LOIBC returns

While the Iditarod sled dog race is in full swing, Nome basketball fans look forward to welcoming back the Lonnie O’Conner Iditarod Basketball Tourney or LOIBC.

After the COVID-19 pandemic either canceled or forced restrictions on the tourney, the LOIBC is back strong with 37 teams set to participate.

“I’m happily surprised with the turnout we have this year,” says Kimberly O’Conner Gooden, LOIBC event coordinator and daughter of Lonnie O’Conner the founder of the tourney. O’Conner Gooden went on to explain how the tournament was set to host 39 teams in 2020, before it got cancelled due to COVID-19. The tournament found its feet again in March 2022, hosting 27 teams in four divisions. O’Conner Gooden explains that, then, the event was still surrounded by the numerous COVID-19 safety restrictions.

Now, the tournament is back in its full glory.

O’Conner Gooden said that this year’s tourney will be comprised of five divisions: the Ladies’ B, the Men’s B, the Ladies’ Open, the Men’s Open, and the Men’s Over 35. The teams playing in the B tournaments are smaller and communitybased and players must be from the same Native Regional Corporation area. Open team members can be from anywhere. O’Conner Gooden says this year’s tourney features players from places such as Kotlik, Kotzebue, and Anchorage.

The tournament will be held in the Nome Recreation Center from March 12 through March 18. The LOIBC has a Facebook page which will soon feature the brackets for the games.

O’Conner Gooden said this year’s tourney really celebrates the way that communities really came together to help each other during COVID-19 and then again during Merbok.

This year’s t-shirts highlights that theme. O’Conner Gooden said the team of planners had so much to say about the support that Alaska communities showed each other that they couldn’t “fit all the words on the tshirt.” They finally came up with the motto “togetherness brings strength” on one side of the shirt, and then “Alaska strong” on the other. “People coming together to work through (COVID-19 and Merbok), that brings strength to the team,” O’Conner Gooden said.

Besides the t-shirts, participants can also get concessions (such as reindeer dogs), courtesy of Alaska Missions, who give a donation to the Bering Sea Women’s group.

O’Conner said the participants in the tourney, both on the court and in the bleachers, really look forward to the event. She said the tourney is something that people come back to year after year. “It’s hard to do certain things outside with how cold our winters are,” O’Conner said. The tourney gives them something to do in a warm environment while Nome waits for the mushers to come through the burled arch. It gives them a way to celebrate the springtime and “the coming out of winter.”

“People are hungry to do stuff and be together again. We missed that through COVID,” O’Conner Gooden said. “47 years of fun loving basketball, where friendships begin. Let’s play ball!”