It's perhaps the greatest testament to the young tournament.
Days before its Elite 8, area girls' basketball coaches and players seem to agree that the 20-team South Jersey Invitational Basketball Tournament is still in its infancy.
"I think it's impressive how successful it's been in just three years," Rancocas Valley coach Anthony Corrado said of the tournament that began last week and will play its Elite 8 games (yet to be decided) Saturday and Sunday at Kingsway.
"It's run really well, and it keeps growing every year. I think it's a great thing. And if more and more South Jersey teams continue to buy into it, which I expect will happen, it could really be a way to crown a true South Jersey champion."
The future of the SJIBT looks increasingly like that of the Coaches Tournament in soccer or the Carpenter Cup in baseball. Like those competitions, tournament director Mike Hallahan sees the SJIBT title evolving into the area's crown jewel, a prize just a notch below a state title.
In many ways, it already has reached that point. Nine of the field's 20 teams have made appearances in The Inquirer's South Jersey rankings this season. The current top three teams - No. 1 Rancocas Valley, No. 2 Willingboro, and No. 3 Delran - are the top three seeds in the tournament.
The field is already set to expand to 24 next season. And, more practically, coaches and players look at the SJIBT as something of a dress rehearsal for the state tournament, a gauge of where their team is less than a month before the state playoffs.
"Being in that tournament last year, in front of a packed gym, against quality opponents in that one-and-done-type atmosphere, helped prepare us for the playoffs, no question," said Corrado, whose Red Devils won last year's SJIBT before winning the state Group 4 title.
"It's always a great atmosphere, the crowds are always into it, and the whole idea really lends itself to this sport. When you have a field of quality teams in basketball, usually any team can win on a given night."
Corrado sees the tournament as a positive not just for his team, but also for all of South Jersey girls' basketball - particularly if it eventually lands the likes of the Cape-Atlantic teams, which Hallahan said have been unable to enter because of scheduling restrictions. Teams in the Lenape School District are also conspicuously absent from the brackets.
But for Hallahan, that's just part of the maturation of a tournament that already has been overwhelmingly successful.
