Hub City Classic continues for 12th year

The Hub City Classic begins for the 12th time on Friday at Liberty Tech as 16 basketball teams converge on Jackson for three more days of high school basketball before 2024 ends.

The Classic is a fundraiser for Area Relief Ministries.

It's a three-day event that features eight games per day as there are two eight-team tournaments happening simultaneously - one boys and one girls.

"This has become a nice tradition for us, and a quality fundraiser too," said Fred McKinnie, the executive director for ARM. "All money paid in admission at the gate goes to Area Relief Ministries, and all money paid at the concession stand goes to Liberty, who we appreciate for hosting the tournament the last few years."

The girls' tournament is made of teams all from rural West Tennessee - Chester County, Covington, Crockett County, Humboldt, Jackson Central-Merry, Liberty, North Side and Trinity Christian.

"Some of those teams like Crockett, Liberty, North Side and TCA have all been with us nearly every year, or every year possibly," McKinnie said. "The others like JCM and Humboldt and Chester County, they've been in it a few times here and there.

"We're glad to have Covington join us this year."

The boys' tournament has some from rural West Tennessee, a lot from Memphis and Shelby County and one new team from Middle Tennessee - Fairley, First Assembly Christian School, Liberty, Memphis Central, Middleton, Rockvale, Trezevant and Union City.

"Liberty is always a good team, and Middleton and Union City are both good enough to be in the running to get to state more years than not," McKinnie said. "Then the four teams from Memphis are all good.

"FACS nearly won state last year. Fairley has a really good team, Central is good and Trezevant is tough this year too. Then Rockvale is a fairly new school in Murfreesboro, so we're glad to have them come in."

Tickets are $10, and that will be good enough to watch games all day.

"It's going to be a good weekend of games for us on Friday and Saturday and then coming back on Monday for the finals for everybody," McKinnie said. "It should be a fun time."

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news