Tournaments, Tournaments, Tournaments!!!  Only the hotdogs are the same. by Jack Brown for the Pennsylvania Basketball Website(December 2003)

Tis the season! Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday, regardless of your political correctness, it is the time of the year for basketball tournaments, basketball tournaments, and still more basketball tournaments. 
However, in a number of other venues across Pennsylvania, some tournaments only have three teams.  They could not even fill out a four team tournament. 
There are also more out of state tournaments in Florida, Nevada, and even Hawaii..  What gains you an invitation? Raise the money to fly your team and put your team up in a hotel.  Almost anyone can go.
It harkens a thought back to the days in Pennsylvania when Johnstown hosted their War Memorial Tournament and brought in the strongest teams possible, to the days in Altoona when they brought in Rice of New York City and St. Johns of Washington, D.C. to the Jaffa Mosque.  Truth or fiction: back in the day, the only three team tournament was held to bring Wilt Chamberlain's Overbrook High School to play. Philadelphia rules at the time prevented his team from playing two nights in a row.  So if you wanted the "wonder of the basketball world," you brought Overbrook in only to play in the finals
At  tournaments, the hotdogs are the same today, mustard, ketchup, maybe even relish as the condiments of choice.  But   today, the choice of teams and great match-ups, have been eroded by the competition for Pennsylvania teams from tournaments outside the state.