swingman Chris Guethle, who averages 17 points per game.
Six-foot-five senior Anthony Elfrink follows at 14 points per game.
"It's Dexter's tournament -- kind of the Dexter Invitational.," said Bidewell. "That's the way it's been the last five or six years. They're still the champs until someone knocks them off. They got the No. 1 seed and deservedly so. They've got a nice squad and their coach does a great job with them and always has them prepared. They're definitely the team everybody has to go for."
Dexter will play 16th-seeded Greenville to kick off the tournament at 10 a.m.
Portageville will play 15th-seeded Bloomfield at 11:15 a.m. East Prairie will have a tough first round game as they play undefeated Van Buren, which is seeded seventh.
"Van Buren is tough and they've been beating up on everybody so we know we're going to have a tough game that first round," said East Prairie coach Jason Irby. "We're just trying to look at that first game. I don't know anything beyond that. We just want to win that first game. We haven't had a lot of success in the tournament. You can't win the tournament unless you win that first game, so we're just trying to see if we can win a game and then we'll take it from there."
East Prairie's solid start has been largely due to the play of Preston Shoemaker, who leads the team with 14 ppg. Sharp-shooter Jordan Sanders and Ben Walters both follow up with 11 ppg.
For Portageville, Bidewell is trying to turn around a trend of not playing well in the tournament -- the Bulldogs haven't won a Bloomfield championship since 1992.
"We've got to play four good ballgames and in year's past it really hasn't been a tournament that we've been able to put together for four nights in a row other than the early '90s," said Bidewell. "There's a lot of people that have got a lot of gray hairs since then. Regardless of winning that thing, it's always good to get in that atmosphere midway through the season. It gets everybody excited about the season. To me it's really the beginning of the season. It kind of kicks everything off. Everybody gets to see your team and you get to see everybody else."
Other teams that will look to unseat Dexter are third-seeded Twin Rivers, surprising fourth-seeded South Pemiscot and fifth-seeded Doniphan, which features 6-foot-10 Matt Rogers. But Dexter is once again the favored team to run the table for the seventh straight year.
"I really do think they play better on that floor and I've heard several others say that," said Bidewell. "They play better there than even their home floor sometimes. The atmosphere is always great and they're right next door to Bloomfield. They seem to put it together right there at that time of the year. I don't know. That's quite a record they have going, especially considering the teams that have been in that. That's really an outstanding feat that they've done. I'm not sure if it will ever be done again."