Green Wave take top seed into Bootheel Conference tourney

Portageville's Connor Sells (11) blocks Malden's Marcus Burton (31) during a Bootheel Conference basketball game last week at Malden.

Standard-Democrat/Dennis Marshall

The Bootheel Conference basketball tournament is here again and the Malden Green Wave are the top seed heading into the event which begins 10:15 a.m. Saturday with the first of three first-round games taking place at Hayti, the site of the competition.

The Green Wave will open up play 6:15 p.m. Tuesday when they play the winner of the 10:15 Saturday contest between No. 4 Portageville and No. 5 South Pemiscot. The other bracket features No. 3 Senath-Hornersville against No. 6 Campbell at 12:45 p.m. Saturday followed by No. 2 Caruthersville and No. 7 Hayti at 2 p.m.

The winners of the two latter games meet in an 8:45 p.m. semifinal.

The final is Friday, Feb. 3 at 8:30 p.m.

“Having the top seed in the tournament puts a huge target on our back,” Malden head coach Mike Kilgore said. “We tied with Caruthersville with one regular loss, but we won the head-to-head match-up. We know (Caruthersville), along with the other conference teams, will be coming for the championship. Senath-Hornersville beat us at the buzzer and the other teams played us close.

“It's anybody's tournament and we have to play up to our potential to win it.”