The Great Alaska Shootout is an annual women's

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

tournament in

Anchorage, Alaska Anchorage, officially the Municipality of Anchorage, is the List of cities in Alaska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Alaska. With a population of 291,247 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it contains nearly 40 percent of ...

that features host University of Alaska Anchorage and three visiting NCAA Division I teams. The four-team tournament resumed in 2022 following a four-year layoff. The women's Shootout was started in 1980 and ran through 1997 as the Northern Lights Invitational, featuring either four- or eight-team fields and playing at the UAA Sports Center. Following a one-year absence, the tournament was renamed and run along with the men's Great Alaska Shootout every Thanksgiving week from 1999 to 2017. The tournament was held at Sullivan Arena from 1999 to 2013 and moved to the Alaska Airlines Center in 2014. In 2022, the four-team women's tournament was reborn with co-sponsorship by Arctic Slope Regional Corporation and ConocoPhillips Alaska.

Men's Shootout History

The University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) hosted the tournament every

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Germany. It is also observed in the Australian territory ...

from 1978 to 2017. Tournament games were played at the Alaska Airlines Center, a new arena on the UAA campus, from 2014 to 2017. Prior to that, games were played at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage from 1983 to 2013 and at Buckner Field House on Fort Richardson from 1978 to 1982. The men's tournament included eight teams (with the exception of a six-team field in 2009). The tournament was one of the longest-running tournaments in college basketball history, lasting for 40 years, and brought the highest level of basketball to Alaska. The Shootout was held

weekend. Under

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

(NCAA) rules, teams are normally limited to approximately 28 regular-season games. However, games in "exempted events," traditionally played early in the season, are not counted against that limit. The most recent policy from the NCAA in this regard allows all teams to play in one exempted event per season. Those teams who choose to take advantage of that opportunity may play up to thirty-one games per season, including games played in those exempted events but excluding postseason tournament games. A previous version of the rule allowed for all games played outside the United States mainland to be exempt from the then-27-game limit. This version was partly responsible for the genesis of tournaments such as Great Alaska Shootout. The Great Alaska Shootout began in 1978 as the brainchild of former UAA men's basketball coach Bob Rachal. Raycom Sports first picked up the broadcast rights to the tournament in 1979, and ESPN began broadcasting it in 1985. On August 26, 2017, it was announced that the 2017 Shootout would be the last. The University of Alaska Anchorage stopped funding it as newer tournaments were drawing away top teams to warmer locations.

Past champions, runners-up and MVPs

Men's tournament

The following table indicates the winners, runners-up and tournament

most valuable player In team sports, a most valuable player (MVP) award is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particular competition, or ...

s (MVPs).

Women's tournament

The following table indicates the winners, runners up and tournament MVPs. ¹Tournament was played in a round robin format.
²The tournament was moved to earlier in the season beginning in the 1994–95 season; hence the first 1994 tournament corresponds to the 1993–94 season and the second tournament to the 1994–95 season.

References

External links

Great Alaska Shootout home page
{{NCAA women's college basketball tournament navbox 1978 establishments in Alaska 2017 disestablishments in Alaska Alaska Anchorage Seawolves basketball Basketball in Alaska Sports in Anchorage, Alaska Sports competitions in Alaska College basketball competitions College men's basketball competitions in the United States College women's basketball competitions in the United States Recurring sporting events established in 1978 Recurring sporting events disestablished in 2017 Women's sports in Alaska