[rotationslim]

Tourney format not orginal to me, I inherited it, I am trying to keep making it better each year. Travel time is not really an issue, as all wards (teams) are within half hour of of the Stake Center (gym). The really nice thing about it is everybody gets to play everybody, no one sits around too long between games, and with short games, they are often close and you get all sorts of exciting finishes, there is a lot of energy in and excitement in the gym for the event.

We will start Saturday Morning at 8am with a skills (dribble, shoot, pass) competition, then 3-point shooting competition. At 9am we start this and plan to be done by 11:15am.

As for training officials, we make one player from each team stay to ref the game after theirs, (2nd games does before and after) in adult play. We don't have "called" refs, which is fine by me, why institutionalize pain on people, this way is kind of "pay to play" if you want to continue playing, you (or someone on your team) has to take a shift reffing. For young men games, I just line up adults who know how to do it.

We did official training, a single, one hour session a friday night before the season started. We did it 10pm to 11pm, as we didn't want to take people away from their kids, this way they could put them to bed, then come out. We had a major carrot, in order for a team to be eligible for post-season play they had to send at least one person to be trained. 8 of nine teams sent people. Next year we'll do it again, and hopefully get a second person on each team trained, the goal being to slowly up the quality. Obviosly in an hour you can just hit the basics, simple mechanics, commonly misunderstood rules, and house rules, but it cut down a lot on "Hey, a technical foul is only one shot" stuff.

Another nice pre-season tourney that you may want to consider is a 3-on-3 event . We have done that 2 years in a row now, traditionally the day after Christmas. We bring in a driveway type portable hoop, put it up at half court, and have 3 games going at once, we do 1 hours blocks, youth first, then crossover (family, and 1 adult & 2 kids) and adults. It is a lot of fun, and good to get out and get some exercise that time of year (we live in often snowy Michigan)

I love the thought of that traditional tourney that you got going there, that's pretty neat. Geography (and an ugly history) prevents us from doing that, ours is just within our own stake.