AN INVITATION FROM THE CHAIR
This year has been one for the history books in our country, our state, our communities and our schools. As the Covid-19 pandemic spreads across the nation, we’ve learned to adjust how we live, work and play.
At this time every year for the past 18 years, the Pasadena community and our partners in Deer Park community have hosted the McDonald’s Texas Invitational Basketball Tournament (MTI), welcoming 80 boy’s and girl’s basketball teams to our area to play in Texas’ most prestigious high school tournament this side of the state championships.
Covid-19 broke that tradition this year. We received word this summer that the University Interscholastic League mandated that no basketball tournaments would be played in the 2020-21 season as a way of protecting the health and safety of players, coaches and fans. As disappointing as that decision was, it was the right call.
Since living and working in the virtual world is a new norm for this pandemic season, the MTI Steering Committee decided to go virtual with this year’s McDonald’s Texas Invitational. Over the course of the next three days, I’d like to invite you to attend the Virtual MTI.
Here’s how it works. We found an on-line NCAA Game Simulator. Plug in two college teams, click a button and the program simulates the game in seconds, providing an outcome based on team stats and tendencies.
As they do each year, a panel of Texas basketball experts ranked our planned tournament teams for seeding, dividing our teams into Division I and Division II. We pulled the 2019 NCAA Division I basketball rankings and assigned our ranked tournament teams to a college team with the same rank. For instance, the top seed in our tournament was paired with Kansas, the top team in ESPN’s ranking prior to March Madness...and so on.
We built our MTI pool play schedule just like we ordinarily do. Using the simulator, we let pool play results place our teams in their respective Gold, Silver and Bronze brackets. Then, we continued running our games through the simulator until all bracket games were played and champions in each division and bracket were named.
We will not release the results of pool play. The only hint you’ll get of how your team fared will be each team’s placement in the Gold, Silver or Bronze brackets. At 6 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 19, we will post the brackets for boy’s and girl’s Division I and Division II. At 6 p.m., Friday, Nov. 20, you can see the results of the first round of bracket play. Then, at 6 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 21, we will post the second round and the championship games.
There will be no trophies. No glory. Hopefully, you’ll have a little fun and enjoy some good-natured bragging rights if your team wins. We think it will be a fun experience to remind us of what might have been.
Join us through the process and root for your team. May the computer be kind to you all.
Covid-19 kicked all of us this year, but with faith in our medical community, it will be a distant memory next November when the 2021 McDonald’s Texas Invitational returns to the courts of our community.
In the meantime, on behalf of the McDonald’s Texas Invitational, Steering Committee, stay safe and stay well. We’ll see you all next year.
Sincerely,
Kirk Lewis
MTI Chair