‘Who’s the baddest?:’ Tribes come from near, far to compete in Battle of the Nations basketball tournament

Some players flew 3,000 miles to Spokane and others drove from around the corner. Some are fresh out of high school and others have years of professional basketball experience.

The sixth annual Battle of the Nations basketball tournament this weekend drew hundreds of Native American hoopers to the area fighting for tribe basketball supremacy. A women’s bracket was created for the first time this year.

“Before we get too old, we want to make a run and see if we can at least put our tribe on the map and show that we got some bona fide hoopers in Indian Country,” said Tony Louie, a 33-year-old from one of the men’s Colville Tribe teams.

The full-court, 5-on-5 tournament tipped off Friday, with the 64 men’s teams playing at the HUB Sports Center in Liberty Lake and the 32 women’s teams battling at the Warehouse in Spokane. Play continues through Sunday.

Louie and his Colville squad, one of a few Colville teams in the tournament, took their first step to a championship with a dominant opening-round win.

He said his team is a mix of longtime teammates in their 30s and some younger players in their 20s. Like Colville, many of the teams in the tournament are blood relatives. Louie said the back of their jerseys spell “Family” in the tribe’s native tongue.

There are other v basketball tournaments across the country, but Battle of the Nations is the only one that pits tribe against tribe, which Louie said is the way past Native American generations played.

“You can pick if you wanna play ball, but you don’t get to pick what people you get to play with,” Louie said. “That forces people to come together. It’s all pride. Who’s the baddest?”

While Colville, Spokane, Coeur d’Alene and Kalispel tribes made a relatively short trip to the Spokane area, other teams, like last year’s runner-up Comanche Nation of Oklahoma and Seminole Tribe of Florida, drove or flew great lengths to be there.

Ethan Cypress, 28, of the Seminoles, said he drove with his family from South Florida to Las Vegas, where he spent a couple of days, before continuing the drive to Spokane.

“I just like driving,” Cypress said. “I just like the road.”

The Seminoles trailed by eight points at the half of their first game Friday against the Warm Springs Tribe from Oregon, but used an 11-0 run to open the second half to take a lead before cruising to a 71-53 win.

“We just started off slow,” Cypress said. “We can hustle more than anybody here, I believe, so I think we showed that in the second half. But we gotta do that every game if we want to keep winning like this.”

It’s Cypress’ third appearance in the Battle of the Nations tournament.

“We came all the way from Florida, so we’re not trying to leave here without winning.”

His teammate, Duelle Gore, flew from the Sunshine State like the rest of his other teammates.

Gore played at Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas before playing professionally in countries like Costa Rica and Mexico. Now, he competes in tournaments across the nation and teaches Native youth basketball camps.

He also likes the outdoors no matter where he is. He said he got sunburned fishing in the warm Florida weather a couple of days ago and jumped in the Spokane River for an “ice bath” Friday morning.

While Gore plays in tournaments all over the country, he loves the tribe-versus-tribe pride concept of Battle of the Nations. He said it evens the playing field because teams can’t stack the best players from various tribes on one team.

“This tournament, anybody’s beatable,” Gore said. “That’s the best part of it. It’s whoever catches fire and whoever’s playing the best at that time.”

Comanche coach Jay Liotta called Battle of the Nations the best Native tournament out there because players can represent their tribe together. Almost his entire team is family, so it has great on-court chemistry, he said.

“I think there should be more tournaments like that,” he said. “As far as basketball, this is one-of-a-kind.”

Liotta said he’s coached in tournaments all over the country and Canada with over $15,000 cash prizes.

“The money was nice, but this is even better because you’re representing your family, you’re representing your blood, you’re representing your tribe,” he said.

His team won Battle of the Nations two years ago and finished second last year. He hopes to reclaim the title this year.

The Comanches got off to a hot start Friday with a 25-point win in their first game.

“I always tell the guys, the main thing to play for us is LOP (Lords of the Plains),” said Liotta, whose team’s jerseys say “LOP” on the front.” “We play for the name on the front, not the name on the back.”

One of Liotta’s star players, Danquez Dawsey, just finished his college basketball career at Lamar University in Texas after playing his first three years at the University of Central Oklahoma.

“When we come out here, we just want to be aggressive and then don’t take any team lightly ‘cause out here, you never know really, anybody can win,” said Dawsey, who flew from Houston to play in the tournament.

‘Heck yeah, let’s go’

The women’s bracket has half as many teams but boasts players with similar talent, with some hitting the Warehouse hardwood with college basketball and even WNBA experience.

Justina Brown, who has 30 years of coaching experience, took the helm as tournament director for the first Battle of the Nations women’s bracket.

“I really wanted it to happen,” said Brown, of the Makah Tribe in Neah Bay, Washington. “I wanted it to be for all the Native female athletes that love to play basketball … In Indian Country, there’s a lot of good female basketball players, right? So, that would be the best opportunity, is play with your tribe in a community of people that love to watch basketball.”

Brown, who coaches Kamiak High School girls basketball in Mukilteo, Washington, said she exceeded her goal of 24 teams playing in the tournament. She was satisfied with the first day of the tournament and credited her friends and family for helping her out.

“This is a lot of work,” Brown said.

Like the men, the women’s players came from near and far to compete.

Chanel Ford’s Spokane Tribe squad dropped its first game to the Umatilla Tribe on the Columbia River Plateau.

“It’s really just exciting to be able to put together our team,” said Ford, a 36-year-old who graduated from Wellpinit High School. “A lot of us grew up out on the Spokane Indian Reservation and we’re the host team, essentially, so really neat to get our team together.”

Ford, who lives in Pendleton, Oregon, said her team’s age spans 18 to 38.

“It’s really nice to put together a team of aunties and a team of nieces and some daughters and get out there,” Ford said.

Meanwhile, Lindsey Blackowl’s Oneida Nation, of Wisconsin, picked up a comfortable opening-round win over the Fort Peck Tribe of Montana.

Blackowl, 28, said she took pride in representing her tribe, saying the tribes are battling for bragging rights. She said she’s used to tournaments where tribes unite to form teams, but she’s a fan of the Battle of the Nations format.

“When we heard that was the tournament, we’re like, ‘Heck yeah, let’s go,’ ” she said.

Ford encouraged people to come watch the women play this weekend.

“There’s some amazing, amazing talent on the floor, and really neat just to showcase Native basketball,” she said. “It’s what we do, it’s what we love.

“No place better to do it than in our ancestral homelands, which is Spokane, Washington.”

Top finishing teams earn jackets, sweatshirts, painted buffalo skulls and/or an undisclosed amount of cash.