After strong start to the season by UAA women, competition will get tougher at the Great Alaska Shootout

The revived Great Alaska Shootout serves a number of purposes for the UAA women’s basketball program.

It’s a recruiting tool and a competitive barometer for the Seawolves — but most of all it’s a showcase for Alaska.

The Shootout returns Friday and Saturday for its third edition since a four-year hiatus from 2018-2021.

UAA head coach Ryan McCarthy believes the atmosphere should be vibrant with an Alaska Native art fair in the Alaska Airlines Center pavilion and three Division I teams joining the Seawolves on the floor.

“That’s what my vision for bringing the Shootout back was,” McCarthy said. “It was so that we could showcase the many cultures of Alaska and make it an Alaskan basketball tournament, rather than just a tournament that was in Alaska.”

UAA will take on Troy (1-4) at 7:30 p.m. in Friday’s first round, while North Dakota State (2-1) will tip off with Vermont (3-2) at 5:15 p.m.

The Seawolves have had a strong start to the early season, going 6-1 with a handful of blowout wins. But going against this level of experience will be a new challenge.

“It’s always a fun challenge for us to be able to compete against Division I teams,” McCarthy said. “When you play a level up, so many more things get exposed about what your weaknesses are, because they’re going to be a little bit taller than you, they’re going to be a little bit faster.”

Starting guard Emilia Long has been among the Seawolves players with strong starts to the season. She was named Great Northwest Athletic Conference Player of the Week earlier this month. Long’s backcourt mate Elaina Mack has shown an explosive side, averaging 17.7 points per game in the young season. That scoring mark is good for fifth in the conference so far. UAA senior center Tori Hollingshead has reached double figures in scoring in five of seven games so far.

With the conference season just two weeks away, McCarthy expects this weekend to be a proving ground for his players.

“We learn more about our team at the Shootout than we do at any other point in the season,” McCarthy said. “We know what to fix moving forward or what to focus on.”

The Seawolves, who have thrived in a fast-paced environment under McCarthy, have been able to showcase their depth in the early going. In a commanding 91-36 win over Biola on Monday, six UAA players scored in double figures and 10 scored in total.

“It’s a trademark of our program,” McCarthy said. “I think we recruit to that as well. We’ll play 10 or 11 deep every game and that’s something we’ve done for the last 12 years. It’s who we are. It’s the program and how we run our system.”

The tournament is also a major opportunity for the Seawolves, a potential career highlight to play in a tournament that has a decades-long history against top-tier competition.

“All the girls that came to play here, they were aware that this is something that UAA does,” McCarthy said. “It’s unlike any tournament in the nation on the women’s side. And I think that’s a big factor too, because everybody wants their chance to compete at the highest level.”

Last year was a big Shootout, with Utah’s Alissa Pili returning home to Anchorage to be part of the weekend. While Utah was a major program, McCarthy believes the tournament has found a sweet spot drawing interest from mid-major Division I teams.

“I think that’s kind of where the niche of this tournament is going to be,” he said. “Every now and then, we’ll be able to land some Power Four (conferences) type of team. But these teams are really good teams, and it’s perfect timing because the popularity of women’s basketball has grown so much, and there’s more eyes on the sport now. Some of the mid-major teams now are going to be a lot more popular come March.”

Saturday’s games will see the losers of Friday’s games playing at 6:15 p.m. and the championship featuring Friday’s two winning teams will tip at 8 p.m.

The UAA team has won eight Shootout titles in its history dating back to 1980. The men’s tournament, discontinued after 2017, started in 1978.